← The Monocle Daily
The Monocle Daily
What Trump’s visit revealed about the cracks and endurance of British soft power
00:33:54
Loading summary
Transcript66 lines
- [00:00]
A
You're listening to the Monocle Daily. First broadcast on 19 September 2025 on Monocle Radio.
- [00:06]
B
Was Donald Trump's second state visit the soft power triumph the UK hoped for? Does the founding father of Czechoslovakia have any beyond the grave wisdom to impart? And how hard can it be to bury a Zambian president? I'm Andrew Muller. The Monocle Daily starts. Hello and welcome to the Monocle Daily. Coming to you from our studios here at Midori House in London. I'm Andrew Muller. My guests, Josh Fennett, Rob Cameron and Steph Chongu will discuss the day's big stories and we'll have our weekly wrap up of what we've learned. Stay tuned. All that and more coming up right here on the Monocle.
- [00:52]
A
D.
- [00:59]
B
This is the Monocle Daily. I'm Andrew Muller and I am joined first of all by Monocle's editor, Josh Fennert. Josh, it's not the primary reason we have hauled you in here on a Friday evening. We will get to that shortly. But a reason we have hauled you in here is that you have also hauled in here the new issue of Monocle magazine, which is not quite available yet. Am I right?
- [01:19]
C
Not quite available yet. I can't wait to hear the reason that I'm here. Is it staff absences? Has there been an early bout of flu in Marylebone? That means that I've been roped into the Friday night slot? No, I'm here with two issues. The magazine, Andrew, you'll know that the September issue is on newsstands now, but the October issue, we've got fresh copies into the office and it's something of a ritual that I don't believe takes place on news websites where the new issue comes in in boxes and we leaf lovingly through the pages and hope we don't see any mistakes. So it's a transition moment. The team in the office is obviously working on future issues, commissioning things out for the months ahead. But it does give us pause to stop and think about the October issue, which is all to do with your favorite subject, Andrew. Style.
- [02:02]
B
It's my middle name, Josh.
- [02:03]
C
And you did write a nice feature for me. You resurrected one of my favourite all time Monocle features that used to be a regular called Style Leader, where I suppose if we were patting ourselves on the back, which I'm about to do, is a kind of lateral way of thinking about style. Style, obviously the fashion industry. But you know, think about how people present themselves, presidents, politicians. Style really can mean something to me.
- [02:26]
B
It absolutely can. I mean, I turn out in your.
- [02:28]
C
Fatigues, you turn out in your, Is that a paisley shirt you're wearing?
- [02:31]
B
Ish Paisley adjacent. I mean, no. I, I'm always happy to resurrect or write variations on that column because, as our fashion director will wearly attest, what I actually know about fashion could be chiseled onto soup. But it is, it is really interesting the way that people in prominent positions do project themselves. And it is, it's, it's a fun thing to dig into because it is always. You're quite right. It's a deliberate choice. Every if, if you know you are going out in the public gaze, you make a decision when you put your clothes on and you, there's something you want to say.
- [03:03]
C
And for me and for Joe Bloggs and for most people, it's kind of sometimes about fitting in. And like, if you're feeling maybe a tiny bit daring, maybe you make a choice, you want to look smart, you wear a suit. But I think, you know, the great joy of my job as an editor means that I get to talk to people like you and writers with funny ideas who sometimes want to push the envelope. And I think the people who you chose, we ended up with five of them on page. They really, they run the gamut from, you know, African leaders looking to project power to the new pope. What you know and, you know, the decisions that are made there. You know, moving from a pope who was ostensibly, you know, all about humility and eschewing the ermine robes of office. We in Pope Leo, the. I'm reading numerals quickly.
- [03:46]
B
14Th, something like that. God, I hope we haven't got that wrong.
- [03:50]
C
We see, you know, we've got that correct. You know, you see a man whose raiments talk about something bigger. It's spiritual, but it's also about a personal brand. And I think that's an amazing thing that we're able to do in this style issue. Unpack a global industry, unpack aspirational creative directors from brands who are leading industries and talking about leadership and talk about the way the world's turning.
- [04:11]
B
Well, we will doubtless talk more about that issue over the coming week, but let's move along to the real reason we brought you in here, Josh, which is your expertise in transatlantic soft power.
- [04:21]
C
I thought I was going to be.
- [04:22]
B
Giving out flu jets because about 24 hours ago, the size of relief from Windsor and Westminster would have drowned out the engines of Air Force One as it took off from Stansted, bearing US President Donald Trump back across the Atlantic Ocean. Trump's second state visit to the UK went off reasonably smoothly, not least due to steps taken to conduct the whole thing in private. His big ride in a gold encrusted cart, for example, was taken around the grounds of Windsor Castle. Trump nevertheless seemed pleased, especially about being, as he put it, the first US President ever welcomed to Windsor Castle. He is by our count at least the fifth, but nobody was ill mannered enough to correct him. Josh we'll get shortly onto how the visit actually went. But ahead of it, with Air Force One coming the other way over the Atlantic, what would have King Charles, the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, the UK government entire have had in its head as a definition of success, I think.
- [05:19]
C
Not making any negative headlines. And I think that really puts us back in our place about what we were expecting from this. And you know, the sighs of relief are kind of echoed by sighs of boredom as well. You know, the fact that everything went to plan, that there were no big mess ups, that Donald Trump didn't say anything inflammatory or get anyone's name wrong or undermine the UK's statehood or sovereignty. The fact that that feels like a victory is a damning indictment of where we are. The Economist did a good write up today and I think their underwhelming positivity, in which they mentioned the fact that it might have been a lot worse, kind of, kind of sums up the moment we're in, you know, we're banged over the head by the idea. It's an unprecedented honor for Donald Trump to come back to the UK on a second state visit. But as you say, every was made to, you know, keep the guide rails on to make it a power hungry man, sort of weird fairy tale fantasy. The only thing they could have done to lay it on any thicker was to wheel him round in an enchanted pumpkin, which incidentally might be a good description for the man himself.
- [06:21]
B
Well, indeed. They did trowel it on pretty thick though. I am just wondering what you made of the balance there because obviously everybody understands by now that you have to tiptoe around this man. He's very thin skinned, he's very easily distracted and very easily upset. But the UK did, they did put on the production that might be expected, but they did buckle on a few fronts. They did not invite the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, to the dinner because Trump doesn't like him. Trump was complaining about him on the way back saying he thinks Sadiq Khan has been weak on immigration. Though to be clear, the Mayor of London has absolutely zero power over immigration to The United Kingdom. The ABC Australia journalist John Lyons, who was actually recently a guest on the Daily. I'm not sure if we've played it yet, was excluded from the press conference because he'd rubbed Trump up the wrong a few days previously. And we had the band of the Household Cavalry, Josh playing YMCA by the Village People.
- [07:17]
C
I think there's always some, you know, statecraft and how solutions are reached always involve a small amount of compromise, but my feeling is they rarely involve this much. Soft power is about persuasion and coercion. So I had paused to revisit Professor Joseph Nye, the former Harvard professor who coined the idea of soft power's last ever written piece, which was actually written for Monocle, it was, and he unfortunately passed away in May this year. And he says that in times of conflict, soft power weirdly becomes more important. He coined the theory during the Cold War, where perhaps there wasn't active conflict, but certainly there were lots of competing differences. And he said once you start competing on a realm of persuasion, of gently nudging people in the direction you want them, talking about shared language, shared value, shared culture. Even if Donald Trump doesn't live up to, you know, being the. The man upholding democracy in the way that you might hope for, he talks about being from a democratic country and Keir Starmer can talk about being from a democratic country, and suddenly you're talking literally the same language and you're pulling together in certain ways. So there have been some successes. Donald Trump described the UK and the US as being like two notes in a chord, which is kind of an unusually poetic image for a man who likes repeating himself.
- [08:33]
B
Gonna go ahead and bet heavily on him not having written that section of the speech?
- [08:37]
C
Of course I do. But if victory looks like sticking script, and he did stick to the script, then actually things could have gone a lot worse. And as I say, that's damning the visit with faint praise. But the UK soft power, I remember from a conversation I had with Simon Anholt, you know, debatably, the man who came up with this idea of nation branding, he said something peculiar. He said, nation brands, good ones. The idea of being a good place, a good country, a good place to live, a good place to work, they take an awful long time of doing the right thing to build up, and they also take reassuringly long to destroy. And I think what you're seeing is two countries with soft powers massively on the wane, but with enough goodwill to shuffle through a few days in Windsor without any major mess ups.
- [09:19]
B
But do you think the UK is on the wane because we have had, over the last few years, perhaps an unusual number of opportunities to contemplate the state of the UK's soft power. And it goes to that thing you were saying about how it takes a long time to build this up. We have had a royal funeral, we have had, by definition, a coronation. We've now had things like this state visit. And at the forefront of all of those is, of course, the British monarchy and everything that goes along with it. What's your sense now of whether that makes the UK look good or bad? Because we've. We've had the occasional government in this country, most notably perhaps Tony Blair's new labor of the late 90s, early 2000s, which was a bit annoyed and embarrassed, I think, by a lot of this, and thought, you know, this was not what a thrusting modern democracy should be. But when dealing with, I guess, a president, US president like Donald Trump, have we discovered that castles and kings can be a bit of an advantage?
- [10:16]
C
They're good at insulating politicians, certainly. You know, if you look at how angry people are on the street or broadly disinterested people are, when you actually live in the country, about the goings on of the royals, you realize it's like having a soap opera. So it is soft power in the sense that if you make a great TV show and the world watches, they, you know, they're imbued with some sense of maybe positivity or familiarity with your culture. I think there's kind of two stories, though. There's what it might seem like living in the UK is like and what living in the UK is like. Living in the UK is actually, in lots of ways, if you discount the weather and the taxes and the misery, not a bad place. And you see lots of people attempting to come here through legal means, shutting them off, as we may be slowly. The UK is not a bad place to get an education. Broadly, the crime rates are actually falling, despite what Nigel Farage says. And the fact that we have an issue with people coming here is because it's a popular place to come. So UK soft power isn't in the terrible place it seems. The problem is that Trump and Farage and lots of other figures who don't enjoy fact checking, as several of your points have reassured me today. They say it's a terrible place. They say Sadiq Khan is the problem. They say that, you know, the UK is an Islamic state, you know, about to impose Sharia law. It's just not the reality on the ground. So I think Soft Power also does this thing where it creates an image which doesn't necessarily have to be true. It's just a convenient thing for us all to focus on while we shuffle an enchanted pumpkin onto and off the island without too much trouble.
- [11:46]
B
Josh Fennett, Monocle's editor, thank you very much for joining us. You're listening to THE daily. You are listening to THE daily with me, Andrew Muller, and to the Czech Republic, which has today been preoccupied by the opening of an envelope. Said envelope has long been believed to contain the last words, or at least concluding thoughts of Thomas Masaryk, the founder and first president of Czechoslovakia, as then was served from 1918 to 1935, died a couple of years later and is generally and generally correctly revered as a national hero. The letter is believed to have been handed to his son, Jan Masaryk, Czech foreign minister, who died in debated circumstances in 1948 before the letter was secreted in Scotland and France, before being returned to the Czech Republic in 2005 with instruction not to open it until today. I'm joined now from Prague by the journalist Rob Cameron. Rob, we've waited long enough. What does it actually say?
- [12:48]
D
We have indeed, Andrew. I mean, there was enormous anticipation and excitement at the opening of this letter, which was actually covered live by Czech radio and a live stream on YouTube as well. In the room which actually was in Lani Chateau, which is the Czech president's presidential retreat, summer retreat just outside Prague, was the current president, PETA Pavel, as well as various dignitaries and academics and historians, all waiting for this letter to be opened. And so you can imagine the slight confusion when they did, after a very long preamble, slice open the letter and start reading its contents. For a start. It was written in English, and I'll explain why in a minute. But the most important thing was, and this is what caused some consternation among the historians standing at the at the podium, was that this letter is not, they believe, in fact, dated from 1937, when Masaryt was on his deathbed, but probably a few years before that, when he'd had his first stroke in the summer of perhaps 1934. And he dictated it to his son, Jan Massaryk, in the belief that this was the end and he was nearing the end of his life, but in fact, he lived for three more years.
- [14:09]
B
That question of, I mean, let's keep our listeners in suspense a bit longer because that point of it being written in English does seem somewhat startling. What is the reason for that?
- [14:20]
D
Yeah, I mean, it's a very good reason, basically. I mean, Tomasz Masary is known as Tomasz Masaryk was Tomasz Garig Masaryk. And the name Garrig was actually his wife's maiden name, Charlotte Garrig. So she was an American, and they spoke English together and their children spoke English. English was spoken in the house. I think Charlotte actually never learned Czech, even though she lived in Czechoslovakia. So English was the language of the Masaryk household, as it were, as well. And so that's why when Masaryk was dictating what he thought was his final words to his son Jan Masaryk, that Jan Masaryk wrote them down in English. It's also been claimed that after the stroke, and I believe this is common among stroke victims, that often people do begin to speak another of their languages. So up until that point, I think Masaryk spoke Czech much more often. But after this stroke, he did speak English with his family, so that's why they think it is in English. But it's basically five pages of yellowing notes written by his son Jan, as Masaryt lay on what he thought was his deathbed. In fact, he recovered and went on to serve for another year and then stepped down and died, as you say, two years later.
- [15:42]
B
So to the text itself, does it contain anything especially astonishing? Not really.
- [15:48]
D
It was all a bit confusing because, as I say, this was a Czech ceremony with Czech academics and Czech historians and Czech Masaryk experts, with the Czech president Peter Pavel there and with an audience of Czechs and being broadcast on Czech radio. But the Masaryk historian did a sort of simultaneous interpreting of it from the English of Jan Masaryk into Czech. So we had a. For a start, it was always, always already kind of once removed the contents of it. So we have to take it with a pinch of salt because it will now be analyzed and properly translated, and then we'll have a much better idea of what actually Masaryk was saying. But he did say, first of all, he was very. He was very preoccupied with his, you know, his. His approaching end, the funeral. He talked a lot about the funeral. He talked about death. He said, I am ill, seriously ill. It is the end, but I'm not afraid. You will continue the work. You know how. You must be careful, but you know how to behave. And I don't need you to tell. I don't need to tell you more. He was recorded as saying to his son, he also said, there's no reason to fear death. All you have to people, yeah, People are afraid of dying, but you shouldn't be afraid. You just need to make sure you have a set of new clothes for the funeral, which I thought was quite amusing. And there were other perhaps less flattering things that he says in it about Czechoslovakia's German population, about the Slovaks, with whom obviously he had a very difficult relationship, and even about his own citizens and kind of pokes fun at himself as well.
- [17:24]
B
Well, just finally then, and as you say, our assessment of this tract is still incomplete, but does it seem like something that's going to make any difference to the historical reputation of either Thomas or Jan?
- [17:38]
D
I don't think so. I think it helps historians better understand the mood of the time. And of course, this was perhaps 1934, perhaps 1935, as not only Tomasz Kareg Masaryk's life was coming to an end, but the life of Czechoslovakia was coming to an end within a year of his death. It had been dismembered under the Munich Agreement. So the Sudetenland carved off and given to Nazi Germany. Then the Slovakia went their own Way in 1939 at the same time as the Nazis invaded and occupied the rest of the country. And of course the Germans were finally expelled in 1945. So I think it just provides a little more context as to the mood and perhaps the tenor of the debate of the time and what was going through Masaryic's head. But as the historian, the expert on Masaryk said, it's actually quite similar, the words of this letter, to things that he told, I believe his. His daughter around about the same time. And there is a record of that. So that's why she believes this was 1934, not 1937, but they don't know that for certain.
- [18:40]
B
Rob Cameron in Prague, thank you for joining us. You're listening to the Daily. You're listening to the Daily on Monocle Radio. I'm Andrew Muller. To Zambia, Not a date line often considered by global news organizations. And it would appear that we have been missing out. Out in Zambia this week, a court has returned a guilty verdict against two men accused of witchcraft. Presumably they were broom mates. And yes, we worked on that all afternoon. Specifically, the pair were convicted of plotting to assassinate President Hakain de Hisalima with items including a red cloth, some sort of white powder and a chameleon, presumably also red and white at time of arrest. This is concurrent with further developments in an ongoing flap about the funeral of Hislima predecessor President Edgar Lungu, who died in South Africa in June but remains in cold storage due to a row over where and how to bury him. I'm joined with more on all of this by Monocle's Zambia desk chief, Steph Chungu. And Steph, I think first we should establish that despite the Lancashire accent, you are abundantly qualified to serve in that role.
- [19:56]
A
I mean, sure, whatever you say, Andrew, whatever you say. But yes, yes, I am Zambia, via my parents. Thank you very much. Learning about Zambian politics and what's happening in that country has been quite a feat, to say the least, over the past three months.
- [20:13]
B
What I did want to start by asking, first of all, I think to the extent that most people have an idea of Zambia, it is as a fairly mild mannered, unobtrusive sort of country, and yet it would appear not. So does any of this actually give us an insight into what Zambia and Zambians are actually like?
- [20:30]
A
No, not particularly. Fun fact. Zambia has not had a civil war to this date. So the most peaceful country in Africa, which is quite nice. It's a very nice and very like, you know, welcoming country. It's still led by Christianity, it's still led by Church of Estates, which is the norm. It's a very nice and peaceful country. Like nothing really happens in there until this debacles, to say the least.
- [20:56]
B
Well, two debacles. We'll start with debacle one, which is the witchcraft thing. Now, is there any sinister subtext to this? Is there any kind of political element to this prosecution? Or have the police legitimately just arrested a pair of weirdos who were hoping to put the president to death with a lizard?
- [21:15]
A
A bit of both, to say the least. So for context, I think Zambia is like the. One of the very few countries that still have a witchcraft act which was set upon like from predecessors before it became a republic. And this is the first case of its kind in the country to actually be tried in court, which is why everyone has been glued to their TVs about this court case, according to my family back home. But it's. It was an attempted plot, sadly, I would say, to do away with the current president, Hick Chilema. And considering the fact that the elections are next year, the foil and the drama has just taken to a pre, to a degree of, of what is going on. The current president actually doesn't believe in witchcraft. He didn't really. He doesn't regard witchcraft as real. He is a God fearing man, he's Christian. So when the two men who were convicted this week were arrested in December 2024, I believe, and when the press asked him, he was just like, I don't believe in it. Move on, let's move on. And rightly so, because I would not want to be in this mess either. It just seems so dramatic over a chameleon tale.
- [22:21]
B
Well, we are going to move on and we are going to move on to the saga as it now is. ATT President Edgar Lungu and listeners, Steph already has her head in her hands. Now, listeners to the foreign desk. Explainer may recall that back in June, explainer number 472. I did get into this and I do remember asking you at the time, Steph, how much of a thing is this? And you said something to the effect of, dear God, you have absolutely no idea. And it did turn out to be quite the thing. But it is now. What's September minus June, it's now three months later and this is still rumbling on. So first of all, I think we need to go back to the major issue, which is why can nobody agree on what should be the fairly straightforward thing of arranging a state funeral for a former president.
- [23:07]
A
We have to take this back to before Edgar Lungu sadly passed away, which was between 2020, 2021 during the previous election in which Hichilema succeeded and beat Lungu for presidency. There's been bad blood between both of them for eons. It was quite ridiculous, especially when Lungu actually put Hichelemma in prison for some sort and got quickly released because it.
- [23:33]
B
Wasn'T so much treason as sort of a traffic incident.
- [23:36]
A
As I recall, it was the battle of the Limous on the one highway. It was, yes, Zambia is really dramatic of the small things, but yes, it's been bad blood between them up until Lungu's death. And obviously, you know, state custom is to have a mourning period, a state funeral. Lungu would have been buried when the president. There's a presidential ceremony in the center of Lusaka which I believe is not admissible to any citizens, just like, you know, high stature and stuff. So when he passed, you know, very sad, very poignant moment, Zambia went into mourning period. And then the whole drama started with the Lungu family refusing to let the body be repatriated to Zambia because they didn't want Hlmon near the body, which is quite bizarre to the point where now South Africa had to get involved because they actually dragged South Africa courts involved during the 11th hour. Mind you, Lucy, an hour before Lungu's funeral was supposed to commence in South Africa because they were determined to not let the body anywhere near Zambia to the point now that the court has decided again to uphold their decision from before, saying, no, the body has to be repatriated back home so he can have a state funeral. Because he was in South Africa temporarily, Lungu passed away from complications of illness. We don't exactly know. And he was there on a temporary visa. He wasn't there permanently.
- [25:05]
B
And this is South Africa's court basically saying, and this has happened this week, look, we can't hang onto this guy forever. You're going to have to make a decision.
- [25:13]
A
Essentially, yes, there is grumblings that the Lungu family may go to a higher court, but at this point, he needs to, he just, it needs to be settled, literally settled. This is actually ridiculous at this point.
- [25:25]
B
And just finally on this, is this a subject, subject of huge domestic brouhaha in Zambia? Is this something that the Zambian media is covering minute by minute? Is it something about which Zambian people feel especially passionately, or is this just an obsession of two families?
- [25:41]
A
No, they were all for this by July. I want to say that it was very much like a very hot topic, especially around the time that he passed and the weeks that preceded it. But now to the point where it's been three months and he has still not been buried, I think at this point, everyone's just finding it slightly tedious.
- [26:00]
B
Steph Chongu, thank you for joining us. You are listening to the Daily on Monocle Radio. You're listening to the Daily on Monocle Radio. I'm Andrew Muller. Finally, on today's show, our weekly calculation of what the last seven days have taught us. We learned this week of a new sixth step on the Kubleros scale of grief. We learned that after denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance comes what might be characterized as any. Who.
- [26:38]
E
How are you holding up over the last day and a half, sir?
- [26:41]
F
I think very good. And by the way, right there, you see all the trucks? They just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House.
- [26:48]
B
We learned this and much else besides. From the aftermath of the appalling public murder of a young political activist, we learned that across the spectrum of American politics, a sombre contemplative hush had duly descended as politicians and partisans alike pondered deeply upon their own responsibility for escalating the feverish temperature of the discourse to this perilous height, resolved solemnly to conduct themselves with greater civility from this day forward, to recognize that their opponents are not their enemies, to look foremost for the good in their fellow citizens, and to work together to address decisively the damage done day in and day out by dogmatic fealty to a particular interpretation of a single clause of a 238-year-old document which enables, on average, give or take, 300Americans to be shot every day, around 50 fatally. Ha ha.
- [27:43]
C
No.
- [27:44]
B
Have you met the 21st century United States? And so forth. We learned instead that the way Americans could come together as one in the wake of this tragedy was to try to get each other fired for not taking it seriously enough.
- [28:03]
E
So when you see someone celebrating Charlie's murder.
- [28:05]
A
Murder.
- [28:05]
E
Call them out in hell. Call their employer.
- [28:08]
B
We learned this from Vice President J.D. vadz, who, in fairness, is someone who spends most of his days hoping someone in particular will commit an indiscretion sufficient to get them heaved out of their job. We also learned that while U.S. attorney General Pam Bondi may be all in on the Second Amendment of the U.S. constitution, she does not appear to have gotten round to reason. Employers, you have an obligation to get rid of people. You need to look at people who are saying horrible things and they shouldn't be working with you. We, for one whimsical news monologue, look forward to seeing this stricture against employing people who say horrible things being imposed where Attorney General Bondi works. But we learned that at least one Republican grandee, specifically House Speaker Mike Johnson, had absorbed some sobering lessons and was now fully seized of the necessity of restoring Curtis's to the national conversation.
- [29:04]
G
Leaders cannot call their political opponents Nazis and fascists and enemies of the state because they disagree with their policy priorities. I mean, this, this is something we should have learned in. In grade school.
- [29:16]
B
And who could disagree with that?
- [29:18]
F
The presidency needs. I know what it needs. You meet some people. Among the worst that you're going to meet though, are in our country. I call it the enemy from within. We have the outside enemy. So you can say China, you can say Russia, you can say Kim Jong Un. You can say it's the enemy from within, all the scum that we have to deal with. And it is the enemy from within. And they're very dangerous. They're Marxists and communists and fascists.
- [29:44]
B
In fairness, we learned that the President had been giving some thought to what role he could usefully play in healing his nation at this time of trauma. How do we fix this country? How do we come back together?
- [29:57]
F
I'll tell you something that's going to get me in trouble, but I couldn't care.
- [30:00]
B
In further fairness, we learned that the President may have been distracted by his tireless labors healing other nations.
- [30:07]
F
I self words that was unsolvable. Azerbaijan and Albania. It was going on for many, many years. I had the prime ministers and presidents in my office, they sat so far apart. The chair. One chair was there. One chair was there. I said, fellas, get together. Come on.
- [30:23]
B
An expression, perhaps, who knows of the 2100km that lie between the two countries capitals, which may be why Azerbaijan and ALB have never fought a war against each other. Unless maybe the President is thinking of the period when Azerbaijan as part of the Russian Empire and Albania as part of the Ottoman ditto were on opposite sides in a variety of scraps. So maybe he is talking about the Russo Turkish War of 1877-78 and is claiming credit for the Treaty of San Stefano, which would actually not be the least probable thing for which he has helped himself to plaud, am I right? All those golf trophies for starters. But and maybe we'll need some sombre reflective satire being used to make a serious point. Music playing under from here on from here on. Not from Heron for we learned that you can't joke about this stuff literally. Attentive listeners may recall that circa the beginning of this week's monologue we essayed a mild jape about the President's apparent swift moving on from last week's events at the risk of tempting fate. We did so confident in the knowledge that the only consequences that will likely befall us will be the deafening applause for and fulsome congratulations upon yet another faultlessly conceived and executed wry sidelong look at the week's news. We learned that it's not like that in the United States anymore. And we learned this from Jimmy Kimmel, the now former late night chat show host, who included this quip in one of his recent monologues about the clip of President Trump, which kicked off this monologue. This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he called a friend. This is how a four year old mourns a goldfish. We learned that as a consequence of this trivial merriment, Kimmel's network, the Disney owned abc, had suspended Kimmel's show following menaces from the head of US Media regulator, the Federal Communications Commission, who owes his job to, you can probably guess which President. We learned, if we're honest, that we are experiencing a certain difficulty reconciling the actions of this administration of self declared free speech warriors, which have also included harassing Stephen Colbert off the air and shaking down and or suing cb, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, among others, and their words in.
- [32:57]
E
Washington There is a new sheriff in town and under Donald Trump's leadership. We may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square.
- [33:08]
B
Agree or disagree in your own time, Mr. Vice President. And that is all for this edition of the Monocle Daily. Thanks to our guests today, Josh Fennett, Rob Cameron and Steph Chongu. The show was produced by Laura Cohen Kramer and research by Daniela Brauer Smith. Our sound engineer was Mariella Bevan. I'm Andrew Muller here in London. The Daily is back the same time on Monday. Thanks for listening and have a great weekend.
- [33:48]
A
Sam.