Did President Trump Escape Air Force One In A Catering Truck?

Summary

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Newscast – BBC News

Episode: Untitled
Date: August 12, 2026
Location: Edinburgh Fringe Festival, National Museum of Scotland

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Episode Overview

This special live episode of Newscast comes straight from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where hosts Adam Fleming, Katrina Perry (visiting from the US), and James Cook discuss the day’s biggest stories with a focus on recent developments in US politics and society. The lively conversation includes extraordinary reporting around Donald Trump’s security, the growing impact of political violence, the transformation of Washington, D.C. under Trump, and an in-depth look at the fast-approaching US midterm elections. Reflecting their characteristic wit and sharp insight, the team unpacks both headline news and its broader implications for journalism, democracy, and cultural change in America.

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Hosts & Contributors

• Adam Fleming (B) – Host, BBC Newscast
• Katrina Perry (C) – BBC US Correspondent, Special Guest
• James Cook (D) – BBC Correspondent, Newscast Contributor

Note: Timestamps follow the MM:SS format for the main discussion and omit all ad breaks and outro.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Live from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival

[01:15 – 04:41]

• The hosts acknowledge the unique live atmosphere, comparing the steep theatre seating to an “IMAX” experience.
• Katrina Perry joins as a guest, fresh from the US, joined by James Cook (“I’ve hurt my eye... I have a series of long-term, very boring injuries..." – D, [02:47]).
• Adam sets an American slant for the episode, playfully calling it “improv” in the spirit of the Fringe.

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2. Trump's “Extreme Plane Swapping” Incident

[04:41 – 12:26]

• Katrina breaks down bombshell reporting from the Washington Post on an elaborate, secretive maneuver to protect President Trump from an Iranian threat at the NATO summit in Turkey, involving multiple plane swaps.

Katrina's account:

“...he got on the old [Air Force One], walked up the steps, waved at everyone...then was basically bundled off it, a catering truck drove up...he was kind of bundled into the catering truck, then across the tarmac to a military plane...” – C, [05:38–06:26]

• Adam and James question the risks to staff and journalists:

“If this plane is not safe to fly with Donald Trump... it’s quite the call to send it anyway, with a load of—never mind journalists—but journalists, yes, and staff and the pilots. It's quite an amazing thing..." – D, [09:01]

• The incident raises issues about transparency, the protective press pool, and how the US prioritizes presidential security above all else, sometimes using press decoys.

“Their entire motivation is about securing the President. And whatever happens to people around them is sort of not ...their objective.” – C, [10:39]

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3. The White House Ballroom—and “Trumpifying” D.C.

[12:41 – 18:12]

• Adam marvels at D.C. as a construction site, especially the enormous new “ballroom” and security complex next to the White House.
• Katrina details the controversial East Wing expansion: it’s not just a ballroom but a military complex, hospital, and drone port, all supposedly “drone-proof and bomb-proof.”

"...there now is a kind of drape hung over the front of the building as well, with the picture of the colonnade pillars...so it's quite hard to make out, but we don't know what's going on behind that curtain either." – C, [13:25]

• Legal challenges have delayed further construction; Trump vows to appeal to the Supreme Court.
• James observes that this is part of a broader trend of Trump “remaking Washington in his image,” referencing controversial city redesigns and massive banners.

“...There isn’t a sort of flashing neon Trump sign on any buildings. But not yet. Not yet...” – C, [17:16]

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4. State Fair, Partisan “Innovation,” and U.S. Heatwave

[18:12 – 22:16]

• Adam describes the state fair for the 250th anniversary in D.C.—where “America Innovates Pavilion” showcased mostly Trump-aligned companies (Truth Social, X by Elon Musk), not Apple or Microsoft.
• Reports on record heat; even outdoor air conditioning at the State Department.
• The segment also previews debate over the need for the new White House complex, referencing the dramatic White House Correspondents' Dinner incident.

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5. White House Correspondents’ Dinner & Political Violence

[22:16 – 27:32]

• Katrina recounts witnessing “what the President calls an assassination attempt” at the annual Correspondents’ Dinner, where gunfire erupted just outside as journalists were seated.

“...agents rushing in screaming, 'Get down, get down.'... I didn't go under the table. I got adjacent...and put my phone up to film what was happening.” – C, [24:25]

• She reflects on the normalization of security threats for US reporters:

“You become kind of accustomed to these scenarios… muscle memory is there now. That's not to say that it wasn't scary and terrifying...” – C, [25:03]

• James ties in the broader normalization of gun violence in America, relating experiences of attending mass shootings as a correspondent.

“...covered 15 mass shootings in three or four years...Just a different level of underlying base threat...” – D, [26:12]

• Katrina captures the paradox:

“Even in that point of grief and devastation... people still say, ‘No, this is our right and I still want to see my fellow Americans carrying weapons.’” – C, [27:35]

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6. American Politics: The Midterms, Party Battles, and Shifting Coalitions

[29:22 – 40:20]

• The conversation pivots to coverage of the US midterm elections: every House seat and a third of the Senate up for grabs.
• Katrina analyzes why, despite terrible personal approval ratings, Trump-backed Republican candidates dominate primaries.
• The Democratic Party’s internal struggle between progressives and moderates:

“...a sort of civil war that's going on in that party...The Democratic socialists...are starting to have electoral success.” – C, [30:01]

• Michigan Senate race spotlights this tension, as Abdul El Sayed narrowly defeats a well-funded incumbent despite polling indicating a landslide.

“...he won by basically less than 1%. It was almost a 50, 50 split...” – C, [33:12]

• Other key races: South Carolina’s Senate special and the Wisconsin gubernatorial, with spotlights on outsiders and party power shifts.
• The panel debates the future trajectory for both major parties, the limits of “left vs. right” categorization, and the rise of anti-establishment sentiment.

“[Voters say] ‘None of those guys up in Washington get what it’s like to be me.’ ...That's a real problem for the Democrats.” – C, [37:34]

• James highlights the unpredictable coalitions forming in the US:

“...A taxi driver in LA told me, ‘If it's not Sanders, I’ll vote for Trump.’ ...It's just an expression of discontent, dissatisfaction with the established political system.” – D, [38:05]

• Texas, often a Democratic “dog that hasn’t barked,” is now polling closer than ever.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “He was kind of bundled into the catering truck, then across the tarmac to a military plane...”
  – Katrina Perry, [05:58]

• “If this plane is not safe to fly with Donald Trump because there's a credible threat of a missile hitting it... it's quite the call to send it anyway with a load of...journalists, yes, and staff and the pilots.”
  – James Cook, [09:01]

• “There now is a kind of drape hung over the front of the building as well...we don’t know what’s going on behind that curtain either.”
  – Katrina Perry, [13:25]

• “You become kind of accustomed to these scenarios... but you're ready for it. Your muscle memory is there now. That's not to say that it wasn't scary and terrifying.”
  – Katrina Perry, [25:03]

• “Even in that point of grief and devastation, like I was at the Las Vegas shooting...people still say, ‘No, this is our right and I still want to see my fellow Americans carrying weapons.’”
  – Katrina Perry, [27:35]

• “If you had been deprived of that sense and you were under the tablecloth in silence...you're kind of on edge, waiting, is someone going to lift up the tablecloth?”
  – Katrina Perry, [25:38]

• “The Democratic Party...moved away from [the left] a bit and then they became the party of, well, we’re not Donald Trump, which worked for Joe Biden...and then they lost it again in 2024.”
  – Katrina Perry, [37:10]

• “A taxi driver in Los Angeles told me...‘If it’s not Sanders, I’ll vote for Trump.’ ...It’s just an expression of discontent, unhappiness, dissatisfaction with the established political system.”
  – James Cook, [38:05]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:15] – Episode opens at the Fringe; introductions and banter.
• [04:41] – The Trump plane-swap story: security, press protocols, and transparency.
• [12:41] – Washington D.C.’s transformation under Trump; discussion of the new White House ballroom/security complex.
• [18:12] – State Fair, partisan “innovation” pavilions, America’s heatwave.
• [22:16] – White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting attempt; personal accounts of covering violence.
• [29:22] – In-depth discussion of the midterms: Democratic and Republican party struggles, notable races.
• [37:34] – What voters want: populist dissatisfaction across party lines.
• [40:20] – Episode closes; thanks to guests and audience.

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Summary Conclusion

Broadcasting from Edinburgh, this Newscast episode delivers a revealing, often witty and at times sobering look at American politics and society in 2026. The hosts’ direct experience and keen analysis bring listeners inside the latest Trump security drama, the ongoing transformation of the US capital, rising political violence, and the complex, shifting currents ahead of America’s midterm elections. The discussion teems with candid, sometimes darkly comic anecdotes, and a thoughtful recognition that the lines between transparency, security, party identity, and public trust are as blurred and crucial as ever.

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Hello from the second episode of Newscast coming to you from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026. Which means we've got some newscasters in the house in the theater with us. Hello. Also, I should say this theatre we're doing in at the National Museum of Scotland has got quite steep seating, so it's a little bit like being in the imax. So it's like you can't get a ticket for the Odyssey, but you can get a ticket for Newscast at the Edinburgh Festival. Right, let's make an episode of Newscast. And to keep me company on the stage, please welcome, all the way from the US of A, Katrina Perry. Hello.

[C]

Hello.

[B]

Should we tell the newscasters about the little date that we had last night? It wasn't really a date.

[C]

Sure.

[B]

We went to see a very well known comedian who was sort of piloting his new show. It was a work in progress.

[C]

Frank Skinner.

[B]

Oh, I wasn't gonna name Jerome. I wasn't gonna name Jerome. So we're not here to promote other people's shows.

[C]

Okay, take two, do that again.

[B]

And also I was gonna notice all the way through. We're live on stage now. It's like no do overs. Also, please welcome to Phil the third seat. He's the person who sits in my seat when I'm on an inevitable skiing holiday when massive breaking news happens. It's James Cook. Hello, James.

[D]

Oh,

[B]

How are you doing?

[D]

I've hurt my eye.

[B]

How?

[D]

I don't know. I like. I have a series of Long term series of very boring injuries to my eye involving burning embers from Hawaiian wildfires and tent poles. And now it's sore again.

[B]

And so is that why you've got.

[D]

Apart from that? Great, thanks for asking.

[B]

Is that why you've got your Joe Biden style aviators?

[D]

Just explaining this in case I need to put these on.

[B]

What, you're going to put them on during this?

[D]

I might have to.

[B]

We're in a darkened theater.

[D]

No, there's lights.

[C]

There are very bright lights.

[D]

No, maybe not.

[C]

Maybe not so cool.

[D]

Apart from that, I'm. Well, Adam, thank you.

[B]

And thank you very much for joining us. And thanks for being here for the next few days, which I hope you knew was going to be happening.

[D]

What?

[B]

Yeah, you're booked. Consider yourself booked. Right, so in this episode of Newscast, we'll talk about some of the stories that are in the news today. But we're going to, as a sort of thank you to Katrina for coming all this way and actually interrupting her holiday to come here, we're going to do a bit of an American slant as well so that you really get. We get to exploit your brain.

[C]

Okay. I was not warned about that. But anyway, we'll do that.

[B]

Great, great. It's kind of like improv. There's a lot of improv shows at the Fringe. So let's get going with this episode of Newscast, Newscast, Newscast.

[C]

From the BBC, humanity's next great voyage begins.

[B]

You know, I like my buses. I'll come on to them. I see that.

[D]

He was, I guess, the mayor of a town. Ooh la lor. Thinking about it like a panto helped.

[B]

Do we play music now or what do we do?

[C]

And what will you do? Stare at a wall.

[B]

Hello, it's Adam on the newscast stage in Edinburgh.

[C]

It's Katrina on the newscast stage in Edinburgh.

[D]

And it's James, also here in Edinburgh.

[B]

And we're joined by some very enthusiastic newscasters who come to see us.

[D]

Hello.

[B]

Also, when they played the trademark opening music, did you feel the whole theater rumble there for that first one? It was like seeing the Odyssey. Like we're. The whole cinema rumbles for the very loud scary bits.

[C]

I thought it was the Indiana Jones bit.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

The guy who follows us after this show on stage with the rock rumbling. Yeah, you don't get a lot of time to get off the stage in these parts of the world because someone else comes on with an even more exciting show than yours. Right, Katrina. My eye was caught by this quite amazing bit of reporting in the American media about Donald Trump's extreme plane swapping.

[C]

Yeah, this is an extraordinary story. It was an exclusive by the Washington Post, but it's since been stood up by many other outlets as well. Well, basically, when President Trump was at the NATO summit in Turkey a few weeks ago, he had flown there on the new jet given to him by the Qatari government. It was the first foreign trip. Much kind of razzmatazz about it, and the reclining leather seats and all of this. Anyway, get to Ankara and suddenly there's an issue and he can't fly home in the plane. So every time the President goes somewhere, they actually bring a backup plane as well. So in this case, it's what's called a legacy Air Force One, an old one, basically. So he couldn't fly back on the new one, so he got on the old one, walked up the steps, waved at everyone, was on the plane. And we were told at the time that there was potentially a threat to his life from the Iranians. So the plane was going to go to base here in the UK and they would change planes and fly back to Washington from there. Now, we found through this reporting today that the President walked up the steps, got on the legacy Air Force One, and then was basically bundled off it, a catering truck drove up to one of the other exits, you know, where they bring like. Like a commercial flight. They bring in the food trolleys and whatever, and he was kind of bundled into the catering truck, then across the tarmac to a military plane, out of the catering truck into this military plane. Meanwhile, the entire White House press pool were still on the legacy Air Force One, unaware which any bad guys would

[B]

think Donald Trump was on.

[C]

Yeah, because he walked up and waved and, you know, he actually, he was asked about this threat by the reporters there, and he sort of said, oh, you know, we're on a safe plane. And words to the effect of if I go, we all go, kind of thing, which, you know, is one of the risks.

[D]

Comforting, though.

[C]

Yeah. You know, it's a dangerous game. And so the journalist's role on there, as were many White House staffers on this plane that then took off from Ankara and flew to the base here in the uk. And meanwhile, this military jet was also flying and actually managed to get here before the legacy Air Force One. Now, we don't know, it's unclear. There's no reporting yet on, you know, was he put back on the legacy Air Force One or kind of how all that happened, because he was supposed to get off the plane and change planes anyway in England. So but it's raised all kinds of issues now because the main reason for the press pool traveling with the President is to be able to report on whatever happens to him while he's traveling. It's not for a nice jolly on reclining leather seats and staying in nice hotels with the President.

[B]

Yeah, I've noticed there's a big transparency thing around the President's movements that we don't have with the Prime Minister in the UK for example. It's just sort of part of the culture that. That the people and reporters know where he is.

[C]

Yeah. And it's supposed to be if a president has a heart attack or, you know, an assassination or whatever, obviously touchwood, none of this happens, that the reporters are there to report on it. And if you look back at what happened on 911 and President Bush, you know, had to take off in a hurry and was flying around and coming up and down at different bases for many hours, a tiny fraction of the press pool, five people were picked to travel with President Bush. And it's kind of referred to as the nuclear bunker pack. So it's a really tiny, tiny version of all of the journalists so that you can fly around, you can. You know, history happens in real time and journalists have to be there to document what is happening.

[D]

They call it the protective pool, don't they, in US media speak terms. And the 911 one is there's an amazing story online about that whole day, about the story of Air Force One that day, but they landed, I forget where, in the middle of nowhere somewhere on that day.

[B]

In Nebraska.

[D]

Yeah, it was in Nebraska. Adam, thank you. I knew it was in the planes somewhere. And they chucked off all the other journalists apart from this nuclear bunker pool. And there's apparently a massive fight because of course they're losing their chance to witness history. And the biggest story that they probably, almost certainly ever cover in their lifetime. But also they thought they had a right to be there for their outlets. And the chief of staff to the President was saying, no, you are off. But even then, even on that day, they retained a small number of people to travel with the President. So that's one question is from a journalistic perspective, witnessing history, following the President. But for me, the more fundamental question you both alluded to, which is, well, if this plane is not safe to fly with Donald Trump because there's a credible threat of a missile hitting it, I mean, it's quite the call to send it anyway with a load of nevermind journalists, but journalists, yes, and staff and the pilots. It's quite an amazing, amazing thing to suggest without their knowledge.

[B]

But then equally going very public about a very scary sounding threat to the President in real time would be bad too, presumably.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, they would argue, and we haven't had official White House comment on this, but I can kind of guess that they would argue that the safety and security of the President of the United States is paramount to anything. And if they decide that what they have to do is set that plane a flight anyway, that they would calculate, you know, the people who make these sorts of safety decisions, that this is a sort of, you know, collateral damage

[D]

that we prepare to absorb quite the bargain.

[C]

I mean, these are the calls that they make all of the time. You know, the attempts on President Trump's life in the past. Their entire motivation is about securing the President. And whatever happens to people around them is sort of not. I mean, it sounds terribly cold, but it's not their objective. Their objective is to secure the President of the United States.

[B]

And do we know anything about this potential threat?

[C]

No. And that's the other point, right? It's like we're told this was a very serious, credible threat from the Iranians on the life and the plane. And I mean, if you imagine if the threat was to sort of send a missile into the sky while Air Force One is flying somewhere, you know, over a city, over what? Who knows? I mean, like, your brain just goes to all kinds of places thinking about that, and we haven't. And maybe we'll hear from the White House later. It's obviously still quite early morning on the East Coast US as we're recording now. But, I mean, there will need to be more information as to just what was this threat, how credible was it, and why is there nothing more about it?

[B]

We're recording at 3pm UK times. So presumably this story is just because it's got a lot of ingredients that the American press pack will be leaping onto.

[C]

Absolutely right.

[B]

Sorry, James. No, you're going to reminisce about being on Air Force One.

[D]

No, no, no, no, I wasn't. I wasn't. I've not been on Air Force One. I've been White House traveling press pool once to go to a NATO summit into Chequers, but not on Air Force One. No, All I was going to say is the temptation in this story as a journalist is to focus on that. Cause it is an unbelievable image to think that the President of the United States is in that catering truck being smuggled away. But actually, the more you think about it, the more questions that we've all been asking here that come up. Actually, it's far more serious. And I think there'll be a lot of fallout from this, won't there?

[B]

I think also talking about him being bundled into the truck, it just reminds me of the fact that Taylor Swift arrives at her gigs in like a cleaning cart, doesn't she? So that people can't see her. So that's an idea for tomorrow's newscast. Live from there in real fast. Imagine me being wheeled on in a bin.

[D]

You won't have to imagine if you

[B]

come back tomorrow, then Katrina carrying on in the Trump theme. So when I was in Washington at the start of July on holiday, I was amazed at what a building site is. So I knew there was lots of building work going on, but actually, when you then see it with your own eyes, you're like, oh, wow, this actually quite beautiful city is a giant building site. And the biggest building site of them all is right next to the White House. And it's the new ballroom in the east wing. So, like, not the west wing that we know from tv, but the other side of the building. And there's. That's been controversial since the start, but it seems like it's become even more controversial now.

[C]

Yeah. And it's not just the big sort of hole in the ground where this, you know, we call it a ballroom. But actually it's much more than that. There's going to be a hospital, a whole kind of military complex there, a drone port, as the president has described it, that will protect not only the White House, but the whole of Washington, D.C. apparently. And it's all the building itself will be drone proof and bomb proof. He's given men tours of the site, actually, because, you know, he cares very deeply about property development and so on, as we know. But it also is involving now part of the rest of the building. You probably wouldn't have seen this from the angle that you were at, Adam, but there now is a kind of drape hung over the front of the building as well, with the picture of the colonnade pillars, kind of the main entrance of the White House. So it's quite hard to make out, but we don't know what's going on behind that curtain either. So I think there's more sort of serious works at play there. But there have been a lot of people objecting to this, as you can imagine. Not as many as probably, I think, would object to it if it happened in this part of the world.

[B]

That's our planning system for You? Yeah.

[C]

I mean, actually, if you're trying to put an extra extension on your house, it would be more difficult than what the President's had to deal with. But nevertheless, there have been objections. The most recent sort of thing in the legal process is that an appeals court has upheld a decision from a lower planning commission. Basically, a case taken by a lady who says that she walks through the park in front of the East Wing and, you know, this new building is edifice was going to block her view or an impact her. Her enjoyment of that. So this is the case that's been taken. The courts have said, actually Congress are the ones that need to give the planning permission essentially for this, and they haven't done that. So has put a halt on the development. The President said he's going to appeal this to the Supreme Court.

[B]

Say that was on Friday, the latest development.

[C]

So. And he's going to appeal it to the Supreme Court. So that's going to have to be the next term, which will be in the autumn. But potentially what the Supreme Court can do is say that this lady does not have the jurisdiction to take the course, the legal action that she's taking, which then would basically be a workaround on it. They're not going to rule on the legality of the development or send it back to Congress.

[D]

It's interesting, isn't it, that this ballroom has become so closely associated with Donald Trump, because it's his idea. But it's but one element of the attempt, some would say, to remake Washington or even remake the United States in his image, or at least with his image as a central feature of the country, tying him as the leader of the nation, to the concept of the nation itself, which we saw so much at the 250th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the United States of America as well. What is it like walking around Washington at the moment with. I mean, is he a dominant figure in terms of the imagery as well, is what I wonder, because I've not been for a while.

[C]

Well, you have the building site at the White House. You also have the reflecting pool along the Mall. And that's a whole other controversy, let's say. Then you have the plans to build the l' Arc de Trompe, the Trump Arch, which is just beyond the Lincoln Memorial. If people have been to dc, just it's actually technically in Virginia, but still what he would call Washington dc. And then you have a lot of posters hanging off all the government department buildings that are either images of him or some of the slogans you know, the Department of Health now has Make America Healthy Again sort of big. These are huge buildings and they have big banners hanging off them. So, you know, there isn't a sort of flashing neon Trump sign on top of any buildings. But not yet. Not yet. Yeah. But definitely his fingerprints are all over the city. But I mean, in a way there's nothing stopping him doing that. You know, we just haven't seen it with recent presidents. But if you go way back in history, like this is what people did. They built big buildings or, you know, civic legacy projects. It's just that we're not used to seeing it kind of in modern times or on this scale either.

[B]

A kind of version of it that I saw when I was there on my trip was I went to the State fair on the National Mall, which was the big kind of showcase for all the states for the Decenter Center Tenniel, whatever the 250th was technically called. Hopefully my old Latin teacher's not here to call me out on that.

[A]

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[C]

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[B]

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[C]

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[B]

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[A]

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[B]

And the first thing that you saw when you went in there was the America Innovates Pavilion. I thought, oh, this would be all America's hottest companies and their new inventions. And you walked in to this tent, which was not very full. And one of the first companies you saw as an example of true American innovation and the white heat of technology in 2026 was Truth Social. Yeah. And there's basically just a desk of people who worked at Truth Social. And then you turned around and there was X elon Musk's company. So you're like, all right, this is very political, this tent. There was no kind of Apple, no Microsoft. It was a very narrow sliver of American innovation. So I thought that was interesting. And the other thing about D.C. that really amazed me is it was so, so, so, so hot that day. And they had to cancel quite a lot of the events around the Fourth of July because it was too hot, which kind of puts our heat wave in perspective. But I went for very early sightseeing at like 6 o' clock in the morning because that's what everyone advised me to do. And I walked past the State Department, which is in a neighborhood called Foggy Bottom. And as you walked past the entrance of the State Department, they had outdoor air conditioning. So you were walking along the sidewalk and you're like, oh, it's really hot, it's really hot. Then you got past to the entrance of the State Department and it was lovely and cool outside. So that's American innovation. Maybe we'll be doing that in future years if our heat waves get worse. Katrina just thinking about the ballroom, one of the arguments that Donald Trump makes about why he needs to build this big complex is for the increased threat of threats to his security and future presidents. And one of the examples he gives is the White House Correspondents Dinner where there was. Are we calling it an assassination attempt,

[C]

that event at the moment? Yeah. I mean, you know, the individual has been in court with a few charges, and more serious charges will be brought against him as what we're hearing from the legal authorities at the moment. But, I mean, that's what the President calls it. That's what, you know, many law enforcement personnel call it, because it was an individual who had traveled across the country with firearms, checked into the hotel in advance, and had rushed through the security cordon and fired his weapon adjacent to where the President was speaking.

[B]

And you were actually there, you were reminding me last night.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, I was there because obviously I report on the White House. I'm a member of the White House Correspondence association, so myself and many other BBC colleagues were there as we go every year. And, you know, it's a nice celebration of journalism. We all get to pat ourselves on the back for a job well done or otherwise, depending on your point of view. And. Yeah, so we had just sat down in the ballroom and I had eaten myself starter because I was starving. And it was one of these things where the starters are on the tables, but a lot of people didn't. But myself and Tom Bateman, actually, who I was sitting beside, we started eating ours and a few others. Luckily we did because that was the end of the food for the night. It turned into a very long night after that.

[B]

But, yeah, where was the catering truck then?

[C]

Where was the catering truck? Yeah, yeah. I mean, there were funny images caught on the pool cameras. The total aside of people going back to eat their food after it was all over, I mean, those tickets aren't cheap, taking the bottles of wine off the table that you've already paid for. But, yeah, it was just literally at the beginning of the thing when we heard these shots, turned out to be shots at the time, we were kind of saying to ourselves, was that gunfire? Sort of feels like it was gunfire. Definitely not in the room. You could hear that it was muffled. And then suddenly, just a giant kerfuffle of agents rushing in screaming, get down. Get down. You could hear glasses and crockery being knocked over and tables and chairs being knocked over as people scrambled to get under the table. I didn't go under the table. I got adjacent to the table and put my phone up to film what was going on.

[B]

We have a table here. If you wanted to reenactments. I don't know how that looks.

[D]

I must say that I really do like the understated Irish way in which you have described this incredibly frightening and dramatic moment in history as a kerfuffle.

[C]

Maybe I'm old and cynical in my later years here, but it feels different

[B]

now in retrospect, doesn't it, than it did at the exact moment?

[C]

I suppose, you know, I think, honestly, because you know what we all do, you're in scenarios that aren't normal and you're trained for them like we all do hostile environment training. And you become kind of accustomed to these scenarios. And unfortunately, reporting on Donald Trump now in recent years, these are not isolated incidents, you know, so you kind of do almost not become accustomed to it. That sounds terrible, but you're ready for it. Like your muscle memory is there now. That's not to say that it wasn't scary and terrifying. And I know a lot of people have been quite traumatized by what happened. But I think because I didn't go under the table, so I could see what was happening, so I knew that there weren't gunmen in the room. Whereas I think if you had been deprived of that sense and you were under the tablecloth in silence, you know, you're kind of on edge, waiting, is someone going to lift up the tablecloth? And I could see everyone being removed and that there were agents there securing this situation.

[D]

I think it's, like, interesting that you say that you're sort of ready for it. You sort of almost expect it. Because my experience of living in the States was that it's just a very, very different level of underlying base threat and concern about violence, about specifically gun violence. Now, I have a distorted, you know, perspective on that because I think. I think I covered 15 mass shootings in getting on for three or four years, which is pretty sobering and horrendous, obviously. But I mean, at one point we, we left the office in Los Angeles to go to the shootings in San Bernardino in California, where a husband and wife Islamic extremists had carried out what was later described as a terrorist attack, although it wasn't immediately clear what was going on. And we took body armor with us and we said, we are driving through California in the United States of America, to a news story carrying the body armor that we really, really have in case we need to go into Mexico, to some of the places in Mexico, or we're deployed to the Middle East. And I think just to bring this round in a circle, you're talking about specific political violence, but there's this underlying layer of violence in the United States supported by the statistics that it is markedly different from other Western societies that you sort of become accustomed to in a chilling way.

[C]

You do, and I've reported on those mass shootings as well. And you see people at the rawest stage of their grief and yet they will still say to you, which I've always found astonishing, but, no, we should have the right to bear arms and we should have the right to purchase, you know, assault grade weaponry and so on. And I think particularly from us, and this is where, you know, being foreign correspondents actually gives you a sort of, a bit of an edge in a way over Americans who've grown up in this, in that we come from countries where that's not normal like that. Everyone's going around carrying weapons like that. And it's always astonishing to me that even in that point of grief and devastation, like I was at the Las Vegas shooting where there were hundreds of people killed, the Pulse nightclub shooting as well, and people still say, no, this is our right and I still want to see my fellow Americans carrying weapons.

[D]

Yeah, I remember that at Las Vegas as well, like really vividly talking to somebody who'd lost her uncle, saying, oh, he would be outraged if we were to give up our guns. I mean, it's just a different place. Sorry, Adam, I've taken this down a different. A different track.

[B]

No, it was very interesting. I also just got a push alert from the BBC News website saying that the Met Office is saying that this summer is on course to be the hottest ever in the uk, but which

[D]

you mean in England?

[B]

Well, yes, yes, Mark. It's regional and national differences in the weather, I have to say. And I'm actually very pleased that I'm going to be missing the hottest bit of the heat wave in London this week, because it's not going to be a heat wave here. Right. Katrina, there's an ongoing joke on newscast about how the midterms are just around the corner. It's a really, really big corner. We've been going around for several months now. Where?

[C]

Spaghetti Junction.

[B]

Yeah, let's just keep it going, though. So where. Where should we focus our attention on for our Turning the Corner midterms coverage?

[C]

Yeah, there's a couple of things that have been interesting and also just before

[B]

we dive into it, we should just say the midterms is the whole of the House of Representatives, the lower house is up for election and a third of the Senate.

[C]

Exactly.

[B]

Because I Sometimes realize I'm guilty of saying the midterms and like the primaries and the caucuses and assuming everyone's studied American politics.

[C]

So I mean, in why it's important is, you know, the Republicans control both houses at the moment. The Democrats want to take back control of the houses, which would give them some power, not complete power because obviously there's still a Republican in the White House. But it's the couple of interesting trends that we've seen is Donald Trump is doing very bad in the sort of approval polls personally, which is not that unusual for a president at this point of their term. But they're very, very low. However, all of the candidates that he's backing in the primary season, and the primary is also an interesting thing because it's when you're facing off against someone from your own party to pick the candidate who will then go forward and face a Democrat. And in some states it's kind of whoever wins the primary is going to win because one or other party just isn't big in that state. So that's why we focus so much on the primaries. But Donald Trump, bad personal approval rating. But the candidates that he's backing, by and large are the ones that are coming through the Republican side, which is really interesting in terms of where he is still as the leader of his party, even if some people are starting to criticize some of his policies. And then on the Democratic side of things, another really interesting trend line is kind of the civil war that's going on in that party that has been for some time, but now they're starting to sort of have electoral success in terms of the, what are called the Democratic socialists or you know, would be called far left leaning liberals by certain people.

[D]

Although by the measure of this country, they're probably a lot of them not that far left at all.

[C]

No, no. I mean there's.

[B]

Although some of them are way more left than our left.

[D]

Yeah, it's a mixture, isn't it? It's fair. It's a real mixture.

[C]

But they're up for things like universal healthcare, like which is the nhs, you know, taking big money out of politics, which is not something either that we have on our side of the pond. So yeah, that's like a really good point to make.

[B]

And on the Democrat side, tell me about why Michigan was so interesting last week and the fact that this guy Abdul El Sayed won the Democratic nomination for the Senate race in Michigan.

[C]

Yeah. So this caused a lot of waves. So he's a 41 year old born in Michigan to Egyptian immigrant parents. He's an epidemiologist buff, good looking guy. Was captain of the high school football team, high school wrestling team, high school lacrosse team. Actually studied for a time in the University of Oxford as part of his doctoral studies and was on the lacrosse team there as well. So, you know, if you've got a list of everything that they like in American politicians, he kind of ticks off a load of those boxes. Apart from if you're President Trump, the fact that his name is the kind of name that President Trump doesn't often like. But you know, he's doing so, so, so well in Michigan that the polls had him winning the primary against a sitting congresswoman, really by a huge margin. But that didn't happen. So there's a few questions about how well the Democrats are polling their own supporters. And he basically. He still won.

[B]

Well, they might be misunderstanding their own voters.

[C]

Yeah, misunderstood. So he won by basically less than 1%. It was almost a 50, 50 split by somebody who had the backing of all of the Washington sort of Democratic leadership, who was the incumbent, who had a track record versus this new guy.

[D]

And she spent vastly more money.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, huge money, including 30 million from AIPAC, which are the sort of pro Israel lobby. So there's just an awful lot of soul searching going on now within the Democratic Party in terms of like, what do their voters want? You know, he is for universal health care, as I said, taking big money out of politics, putting money back in your pockets, which is kind of what every politician says, don't they? But, you know, it's whether the Democrats should be going more to what they would see as a left agenda versus the sort of moderate position that the leadership, the traditional position is.

[B]

And is there any other races kind of imminent that we should look at that will be quite revealing.

[C]

So there's actually a few primaries going on today, tonight, as it will be here. One is in South Carolina, which is the sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham. This is on the Republican side of things who President Trump has endorsed Darlene Graham, who's a newcomer to politics. She's been basically, she's taken over her brother's seat until the election, but that's a really crowded primary. So that's going to be really interesting on the Republicans side of things. And then we have Wisconsin tonight as well. There is a gubernatorial race there, which again, there's a Democratic socialist running for governor against a traditional. Sorry, Democratic socialist running for governor against a traditional Democrat. But this time she has not been backed by Bernie Sanders and AOC and all of the kind of very high profile Doran Mamdani, all of the very high profile socialists. So it's, you know, there's a lot to watch.

[D]

So I'd be interested to hear your take on this because it strikes me that what's going on here is a battle for what the Democratic Party is, what it's for, what it wants to be, what it wants the nation to look like. But also at the same time, probably, although we're maybe not hearing about it yet quite so much. Correct me if I'm wrong, a similar battle, perhaps quietly in the Republican Party. Is the Republican Party now and for the foreseeable future, the MAGA Party, the Make America Great Again party after Trump? Will it retain his stamp? Will it continue in his vein? Because I suppose if you're a Democrat and you're, and you think the party should move to the left and lots of people are saying, no, no, no, you don't win general elections that way. You need to get into the center ground. You need to be moderate. They might say, well, look at that guy in the White House. I mean, it's worked for them moving to a different political position further out and embracing and encouraging their core support. You can have a debate all day long about the syphology of that and whether actually the victories are more narrow than they seem, particularly the first one. But is it true that there is now a real serious battle of ideas within the Democratic Party as to what they should be and what America should be and to what extent, if that's true, is that replicated on the Republican side? That's what I wonder.

[C]

Yeah, I think there is, in short, I think that every party who, you know, they go through cycles like this. I mean, I remember, I'm sure you do as well. After the 20, 2016 election when Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders had had this large cohort, this big following, and then there was a whole soul searching thing of, well, should we actually have gone with The Bernie Sanders,

[D]

13 million votes, I think in the primaries for Sanders.

[C]

Yeah, massive, massive, you know, and he didn't actually endorse Hillary Clinton until a few weeks before the actual general election, you know, and there was all the soul searching in the Democrats then and they kind of moved away from it a bit and then they became the party of, well, we're not. Donald Trump, which worked for Joe Biden, worked for the midterm elections during Biden's administration and then they lost it again in 2024. So they're really trying to kind of bring these factions of their party together. And, you know, so many voters are telling pollsters that they view now Republicans and Democrats as all the same. Nobody understands me. None of those guys up in Washington get what it's like to be me. And that's a real problem for the Democrats. You know, they can have all these lofty ideas, but if people think you don't actually understand the daily grind, you don't understand the struggle of working 40 hours a week and still not being able to put good food on your table.

[D]

And just really quickly, because, I mean, I introduced this concept almost of putting it up as left and right, I mean, without using those words, but it was the sort of. The implication. But I suppose that that's not necessarily a very useful way to view politics as we've talked about on newscasts and newscasters. You will all have heard us talk about that. You'll have talked about it yourself, I'm sure. But the example I give, and I have probably talked about this on newscasts before, is in the 2016 campaign, I vividly remember talking to a taxi driver in Los Angeles who said to me, I said, who are you for? He said, oh, Sanders. I love Sanders. Fresh change, different alternative. Don't trust any of those politicians. I said, listen, my friend, Sanders ain't gonna be your candidate. It's gonna be Hillary Clinton. What you going to do now, then? Will you vote for her? Oh, no, I'll vote for Trump. And I thought, oh, well, that seems. And then it's not, because it's just. It's the same thing in a different way. It's an expression of discontent, unhappiness, dissatisfaction with the established political system. And so they argue that's what we're gonna see playing out in the midterms, as to where you land on that and who. Who can channel that energy most effectively.

[C]

And there's a really interesting race happening in Texas for the Senate there between James Tallarico, who's a new up and coming, not fully Democratic socialist, but kind of slightly more into the. He used to be a seminarian. He's got a lot of interesting things going for him. And he's running against the attorney general in the state, Ken Paxton, who Trump endorsed over the sitting senator there, which caused all kinds of ructions. But the polling now in Texas, of all places, has the Democrats slightly ahead. And there's a lot of questions being asked to that exact point. Is it because people just want someone to listen to them, Somebody who gets the sort of economic problems. I mean, the cost of living crisis is obviously a big deal here. It's a huge deal in the US as well. Groceries are extraordinarily expensive in a place that can kind of produce everything at once on its own land.

[D]

Although I remember chasing Beto o' Rourke around Texas when he was the James Talarico of his day. And the Democrats winning. Texas has been so often the dog that hasn't barked, but then eventually the dog will bark. The dog eventually will bark. Or maybe it won't, but it might bark. It could bark.

[B]

And on that decisive note, I will say thank you so much, Katrina, for breaking into your holiday to come and spend two days on stage with Newscast. Thank you very much, James, thank you for just the start of your shift on the newscast stage here at the Edinburgh Festival.

[D]

Thank you very much.

[B]

And also thank you to the newscasters who came to see us here in Edinburgh. Thank you very much. And thank you to you, too for listening to this episode of Newscast From Edinburgh. Hope you enjoyed it. We'll be back with another one very soon.

[C]

Bye bye.

[B]

Newscast.

[C]

Newscast from the BBC.

[B]

Well, thank you for making it to

[C]

the end of another Newscast.

[B]

You clearly ooze stamina. Can I gently encourage you to subscribe

[D]

to us on BBC Sounds?

[A]

And then without having to do anything

[C]

else, our meandering chat will miraculously make its way to your phone.