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- [00:00]
Gary O'Donoghue
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk. If you are currently overpaying on software to run your business, remember this number. 10,000. That's the number of new businesses that join Odoo per month. Join odoo today@odoo.com.
- [00:19]
McDonald's Advertiser
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James
Refreshers contain caffeine. Hello, Alex.
- [00:54]
Alex Forsyth
Hello, James.
- [00:55]
James
Bibles, watches, trainers, fragrances, guitars.
- [01:01]
Chris Mason
Hang on.
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Alex Forsyth
I wonder where you're going with this.
- [01:03]
James
What do these have in common? They weren't purchases by The S&P's former chief executive Peter Murrell. What do they have in common?
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Alex Forsyth
It sounds a little bit like that game you play at Christmas when you list what you bought in the shops. I mean, what do they have in cobbin, James? Stuff you can buy second hand online? I don't know.
- [01:18]
James
They are stuff you can buy that is Trump themed.
- [01:22]
Gary O'Donoghue
Ah.
- [01:22]
James
They are all examples of Trump themed items that help The President amass 4.7 million million last year, in addition to the more than $1 billion he made from business dealings in cryptocurrency. And we're going to be discussing what we learned from the President's report, the report on the President's financial dealings on this episode of. Newscast, newscast, newscast.
- [01:45]
Alex Forsyth
From the BBC.
- [01:46]
Keir Starmer
I will resign as leader of the Labour Party.
- [01:49]
Alex Forsyth
And what will you do?
- [01:50]
Gary O'Donoghue
Stare at a wall? Humanity's next great voyage begins.
- [01:53]
Alex Forsyth
You know, I like my buses now.
- [01:55]
Chris Mason
Come on to them.
- [01:55]
Gary O'Donoghue
It's supposed to be me as a doctor.
- [01:57]
Alex Forsyth
Ooh la la.
- [01:58]
Kemi Badenoch
Thinking about it like a panto helped.
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Gary O'Donoghue
Do we play music now or what do we do?
- [02:02]
James
Hello, it's James in the newscast studio.
- [02:05]
Alex Forsyth
And it is Alex in the Westminster studio. And we are joined by Gary o', Donoghue, chief North America correspondent. Hey, Gary.
- [02:12]
Gary O'Donoghue
Hello to you two of my favorite people, obviously.
- [02:15]
Alex Forsyth
Ah, the feeling is mutual, of course. So, Gary, we're going to talk in a minute about the President's week in the Supreme Court because there's been a fair bit going on. But first, before we get to that, overnight we've had the President's mandatory financial report for 2025. So this is something that every President has to publish with their kind of financial dealings. In it, and this one about President Trump showed that he made more than $1 billion last year from business dealings in cryptocurrency. Can you just talk us through it? What was in it, what it said, what the headlines were?
- [02:49]
Gary O'Donoghue
Yeah, it's kind of mind boggling it. In fact, overall, he made over $2 billion while being president last year. But 1.4 billion of that came from various aspects of his ventures into cryptocurrencies. Now, a few years ago, Donald Trump dismissed cryptocurrency as a place for scammers, a place for illegal activity, a place for drug dealers. But he's utterly embraced it since just before the last election. And essentially what's happened here is he set up, and his family set up an organization called World Liberty Financial that itself issues cryptocurrency tokens. There were various other things that they did, including launching a meme coin, the Trump Meme Coin. It's a sort of collectible Trump coin, the vast profits from which go to Donald Trump and his family, but which has now plummeted more than 90% since its high point. So it's now under $2. At one point it was $75. And the people who have shouldered that, that loss are retailers, retail investors, or retail buyers, if you like. So he's made about 600 million from the meme coin. He's made hundreds of millions more from the sale of that stake in World Liberty Financial. And he's made a, a bunch of money on the cryptocurrency issued by World Liberty Financial. So he's doing pretty well. I mean, these are revenue figures, so we don't necessarily know what the profits are, but you can, I think, probably assume that the profits are pretty hefty. And of course, now this is his. Looks like his biggest earner by some way, not just property and running hotels, presumably.
- [04:33]
James
I mean, obviously this raises, at the very least, questions about ethics, questions about his relationship with some nations, including the United Arab Emirates, which is involved in some of these ventures. Questions about who he has doing certain jobs, given that Steve Witkoff, his key envoy, special envoy, is involved in some of these business ventures as well. Gary, what, what are, what is, what is the debate there in Washington about the ethics of this? And just how unusual is this? I mean, we've just never seen anything like this, have we?
- [05:08]
Gary O'Donoghue
No, we haven't. And I mean, for example, people have connected. There was also a pardon issued to a cryptocurrency, a guy who's incredibly rich, one of the richest from cryptocurrency in the autumn, which the Trump Organization has some involvement in. There have been other decisions, liberalization of the cryptocurrency market. So he is a player and also a sort of rule maker in this space. And of course, people say, well, that's a conflict of interest. The president in the past said the President can't be subject to rules of conflict of interest. Indeed, the White House spokeswoman, Anna Kelly has issued a statement recently saying, you know, just denying there's any, you know, conflict of interest whatsoever. So, you know, they just, they just say no. Can I just tell you one tiny anecdote? I remember after the 2016 election, sitting in a hotel room in New York writing a piece for, for the BBC about how, you know, there was gonna be all sorts of questions about Donald Trump owning the Trump Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, just by the White House, the old post office, and also being its landlord. Outrageous. You know, he was the landlord and the leaseholder at the same time. How could that possibly be allowed? I feel that that feels quite quaint compared to now.
- [06:28]
Alex Forsyth
Yeah, it's kind of extraordinary. And you mentioned that the White House has kind of put out a statement about it. I mean, I'll read what they said in full. So it was from the deputy press secretary, Anna, who said in this statement, the President had proudly made the US the crypto capital of the world. Neither the President nor his family has ever engaged or will ever engage in conflicts of interest. And it goes on to say all actions by President Trump and his administration are taken in the best interest of the American people. And any so called reporters pushing otherwise are recycling the same tired false narrative that Democrats and the legacy media have been pushing for a decade. I mean, Gary, there's the cryptocurrency issue and the questions that you've pointed to that are being debated in Washington. But then there's also other income from real estate and Trump themed items. You've got branded watches and branded bibles and trainers and fragrances and goodness knows whatever else. I mean, it just sort of, it seems like there's now a president to that anecdote you were mentioning about what did seem quaint compared to what this has revealed about the President's finances. Who's like openly embracing that kind of money making business side of himself for good or for ill, in the way that people perceive that, in a way that you just haven't seen from previous presidents.
- [07:43]
Gary O'Donoghue
No, I mean, it makes me think that, you know, whatever it was 50, 60 years ago, you know, Jimmy Carter said he was going to put his peanut farm into a trust, so there couldn't be any kind of question about his financial dealings. And you kind of think, yes, things have definitely changed. And I think the reason for that is because, and this is, you know, this will sound slightly banal, I guess, but, and there's a, Political scientists have a word for it and I can't for the life of me remember it is. But the, the sort of, the, the point of, of what's normal has shifted, you know, so the, the, the politics have shifted in such a way, they have pushed the boundaries in such a way that this stuff kind of flows over a little bit. Now, not for everyone, of course, and not for Democrats and for some more independent minded voters here, but there isn't the level of outrage outside of the places you would normally expect to find it about this kind of thing. So that is a successful political achievement, is it not, if you're in Donald Trump's position and his family's position that you've made this stuff kind of feel kind of normal.
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James
Yes. And to that you mentioned the Democrats there. The White House mentioned the Democrats, Gary, in that statement. Are they then not being able to land blows on Donald Trump with this? Do they have a coordinated message? I mean, from what you're saying there, it sounds like they're not really making the political hay that you might imagine they could make with this.
- [09:20]
Gary O'Donoghue
You would have thought, wouldn't you, in a two party system that if one end of the seesaw, you know, is having problems, the other end kind of swings up. It doesn't work like that here because of the sort of fractured nature of political opinion as opposed to the structure of political parties. It either leads to apathy or for people to go off into sort of fringe activities or, or fringe beliefs. So no, they're not. And of course, the problem is that they are having their own internal battles, their own internal ideological battles. We saw those victories for Democratic Socialist Party people in primaries in New York this week. There's a tug of war for the heart of the Democratic Party going on, which makes it hard for them to focus on what you might call their real opposition target because there's so much infighting going on. And that means a unified message is always hard because one part of the party wants to really focus on, you know, core bread and butter stuff, perhaps. Other parts want to focus on Trump and beating Trump and, and all those things come out as a bit of a mush. So they don't really benefit. I mean, obviously in November, the midterms will be a real test of this. And that could be their wake up call ahead of a presidential election in two years time. Because everyone, you know, every sort of opposition party in midterms is meant to do well. And that the majority in Congress, for example, particularly in the House, is so narrow that if they don't take it, it will be regarded as a massive defeat for them.
- [10:57]
Alex Forsyth
It's gonna be interesting. And just to talk about something else regarding President Trump and what happened this week, and that's with the Supreme Court, because it has been a really big week in the Supreme Court. And maybe, maybe the most significant ruling came on Tuesday when the Supreme Court ruled that babies born in the US Have a constitutional right to citizenship. Gary, can you just talk us through what that means and why this was being contested in the first place?
- [11:24]
Gary O'Donoghue
So if you, if you come here as, you know, if you're here as foreigners, you know, and you're a couple, whether you be illegal migrants who have come over the border, whether you be, you know, business people who are working here, I mean, the whole spectrum of foreigners here, if you have a baby in the US that baby is an American straight away, automatically, no arguments. That's what birthright citizenship is. And it's been the case since just after the Civil War. In fact, just after the Civil War, in 1868, a constitution, the Constitution was changed to say that, you know, everyone, everyone born in that way was an American. And it was, as Trump says, rightly designed to ensure that the babies of slaves were citizens in this country. Now, 30 years later, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that in a case completely unrelated to slavery or babies. And it's been the settled law since the end of the 19th century. Trump tried to overturn that. He's railed against what he calls birth tourism. He thinks people are doing it. He calls them anchor babies in a rather offensive way. And he has, you know, sought to overturn it and thought he could. And there's the Supreme Court on this particular occasion, six to three, because it has this conservative majority. But three of them went against him. It said, no, the 14th Amendment protects people. Done deal, game over. The only options Trump has is to try and sort of restrict things through congressional sort of acts. And that's, you know, Congress is always gridlocked at the moment. So he does have one option here which is potentially changing the Constitution. But that's incredibly hard. It's a non starter. So the last time an amendment was passed to the Constitution was back in the 1990s, and that was something to do with congressional pay. It wasn't even terribly consequential. Only eight amendments to the Constitution have been passed in the last hundred years. You need 2/3 of Congress and 3/4 of the states to agree. It's a complete non starter.
- [13:28]
James
What does this mean for him then, Gary, given how immigration has been central to the president's agenda right from the outset, when I was in the states with you and he was actually running for the presidencies, talked about immigration as being completely central to his political ideology. I mean, this might have been. A lot of lawyers regarded trying to overturn birthright citizenship as a real stretch given, as you say, it goes back to 1868. But what does this is this a big blow for him or not? Then do you know?
- [14:02]
Gary O'Donoghue
It's a big PR blow because he was so invested. This was an executive order he signed about three hours after he was inaugurated. So it's a big PR blow. But he's been laying the ground a bit for it in the sense that he's been saying he thought he would lose, even though he went there in person to hear the oral argument. It's the first time a president's ever done that. So there hasn't been the kind of vitriol towards the judges I was expecting that we got, for example, when he was defeated on tariffs that may yet come, but it hasn't happened yet. I think the more significant measure will be deportations in the long run because it's proved a lot harder to do that in the kind of crazy numbers, the millions that we were promised. It hasn't kept up with that. The system can't deliver that. And of course, industry and farming has pushed back on that because it relies so much on, frankly, cheap labor, much of which, you know, at times in certain industries is undocumented migrant labor. And they have pushed back very hard on that. So there's not just the practical difficulties of doing that. Now what you will hear is that it's been a huge success. And this administration and Donald Trump in particular just says, you know, black is white. You know, yes is no when asked about these things. But, you know, the question is, can the Democrats or anyone else frankly, land that message at a point in time where it really counts that all these promises on immigration aren't materializing on the scale they were promised?
- [15:45]
Alex Forsyth
You just mentioned there, Gary, that this was an executive order, this order on birthright citizenship. So one of those things in my mind, when we saw President Trump first take office for the second time and he signed Loads of things with a big pen in the Oval Office. But so that's just President Trump effectively saying, I want this to happen, therefore I'm making an order that this will happen. How does it then get to the court? Do you know what I mean? Does someone have to, like, call it in or challenge it or say court? Have a look at this, please.
- [16:10]
Gary O'Donoghue
Yes, you can, you can. You know, executive orders are subject to judicial review the way other things are as well. So, yes, it was challenged. And usually, you know, a coalition of, of groups gets together, you know, with money, effectively finds a case or an individual, then sense becomes the front of that case. So the detail of the individual case, whilst probably incredibly important to them, is, is not really central to this. But, yeah, that's exact. That's exactly what happens. These things can be taken up in the courts. They bubble up through the, the federal courts at the district level. They end up at a sort of a region, a kind of regional appeal court, which all this did. And then, you know, you can appeal right up to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court doesn't have to hear it. But, you know, this was such a central constitutional question that you thought, well, you know, Supreme Court chooses to punt on this one, then what's it for? You know. But it didn't seem to punt.
- [17:13]
Alex Forsyth
Well, it was also not the only thing, as we mentioned, that the Supreme Court's been up to this week. There have been other significant rulings. Can you give us a quick rundown?
- [17:22]
Gary O'Donoghue
Yeah, quick rundown. So there were a couple involving President Trump's power to fire people in the executive. In other words, you know, you've got this problem in America. The executive is one part of, you know, of three parts of the governing system, along with Congress and the courts. But the executive also contains these so called independent agencies. Now, if they're part of the executive, does Trump have the ability to fire people on them or are they independent? That was one of the things it was deciding. And in one case with the Federal Trade Commission, it agreed with him he could fire someone. But in another case it said, hang on, you can't fire someone from the Federal Reserve, the central bank, because they hadn't had proper due process and they sent that back to the court. So they sort of carved out this Federal Reserve case as opposed to what now will appear. The case with other executive agents is that he can do that. The other big one this week was transgender people, transgender women playing in women's sports in schools and colleges. And they came down. This wasn't a Trump administration case. This was brought by two states that had bans on transgender women playing in college and school sports. Those bans were upheld. There are similar bans in 25 other states, so they are effectively upheld by that, but they don't impose that on other states that don't have those bans, if that makes sense. So you've got a country where half of the states say if you're a transgender woman, you can't play in sports for women, and half of the country that doesn't have such a ban. Again, a big example of the cultural divide in this country, and that wasn't even everything.
- [18:55]
James
There was a campaign finance ruling that is broadly regarded as being favorable to the Republicans as well. But we can't get into everything. We cannot get into everything. Gary, you need to go. You've. You're a busy man. And also, well, you're a football fan as well. It's one of the reasons that you have to get out of here so quickly so that you can enjoy the football later. It's, what, 20 past 2 in the afternoon here in the UK and England are playing at 5. Are you looking forward to it?
- [19:19]
Gary O'Donoghue
Yes. Noon. Yeah. Yeah. I am excited. I'm sad for Scotland, of course, James. Very sad. Thank you. But no, genuinely, as half Scottish myself, so I am sad for Scotland, but, yeah, I'm very excited. Although, you know, I'm not sure that's mirrored in the general population here. I felt utterly underwhelmed by the reaction here to the World cup and. Yeah. And so, yeah, we'll be cheering along at noon.
- [19:49]
Alex Forsyth
Oh, I feel sad. I just imagined there was going to be, you know, just flags and joy everywhere.
- [19:53]
Gary O'Donoghue
Not a flag in sight.
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Alex Forsyth
Do you know what, Gary? According to your Wikipedia page, you played football for England.
- [20:02]
Gary O'Donoghue
I'm ashamed to say that is true. When I was about 18 years old. Yes, it's true. It's true. I was a bit of a. Yeah, amazing. Well, it was in the very early days of the England blind football team, and. And we played. I certainly played a tournament in Spain for them, and I don't have very many memories of it, other than we got beat quite significantly. But I do remember it was the first time playing football that someone had ever pulled my shirt, and I was completely outraged as a teenager.
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Alex Forsyth
That is incredible. That is great.
- [20:32]
James
That is great. Well, thanks very much, Gary. It's lovely to talk to you, as always.
- [20:36]
Chris Mason
Thank you.
- [20:36]
Gary O'Donoghue
You too, guys. You too. Bye.
- [20:39]
James
Now, we're just going to rewind a little bit, Alex, because on Tuesday, you And I talked with Frank Gardiner about the dip. The dip? The defence investment plan. And we were talking to Frank and Chris about it. And as we were talking, you rightly pointed out that the numbers didn't quite add up. And that's a bit of an understatement because there's quite a big funding gap, a commitment gap here. What have we learned about that this morning? Because Luke Pollard, the Minister for Defence Procurement's, been out talking to all the media on what they call the broadcast round, talking about it. Do we know any more about what this gap is and how it might be filled, if at all?
- [21:14]
Alex Forsyth
Yeah, well, I think what he did was spell out what we'd identified on Tuesday's episode, really, which was the fact that they've identified where some. So, I mean, there's so many numbers kicking around about this. I think it's just worth, like, reminding people what the numbers actually are. So what the Prime Minister announced on Tuesday was what he said was 15 billion pounds extra for defense investment and set out all of the new priorities that the government thought that they needed to focus that money on. And what then kind of emerged was that around 10 billion of that has been found or identified and part of that's come through other government departments making savings, so things like roads and energy schemes. But. But there was 4.7 billion that still has to be identified and that that was going to be found or identified in the upcoming budget this year. And obviously, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer is on his way out, that's probably going to fall to the new Prime Minister, most likely to be Andy Burnham and whoever he picks as his Chancellor. And what we heard from the Defense Minister, Luke Pollard, when he was answering all the questions on this this morning, was him effectively saying, yep, yep, that's got to be identified in the budget. But the argument that I've heard from ministers in government making today is that they say, well, look, this is pretty normal, because actually, quite often it's the case when you're setting out spending plans for something that run over a period of time, you'll identify some of the money and then it will be up to when you're taking big decisions in the round that's at, for example, a budget time, that you might identify some of the others. And what Downing street keep pointing to, obviously, is the fact they are spending lots more money, in their view, on defense, and that this, this is what this investment plan is part of, a kind of uplift and uplift and increase in defense spending. But I don't think this is a settled issue. Not just because an incoming Burnham premiership will have to relook at this to find more money for defence spending because there's this promise to increase it over a period of time, as well as the 4.7 billion that hasn't yet been identified in this plan, but also because political opponents and others are saying, well, look, we just don't think this is enough for defence spending. And there was Prime Minister's questions on Wednesday lunchtime. And that is exactly what what Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the Conservative Party, pressed the Prime Minister really hard on.
- [23:28]
Kemi Badenoch
He says that he's delivering this outside the budget. That's right. It should have been in the last budget. The Strategic Defense Review was published last year. It should have been in the last budget, not the next budget. The intelligence assessment that he himself has said we have says there could be an attack on NATO by 2030. But this plan doesn't deliver until after that. £5 billion is missing from his plan. It also relies on £11 billion of unidentified savings. The plan has unravelled. It is a total dereliction of duty. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. The Times newspaper said today the Prime Minister's legacy. Why don't we wait and see what they said? That the Prime Minister's legacy is betrayal, failure and vulnerability. And that's one of the nicer headlines. So I will ask again, because he didn't answer the question. Mr. Speaker, did the member from Makerfield know that he was going to have to find £5 billion for the Prime Minister's plan?
- [24:33]
Gary O'Donoghue
Prime Minister.
- [24:33]
Keir Starmer
Mr. Speaker, when I became Prime Minister two years ago, this country spent £54 billion a year on defence because of decisions we've taken. That will rise to 80 billion pounds a year by 2029. That is a real terms increase of 27%. Transforming our armed forces. We're not going to take any lectures from the party opposite. They cut defence spending. They hollowed out the armed forces. That's what their Defence Secretary admitted. That's what they did. They don't like it. They won't defend their record, Mr. Speaker, because they can't. They won't apologise for it because I have to admit, what we all know, it's a total failure. They just try to pretend the 14 years they were in power never really happened. We're in power with record investment in defence and security. I'm proud of this Labour government and any Labour Prime Minister would stand behind this plan.
- [25:28]
James
I was really struck by the tone and the manner, Alex, of the Prime Minister's answers to Kimi Badenoch there in terms of defending his legacy, and almost the backbench Labour MPs cheering his legacy. And I was thinking as they were doing it, but you've sacked this guy, basically. It's quite the contrast, isn't it?
- [25:52]
Alex Forsyth
It's kind of remarkable, isn't it, Like. So I thought exactly the same. So you heard Keir Starmer talking again and again through Prime Minister's questions about my record and. And, you know, I'm proud to defend my record. And I do think that is a little bit of legacy building. And that's, you know, that is what Prime Ministers and other Ministers, when they leave office or when they know they're leaving office, often will do is try and shape how history might see them. And so we have heard a bit of that from Keir Starmer, and I think we'll continue to hear a bit of that from Keir Starmer, because he's got a couple of weeks yet, obviously, before he actually leaves Downing street to try and cement what he would see as his legacy or the legacy of his period in office. But you are right, again, that the reason he's leaving is because Labour MPs, effectively outwardly and publicly said that they didn't really want him as the leader anymore. So it is this kind of strange space that we're in at the moment where Keir Starmer is suddenly getting a lot of support from his back benches, when not so long ago, it was those very same backbenches that were calling for him to go to make room for someone else. It's. Yeah. An odd little period in politics, this window, is it not?
- [27:02]
James
It's such an odd time. I'll tell you one other thing that occurred to me, Alex, reflecting on Tuesday's episode that we were talking about defence, is that there seems to be such a mainstream consensus now in favor of increased defence and security spending. And I just wonder whether the voices of the people in this country who aren't convinced by that are not really being very loudly heard at the moment.
- [27:29]
Alex Forsyth
Well, so at Westminster, I think what you've seen developing between some of the bigger, bigger parties in Westminster, so the Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats, they are all very much talking about the need to increase defense spending. Nobody is really moving away from that position. And Reform UK actually in the mix as well. I think where there are real points of difference between them is how you get there. So, for example, you've got Reform uk, the Conservatives, suggesting you need to look at welfare. You've got the Liberal Democrats talking about defense bonds to try and raise money for defense spending. And you've got the labor government pointing to what it said out yesterday, which is of course the defense investment plan. And then you've also, you've got the Greens as well. And interestingly, Ellie Chowns, who is the Green Party's Westminster leader, she'd actually spoke in the debate that there was in the House of Commons on Tuesday about defense spending. And the point she was making, she put this to the current Defense Secretary, Dan Jarvis, was about pouring billions of good money after bad into what she called the black hole of cold wall technology instead of investing in security. So that's obviously a reference to the nuclear deterrence. So I think that point of difference comes from if we think there does need to be an increase in security, where do you spend the money, not just how do you raise the money. So I think while people recognize that the nature of the threat the UK is facing has changed after Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine, after the wars we've seen in the Middle east, and most at Westminster would say, yep, look, we think that we do need to invest in our defence and security. There are questions about how you fund it and even potentially how you spend it.
- [29:05]
James
Yeah. And questions in Scotland, Alex, particularly about that nuclear weapons program, the UK's nuclear weapons program, because the government, the UK government yesterday was talking about more money going into that, to the next generation of nuclear weapons, to improving conditions at the naval base just off the clyde where the UK's nuclear weapons and the submarines that carry them are based. And there's been a lot of complaints about conditions there actually. But the Scottish National Party have for many years, as you know, opposed the, the presence of nuclear weapons, UK having nuclear weapons at all and the presence in Scotland. Their long term idealistic vision for Scotland in their view, is that Scotland would be independent and wouldn't have any nuclear weapons. So that I think this debate is going to continue on those terms as well in Scotland, particularly if it isn't necessarily happening at a UK level. But that's for another day. I also have a question to ask you, Alex, because yesterday when we went away from the newscast studio, you were off to do some more work on another program. You said you were going to be working late into the evening and I was worried about you. And then I came in this morning and you were on the television filling in for Vicky on Politics Live. So you're everywhere. How was Politics Live? How was the Defense spending chat there.
- [30:27]
Alex Forsyth
Yeah, yeah, it's been a busy run. You know, you go so hard working. No, everybody's hard working, James, Come on, you yourself are pretty hard working. Let's, let's not make any bones about it. But yeah, no, Politics Live is. Yeah, just filling in a very, very short term for Vicky Young is having just a couple of days off and it was a lively one today, I can tell you, around defense spending because. Exactly as Kemi Badenot was doing during Prime Minister's questions. I think this is something Conservatives for their own reason are very keen to press on. So I expect they're going to want to keep this conversation going. And in response then what you get is Labour pointing the finger at the Conservatives record in government. So it all becomes very politically heated when it comes to the defence debate. And yeah, I mean, I suspect that this is going to be a conversation that we'll keep on having, albeit with a different Prime Minister at the helm in just a couple of weeks from now. Right?
- [31:15]
James
Yes. And we can never have too much Alex Forsyth. That is the lesson we have learned.
- [31:20]
Alex Forsyth
I don't know about that.
- [31:21]
James
Alex, thank you. Pleasure to be here with you as always.
- [31:24]
Alex Forsyth
And we'll be back with another one soon. Bye. Newscast Newscast from the BBC.
- [31:32]
Chris Mason
Thank you so much for making it to the end of Newscast. You clearly copyright Chris Mason Ooze stamina. Can I gently encourage you to subscribe to us on BBC Sounds? Don't forget, you can email us anytime. It's newscastbc.co.uk and if you would like to join our Discord community to talk about everything newscast related, there is a link in the description of this podcast and don't be scared, it's super easy to click on it and then get set up. Or you can WhatsApp us on 033-01-239480 and I promise you we read and listen to every single message. Thanks for listening to this podcast by.
- [32:20]
McDonald's Advertiser
All new drinks are now at McDonald's with refreshers like the Strawberry Watermelon Refresher and the Mango Pineapple Refresher with Popping Boba to crafted sodas like the Sprite Berry Blast with berry flavors and cold foam. Who knew ice cold drinks could be so fire
- [32:42]
Keir Starmer
six.
- [32:43]
McDonald's Advertiser
All new drinks are here now at McDonald's.
- [32:47]
James
Refreshers contain caffeine.