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- [00:01]
Alistair Campbell
Thanks for listening to the Rest is Politics Sign up to the Rest is Politics plus to enjoy Ad Free Listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members chat room and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to the restispolitics.com that's therestispolitics.com the rest is politics is powered by our friends at Fuse Energy and when.
- [00:21]
Rory Stewart
You switch to Fuse you will now receive TRIP membership free of charge.
- [00:25]
Alistair Campbell
That's where you can take advantage of things like Ad free listening, early access to Question Time episodes, pre sale, live show tickets, and more. All you got to do is go to getfuse.com politics use the referral code politics when signing up.
- [00:39]
Rory Stewart
We will be providing many more offers for members which I think can be great, including interviews for members only and questions for members only, which I hope you'll enjoy. But the other advantage of signing up of course is that you can protect your energy bills by fixing your electricity rates for the next year with Fuse, which is going to be very relevant. With the price cap rising by six point, Fuse's new fixed tariffs undercut the April price cap by over £100 with almost £150 of savings for a typical customer on the 18 month tariff. By fixing your electricity rate, you can lock in your price today and protect yourself from any rises over the next year.
- [01:15]
Alistair Campbell
And as you know, here at Trip we love the whole green agenda. Fuse is a green electricity supplier generating power from their own solar and wind farms and they invest 100% of profits into building more renewable energy. So download it now. Use the referral code politics after signing up, visit getfuse.com politics for the terms of conditions and to learn more.
- [01:40]
Rory Stewart
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- [02:28]
Ryan Seacrest
ABC Sundays American Idol is all new.
- [02:32]
Alistair Campbell
Give it your all.
- [02:32]
Al Murray
Good luck. Come out with a golden ticket. Let's hear it.
- [02:35]
Alistair Campbell
This is immense world. I've never seen anything like it.
- [02:41]
Rory Stewart
And a new chapter begins. You're going to Hollywood. Carrie Underwood joins Lionel Richie, Luke Bryant.
- [02:47]
Ryan Seacrest
And Ryan Seacrest on American Idol News Sundays, 8, 7 Central on ABC and stream on Hulu.
- [03:04]
Alistair Campbell
Welcome to another live stream Restless Politics special. Which started the thought for this started when JD Vance started to insult French and British troops, even though he later denied it. Then we had Trump speech overnight, which again, pretty newsworthy. We also this pretty amazing fiscal economic revolution in the German Federal Republic with the new incoming chancellor. And then literally just before we started, Rory was sitting there in his kitchen flicking through his phone and discovered something. Breaking news. Rory, why don't you just tell us?
- [03:45]
Rory Stewart
Well, yes, I mean, let's get into Canada, which I think is the way of opening and then we'll get onto those other three subjects. So a quick, quick reminder for people. We've been doing a lot on Canada recently. We've just interviewed Christopher Freeland and Mark Carney, who are the two leading contenders, one of whom probably Mark Carney, but one of whom will be the Canadian prime minister in five days. And you can listen to that on leading and why are we concentrating so much on Canada? And we also did quite a lot of the last podcast on Canada. Well, because Canada is not just one of the world's largest economies. It's got an economy almost the same size as the United Kingdom's. It's got a GDP per capita considerably larger than that of the United Kingdom. But it is, of course, the US's nearest neighbor. And the reason why we're starting with it is that Donald Trump announced that he would reimpose 25% tariffs on Canada, 25% on Mexico, 20% on China. And people remember he imposed it 30 days ago. This is incidentally a completely illegal thing. Theoretically, he's supposed to spend 180 days in terms of treaty and he's meant to get congressional approval, but he just does it. Canada responded, you thought quite well. But they did make a concession and we'll begin to understand why they made a concession because of the scale of what this is doing to the Canadian economy. Their concession was they set up a fentanyl czar, they moved troops at the border. And I think we thought at the time that that probably had been enough for Trump to go away for a bit, instead of which he announced, actually it's only 30 day suspension and it's now being reannounced. And the impacts of this are Unbelievable. So, just a few facts. 75% of all Canadian exports go to the United States. 33% of all Canadian imports come from the United States. 18%. So nearly a fifth of the Canadian economy is connected to exporting from The United States. 2.4 million jobs in Canada directly connected to exporting to the United States. And if this is kept in place, modeling is unbelievably difficult because there are incredible second and third order impacts. Reuters did an article this morning suggesting inflation will get up to 7.2%. GDP will contract by 2.6%. That's a very, very serious contraction. Unemployment will go up 7%. But that's just the beginning, because you shared a graphic with us, which I think came ultimately from the BBC, illustrating how complicated this can be, that the 25% tariffs may be underestimating. If you follow a single bit of piping going into an American car, it'll go from Canada all the way down to Mexico, get a 25% tariff in Mexico and then come back again. Now, to add to that, the story that I was just talking before we came on, which Joshi, one of the people I admire greatly, partly because he's been having a good fight with JD Vance about Ukraine, has just tweeted out that America is threatening Canada with expulsion from Five Eyes, which is the intelligence sharing network between Canada, Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom and the United States. It's threatening border changes and according to Canadian minister Foreign Minister Jolie, that Trump officials say that they are putting military cooperation and water on the table. So military cooperation includes things like continental air defense. And as a result, there are now pretty serious Canadians beginning to write articles saying things like, we must be prepared to defend our sovereignty, not just with military spending, but with a population that is engaged, trained and ready. Peter McLeod calling for civil defense force where every Canadian has a role to play. So this is the beginning of something pretty serious over to you.
- [07:43]
Alistair Campbell
Well, when you first told me and you read verbatim what the, what your friend had tweeted as my initial reaction was all that sort of thing you say when you're declaring war on somebody. This, this five eyes. We've talked about the five eyes these are. And when we talked to David McCloskey on the from the rest is classified, he was explaining how, how that helps all of you know, we're all. It goes back to the basic idea that intelligence sharing is a stronger way of countries defending themselves and each other. And it's been long standing to just do that. And right in the middle of this leadership election that's about to find new prime minister. I wonder whether it's a direct response to the fact that Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister who's in the last week of his premiership, so probably a bit gung ho, but I think he's a pretty thoughtful guy. But he said his immediate reaction to the Trump tariff announcement was to say, it's not often that I agree with the Wall Street Journal, but when they say that you're dumb, Donald, in relation to this, they're absolutely right. You may be a smart guy, but this is a very dumb thing to do. And the other thing I saw was on Fox News of all places, a reporter explaining how this was going to put the prices up for ordinary Americans buying the things that they like to buy. Whereas Trump, the post truth president who likes to lie more than he likes to tell the truth, constantly saying this is all going to be paid for by the country that we're putting the tariffs on. No, it's not. This is going to be paid for in prices and also in terms of the rise, inflation, as you say.
- [09:21]
Rory Stewart
Because we're going to get into this more. One of the things I've been reflecting on a great deal because we just talked to Michael Wolff as an interview for Leading, which will be coming out soon, who is a friend of yours who's written four books on Trump and had this incredible access of being allowed to spend seven months in the White House in the first Trump presidency. And his general tendency has been to downplay the threat from Trump and to say he didn't actually do that much damage first time. And he's largely about entertainment and news stories. There's not really a consistent policy threat. I want to push back against this because I think tariffs is a good route into this. And then we'll move on to JD Vance and allies and NATO and Ukraine. So Trump has been saying that tariffs is one of the most beautiful word in the English language for many, many years now. In fact, he's on the record praising tariffs back in the late 80s. I'm just reading a great book at the moment called America first about America's more than hundred year romance from the American right with authoritarian dictators, in particular with Germany in the first and second World War. And in that book, it describing Trump's foreign policy in 2016, says that Trump believed that American allies mooched on the United States. In other words, they just exploited it, that there was no US national interest in investing in alliances in Europe and Asia, that Ukraine belonged firmly within Putin's sphere of influence and that dictators like Putin were worthy of emulation. And again, I would suggest that's pretty consistent. That's eight, nine years ago. It doesn't look like he's changed very much. In fact, actually, no, he has changed.
- [11:08]
Alistair Campbell
He's more on that track now than he was.
- [11:11]
Rory Stewart
And I guess one of the, I'm going to finish here. But one of the paradoxes is given all these beliefs, maybe the surprising thing isn't so much why he's doing all this stuff now. Maybe more surprising is why he didn't do more of this stuff in 2017-2021.
- [11:28]
Alistair Campbell
And the answer is probably that he was surrounded by people who thought that a lot of the stuff he was doing and saying was mad and they were trying to stop him, where he's now surrounded by people like Speaker Johnson Vance, who we saw sitting behind him in the Congress last night, like Elon Musk, like the Cabinet who are there basically to do their do as they're told. He's now feels emboldened and empowered. But I, I saw, I, I didn't, I, I was part of me said should I stay up and watch his Congress speech? Then very much larger part said no, go to bed. So I haven't watched the whole thing. I've just, and I am beginning only.
- [12:03]
Rory Stewart
Only 99 minutes long.
- [12:04]
Alistair Campbell
Alice I know. I mean it's, we're talking Castro levels here, aren't we? Really are. But this all goes into the thing about it's all about me. I mean any self respecting politician knows that if there's one thing other politicians can't stand is having to sit there for a very long time listening to somebody else talk at them. And he went on and on and on and on, loving the drama, loving the theater. Didn't actually say that much that was consequential or newsworthy and it was pretty tribal and one of the Democrats got got kicked out. But just to go, just to go back to why we first thought maybe we should do something today. In fact, Fiona, my, my Fiona said the other day, says the trouble with these with Trump at the moment is that you guys, us and the Mooch and Catty, you're doing these podcasts and then they go out the next morning and like so much stuff has already happened and it sort of feels like that. But we were actually thinking that we should do something about J.D. vance and what he said in yet another Fox News interview about Europe where he basically said we said this on the main podcast that went out this morning and by the way, I should tell people we're going to delay Question Time because we're going to put this is out going out live now. Members, our members can already see Question Time because it goes out with the main podcast, but we're going to put this out on general release, as it were, overnight tonight, and then question time on Friday. So I'll remind people of that at the end. But the thing about Vance, he did this interview with Fox News where he said the thing that I mentioned on the main podcast. Well, the trouble with the Europeans is that you, you know, they say one thing in private and they tell you they want to sort out Ukraine and get a ceasefire, but then they, they stand up in public and say, you know, I love you, Zelensky, and blah, blah, blah. And then he went on. They've got this absolute obsession that if they have this minerals deal with lots of American companies in their sort of, you know, digging and scavenging and foraging and what have you making money, why on earth isn't that a security guarantee? I think it's going to stop people. The fact that, you know.
- [14:06]
Rory Stewart
Interrupt for a second. Well, there are two answers to that. One is, of course, there are American miners all around the world. There are American miners in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That doesn't mean that the United States is getting involved in 150 insurgencies in democratic Republic of the Congo. Secondly, presumably all that matters is their ability to extract the minerals from the grounds. So most of these minerals, or a lot of them, are actually in the bit controlled by Putin.
- [14:29]
Alistair Campbell
Correct.
- [14:29]
Rory Stewart
So actually, in effect, all that has to happen is Putin has to say, go on, fill your boots, keep extracting the minerals. And presumably there's no reason for the US to get involved at all. If all they are interested in is protecting their mining assets. They don't care at all whether Zelensky's in office or Putin's in office.
- [14:43]
Alistair Campbell
Correct. So Vance then goes on, and I think Vance is an interesting character. I have read his book Hillbilly Elegy. It is very interesting. He did come from an extraordinary poor background, but I think he's become pretty repellent human being. And he went on to say that this would be a better security guarantee than the idea of 20,000 soldiers from some random country that hasn't fought a war in 30 to 40 years. Well, there's only two countries that are on the record. Others have indicated that they might take part. But there are only two countries that have actually said we would put quotes, boots on the ground that is the United Kingdom and France. So not surprisingly, people like the Shadow Defense Secretary, people like Johnny Mercer, former veteran, lots of soldiers, people like that guy who was Nicholl. Was it John Nicholl who was the, that was taken hostage? Yeah, the pilot who was, he was taken hostage. He. So a lot of very angry soldiers out there.
- [15:48]
Rory Stewart
And I had, I had front page of the British newspapers, Daily Express, Water.
- [15:53]
Alistair Campbell
War, absolutely vile about Vance. And I, I had, I've got, as you know, a couple of very good friends who are in Special Forces and they were absolutely livid and one of them just sent me a very, very short message of all the places that he had fought in alongside Americans in his nearly 20 year career.
- [16:14]
Rory Stewart
Let's, let's dig, let's dig in to this a little bit more. But just to follow this story through Vance then. And I followed on communications horror by making it even worse. He then came out and say I didn't mention the UK or France now. So then the question is, so who is it you did meet? Who is this random country that hasn't fought a war in 30, 40 years? So I was thinking back to my time in Iraq and Afghanistan and Afghanistan between 2010, 2017, any one time the UK had about 10,000 soldiers on the ground and France had about 4,000. But get this, Germany had 5,000, Italy had 4,000, Canada had 3,000, the Dutch had 2,000, the Poles, the Australians, the Spanish, the Danes, the Romanians, the Turks had about 1,000 each. The Bulgarians, the Belgians, the Norwegians, the Czechs had over 500 in Iraq, the South Koreans had 3600. The Ukrainians had 1600 helping the Americans. Japan had troops on the Grand Sea and the actual numbers of people we deployed was much bigger. Britain deployed 137,000 individual personnel deployments because remember we were there for 20 years. So you have 10,000 there at one time. You have to keep rotating them in and out on 6 month rotations. So the question then for JD Vance is given that over 50 countries came in to back the United States when the United States was attacked after 9.
- [17:43]
Alistair Campbell
11, it must be Luxembourg. I think Greenland. It might be Greenland.
- [17:51]
Rory Stewart
Well that's why they got a. Danes had troops on the ground. I think the Luxembourg contributed. I mean I think that if you really pin Vance down and try to ask him which country, he means he's really stuck because there were more than 50 countries on the ground.
- [18:04]
Alistair Campbell
But this is what is so annoying about the way that the media ecosystem works in America. I Mean, what does Vance actually do? He sits on the sofa and listens to Donald Trump and tries to get him riled up with Zelenskyy. He checks his Twitter feed probably about four hours a day looking at his Twitter feed and gets into spats with people like you and other Mehdi Hassan, other journalists. And then the other thing that he does is he does interviews with Fox News. And I think this is one of the reasons. And by the way, J.D. if you're listening, we'd love to have you on the podcast. One of the reasons I think they don't, they make mistakes is because they're always doing these interviews with people who just agree with them. So there's one point in that interview, I watched the who thing again last night. There's one point in that interview where they talk about everything that Biden and the Europeans tried to do to stop, stop Putin invading. And the interviewer says, and he's still invaded. And the guy starts laughing and then Vance starts laughing. Yeah, he's still invaded. And the look is sort of terrible. And but let me just a brief history lesson for anybody who wants to hear these things and completely please feed this back to J.D. vance. 1990-91, first Gulf 392 fatalities, including 47 British personnel, 53,000 British troops involved. Bosnian War 59 British fatalities out of 2,400 troops who were there as part of unprefort Kosovo war. Actually that was casualty wise. The NATO casualties were fairly low. We had 4,000 troops there alongside 7,000American troops. They talk about every war they've ever done as though it's all about them. There were 40,000 NATO troops. Most of those countries that you said there, Afghanistan, 457 UK military, 457 casualties killed for 477 deaths deaths out of 900. We had 150,000 overall, nine and a half thousand at peak. Iraq, 179 British soldiers killed out of 140,000 that took part. And then you go through Operation Desert Fox, Sierra Leone, we had a soldier killed. I can remember it vividly. We had a soldier killed in combat in Sierra Leone. And if you go to Sierra Leone these days, people will say that that was the British essentially say. And then you go into Libya and then also Operation Prosperity Garden is going on now. So there are British forces small in number alongside Americans right now in Yemen.
- [20:39]
Rory Stewart
Yeah. So I mean I think the other thing is to bring it down to individuals. So like, like almost everybody who was in Afghanistan, Iraq, I knew people who were killed and I knew many people who were permanently injured and they did so alongside Americans. Some of them were killed by Americans in friendly fire accidents. So I remember at the beginning of 2003 in Iraq, Lance Corporal Mattie Hull was killed when the US aircraft fired on the Blues and Royals. I was in Afghanistan when Stephen Farrell, who was the New York Times journalist, was freed by a British operation in which Corporal John Harrison was killed. And one of the things that never really came off in Parliament is that prime ministers read out the names of soldiers. So I remember my first Prime Minister's question, watching David Cameron say, I'd like to pay tribute from 40 Commando to Corporal Stephen Curley. But what they don't really tell you is who these people were. So Stephen Curley was a mountain warfare specialist. He was an amazingly inspiring Marine. He had saved another soldier at huge risk to his own life. He'd been killed by a bomb in a small alley in Sangin on patrol. And so we're talking here about hundreds of British and European lives that have been. Last night I served in Nasser alongside the Italians, saw an Italian soldier take a round on the leg. I saw the head of my bodyguard teams in New Zealander manning the general purpose machine gun, trying to keep Shia militia back from coming over our fence line. So these are wars in which the US relied on 70 or 80 years of goodwill. American power, Marshall plans, all American development assistance, its military integration to call on other nations to come to its aid. It was solidarity about an attack on the United States in 9 11. Right. That attack was not that Al Qaeda had attacked Denmark or Norway or Ukraine. Ukraine deployed into Iraq to help the United States. And what Vance has done is such an astonishing revelation of his profound ignorance, his insecurity, his silliness, his complete. His complete unsuitability for the role of Vice President. I cannot think of any Vice President in American history who would have been stupid enough to insult allies who gave lives in that way. But above all, for somebody who served in the military, an unbelievable contempt for the service of hundreds of thousands of soldiers who deployed and left their families to back the United States.
- [23:46]
Alistair Campbell
Well, let me. Let me tell you, I've just looked up Johnny Mercer's Twitter feed. This clown as Vance needs to check his privilege. I read his book, making the mistake of finding him quite interesting. As did I. By his own admission, he spent his time in the Marines, quotes writing articles and taking pictures. Perhaps if he'd got his hands dirty serving his country like so many of his fellow American and British veterans, chasing his own country's crazy foreign policy ideas, he might not be so quick to dismiss their sacrifice. And I think this will run. I suspect if this is getting any play, it probably won't be because they just move on to the next chapter in the Trump reality TV show. I suspect a lot of Americans will be really, really, a lot of American military will be angry about this because it's essentially saying. And you tie it. You imagine if you're Canadian today, you tie it in with what you said about the five eyes. They're basically saying, unless you are part of our gang Now, America 2025, nothing you ever did counts, doesn't count for anything. So he tried to backtrack and said, I didn't mean Britain, I didn't mean France. As you say, ridiculous. Who did you mean then? But actually, if you watch the interview in its totality, there's a level of arrogance and hubris that is really overwhelming. And if these people had any sense, they'd maybe govern a bit more and start talking a lot less.
- [25:05]
Rory Stewart
It's very weir because America, the America that I knew when I began my career very briefly in the military and then joining the Foreign Office, bent over backwards to make allies feel valued, even when America had more troops on the ground, even when it was spending more money. I remember when I was deployed, my first posting to. Sorry, not my first posting, my second posting to Montenegro, that the Americans came in to see us and they said, we're very pleased you're going to Montenegro, and we're very sorry that we don't have more people on the ground there. We're very sorry that we can't share much more with you. We're so grateful for all you're doing. And even at the time, I thought, they're blowing smoke. They probably do have a lot more assets and a lot more information than we do at Montenegro. But they at least pretended, right? They gave us a lot of credit. And then I remember a few months in, a large American coming up to me on the street and saying, I hear you haven't got a good evacuation plan. My evacuation plan was supposed to be that I was supposed to walk 40 miles to the Albanian border if something went wrong. And he said, I've got two Black Hawk helicopters at the airport, and if you're ever in any trouble, here's my number and I'll get you out, right? So that was the America that I knew, where there was no doubt, of course, that the United States had the kit, had the money, had the influence. But they've bent over backwards to Be gracious and courteous towards their allies, and this is reversing it all.
- [26:38]
Alistair Campbell
But this comes from the top. If you survey, just watch Vance in those meetings with Trump, this is what Michael Wolff says. He's playing to an audience of one. He wants to be the guy that Trump likes, respects, listens to, is influenced by, and so he's sold out his soul. We know that from all the things that he used to say about Trump that he now sort of is unsaid. But I also think it says something about Trump's personality, that it's the old thing about if you're really strong, you don't need to say you're strong. If you're really rich, you don't need to keep saying that you're really rich. If you're really powerful, you don't need to say if you're really clever, you don't go around saying I'm really clever. Trump is actually unbelievably unsecure about what other people think of him. So, and I, look, I, I had my, my closest experience with the American military was when I went and I've talked to you this about before, and I went and worked at NATO SHAPE headquarters in, in Belgium under the. And General Wes Clark was the guy in charge and what have you. And that was absolutely multinational. I mean, you know, there was a. The top guy was American, the second guy was a Brit, the third guy was a German. The Italians, as you say, went right down Turks, all sorts of people there. And the Americans in there, yes, they're brash and yes, they're American and what have you, but they could not have been more welcoming, solicitous, helpful, and not sort of throwing their weight around the whole time. And I think what we've got is the reason why the Zelenskyy meeting sort of offended so many people. It just looked like a couple of bullies throwing their weight around.
- [28:18]
Rory Stewart
It's also unbelievably stupid of the United States because I think Vance is focusing on the fact that the US in these engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan had more manpower and more kit and more money and was doing more of the fighting. And that's absolutely true. When I was surrounded in my compound in Iraq, in the end, it was an American AC130 specs, a gunship coming down from Baghdad that got rid of the people attacking our position. We were very reliant on the Americans for logistics, for air support and all this stuff. But do the counterfactual imagining if America had gone into Iraq and Afghanistan alone. Imagine how quickly those interventions would have collapsed in the global consciousness. Everything that people hated those interventions for, it would have been within a few weeks or months if America was there alone, doing all the killing alone, doing all the occupation alone, facing this full insurgency alone. Bush, Obama, all these people understood that these coalitions, the willing, were absolutely vital for suggesting to the world that what America was doing fighting terrorism or what America was doing fighting Saddam Hussein was not just an American selfish interest, but it was about global security, it was about democracy, it was about human rights and all this other stuff which may be question now, but will not be possible if the US tries to do any intervention in the future, because it will find itself doing it alone, and alone it will be much weaker.
- [29:57]
Alistair Campbell
Look what happened over Syria when, and we often say that that was maybe when Putin decided the west was weak. I'll do. I can really move into Syria. I can do whatever I want. And that probably made it getting away with. That made him think he could get away with Ukraine and what have you. But one of the reasons for that was Barack Obama felt that to do it alone as the United States would not be effective. So these guys are basically thinking, you know, they can do whatever they want because they're America. And you know, I was, Fiona and I were watching, I mentioned on the main podcast, the Norma Percy series on, on the Middle east and the final episode. Trump is in part of it and of course he's, he's there basically saying, I'm a great deal maker, I'm going to make a great deal. I'm going to get the Palestinians and the Israelis. It's going to be beautiful. It's going to be a great deal. This is in his first term now. Where is he today? As the, as the ceasefire is under real pressure. ANSA not really caring because he's moved on. He's focused on Ukraine and then Canada and then Mexico. And we're back to Michael Wolf's point about it being a sort of, you know, just keep updating the story, keep finding a new storyline as opposed to actually govern the country. Rory, we've got a few minutes left. Do you think it's worth. Have you got anything?
- [31:14]
Rory Stewart
Let's just do Germany and sort of a couple of quick things. I mean, just to deepen the problem. Why none of this adds up. The reason that Trump was going for Greenland is, was all about minerals, Arctic security, trying to deal with those lines that connect Russia with the American landmass. And right in the heart of that is Canada. There's a $38.6 billion commitment to modernize the North American Air Defense Command. There are incredible reliance of the United States on Canada because Canada has that enormous landmass for doing almost everything they want to do on air surveillance, maritime, Arctic, overwatch, challenging Russia up in that northeast corner. Everything that he claimed he's getting from Greenland. Canada offers so much of that, and he's about to blow it up. Final quick couple of things before Germany, I really interested in something that you've talked about and I didn't take seriously enough. So I've been looking at this march, which is the admiration for Hungary and the way in which people like Vance can really only be understood in terms of this very, very weird story of admiring the authoritarian ruler of this tiny country with a population about half the size of Florida. And, you know, you've been on this for a long time. Balas Orban, who is one of the great ideologues of Orban, the ruler, turns up in Vance's office, comes up on stage with him at Heritage foundation conferences, gets photographs taken with him, and they admire Hungary in a tradition that is very, very old. And a lot of the language that you can see being used, so language about population replacement, immigration is language that was used by the American right and isolationists to justify supporting Germany in the first and second World Wars. And I've been thinking about this. I'll finish on this and then hand back to you that if you look at the way that the far right in America tried to defend Germany in the First World War, substitute Russia, Belgium for Ukraine. So you remember First World War, Kaiser Wilhelm rolls into neutral Belgium, and the American propagandists for Germany tried to say it wasn't Germany's fault Germany had been encircled. Britain and France got too close to Germany. And anyway, Germany was this wonderful authoritarian power. It had a powerful leader in Kaiser Wilhelm. The German economy was doing very well, producing twice as much steel as brick Britain, just as much coal as United Kingdom. And anyway, democracy had got weak and German culture was showing the strength. And the king of Belgium, who was the great hero of all this, was the sort of Zelensky of the era who they really went out of their way to try to rubbish and say, there is no US Interest in this at all. And their final move, of course, was not just to say, germany didn't start the war, someone else started it, but to say that we need Germany in those days to fight Russia, just as they now say we need Putin and Russia to fight China. Okay, back over to You.
- [34:32]
Alistair Campbell
Right, but we're now in an era of this post truthism. So what they do when things go wrong for them is they either make up the facts, give alternative facts, or they move on to, to the next thing. Yeah, the Orban thing is fascinating. It's absolutely fascinating. By the way, Roy, the other, the other friend that came out in support of J.D. vance, which was, I think a pretty lethal error, was Kemi Badlock. She was out on one of the farm protests and she basically came out as a sort of unpaid, voluntary spin doctor trying to spin what he'd said and said. I don't think he was criticizing Britain or France. I've seen what he said. He's a good friend of mine, he respects Britain, blah, blah, blah. Bad move, Kemi. I think that when you, when, if you're a Brit or you're French, I don't think you listen to that and think this guy's being really nice about Britain and France. I really don't. So listen, let's just talk about Germany, because yesterday, the podcast that we recorded yesterday has gone out today. I just wonder whether the German Secret service were listening because we were saying, listen, these guys need to get together and do a very quick, sharp coalition agreement and get out and get going. And so what happened yesterday was that Friedrich Merz and Marcus Serda, the leader of the csu, the Bavarian System Party, they did a press event after a meeting with Lars Kling Bell, one of the leaders of the STP and another coalition negotiator, and they announced that this famous debt break that they have is going to be reformed and they're going to do this before the new government is formed so that they can stop the blocking minority that the AfD and the linker between them would be able to mount. And this will exempt defense spending from the debt, break the Constitution's fiscal restraint. So that is a big, big deal. And essentially what he said was, and this again, it does sound rather like the speech I said he should make. As he basically said, in view of the threats to our freedom and peace on the continent, whatever it takes has to now apply to the country's defense. So that's a big move.
- [36:51]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, and it's a reminder that the basic shtick from wans with which we began is to massively underestimate Europe and European allies and to just gently slag them off in every different sort of way. There was some quite interesting stuff actually came out of Caddy K and Ricci's stuff on this, where you can see a Culture stretches a long way before Leon Vance into senesis. Congressmen basically saying Europe doesn't really matter anymore. And what Europe is actually demonstrating is firstly, that it moves quicker than people could believe. We actually, Europe stood up against Putin's invasion of Ukraine much more quickly than anyone would have predicted, much more than people like Vance predicted back in the day where they thought we'd be completely disunified and we were so reliant on Russian gas we'd never dare to confront him. But it's also worth just reminding people how big the European economy is. Well, the European. I mean, Britain's economy is considerably larger than Russia's. Put all the European economies together. I mean, you're looking at them being 12 times larger than the Russian economy. Now, to put that in context, the American economy is probably five times larger than the German economy, four or five times larger than German economy, and we feel the US Is a very wealthy place. It is. Right. But compare Europe together against Russia, 12 times larger. Right. Europe is still one of the most significant global super. 15% of all the world's GDP is currently in Europe. And if what Germany's doing and what Poland is doing and what the Nordic countries are doing, Finland, Scandinavia is reinforced by Britain and France, there is something pretty remarkable coming which will prove everything Vance said wrong. Final question to you, because, again, just to promote our sister podcast, Restless Politics Us, I was pretty shocked by what I was hearing from Mooch and Carrie K. They basically were saying, to my horror, it's very obvious Zelenskyy's got no chance. What he's got to do is he's got to go out on Fox News, he's got to apologize completely. He's to sign the minerals deal, and he might have to resign. And I was thinking, what planet are these people on? I mean, who have they been talking to? What does Zelenskyy get out of this? I mean, America. And I'm not blaming the Mooch and Caddy. K. Right. They're in.
- [39:30]
Alistair Campbell
You just asking what planet? You just asking what planet they're on?
- [39:32]
Rory Stewart
Well, I think what they're in is an echo chamber of talking to American senators and congressmen that have completely lost touch with reality.
- [39:39]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. Because the point.
- [39:42]
Rory Stewart
The point is, what on earth would Zelenskyy get from that? You know, what comes with it? Where are the security guards? I mean, given that, essentially, I tell you what this is, and Shoshana made this point to me, what the US Is doing in Ukraine is identical to what the US did in Afghanistan. They're basically handing the country over to the Taliban in Afghanistan and they hand the country over to Putin. And remember, Trump and Biden theoretically had deals with the Taliban. Didn't matter. Soon as they left, Taliban take the country, nobody cares about the deals anymore. There might be a theoretical deal between the US And Putin. They leave, Putin takes, nobody talks about the deal anymore. Putin's got Ukraine, that's the end of the story.
- [40:24]
Alistair Campbell
The other thing you have to do this is maybe what the mooch and catch you talk about next time around. Write down a list of all the things that Trump has demanded of Zelenskyy. Write down a list of all the things he said of Zelenskyy which are very critical of Zelenskyy, and then perform the same exercise for Putin where you will find he has asked next to nothing and he has made no public criticism whatsoever.
- [40:53]
Rory Stewart
Can I add one more on your list?
- [40:55]
Alistair Campbell
Go on.
- [40:56]
Rory Stewart
Put in the list everything that he's demanded from Zelenskyy and then put on the other side everything that he's promised to do for Zelenskyy.
- [41:03]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, that's not a bad one. So then say to yourself, if you're Zelensky and you're the leader of a nation under profound existential threat. What I liked about Zelenskyy's statement yesterday was that he did the grovel, grovel, grovel stuff, but then when you get to the end of it, he basically slides in there that this will be a step towards security guarantees. So the news is all about how he's agreed to sign the mineral deal. He basically said he'd agreed to sign the mineral deal as a step towards security guarantees. So the sequencing, if you're reading that letter and think, oh, well, that's the order in which this goes, but no, not necessarily so. If I'd have been an American, I wouldn't have been quite so cocky. Also, by the way, Roy, I was talking to Pat Kenny on Irish radio today and he said, I hadn't heard this, but he said that this talk this week of a meeting in the White House with Trump, Zelensky, Macron and Starmer. Now, I don't know if that's the buzz, I've not heard that officially, but I do think it's interesting. And by the way, there's this European summit on Thursday, EU's 27 national leaders that will include Orban. So obviously, you know, people won't be able to necessarily say what they think the whole time, but I'm going to repeat my. I know we have a Lot of German government listeners. I'm going to repeat my suggestion that Scholz takes Merz with him. Yeah, I think that's a very strong signal.
- [42:28]
Rory Stewart
And then let me just put in my last thing there. Quit playing Trump's game. Stop it. Trump could not have been clearer for more than a decade that he believes Putin's line on Ukraine. We are humiliating ourselves again and again, bending over backwards, begging, giving him exactly what he wants, which is that he just feels he can demand anything at the moment from people. We're abandoning Canada and not stepping up for what should be one of our closest allies in the world. We are about to give away $500 billion of Ukraine's mineral resources, and there is nothing coming in return. Nothing. And at some point, this optimism bias needs to be challenged. And at some point, this desperate spectacle of leaders turning up to flatter Trump, believing somehow this is the last chance saloon. You know, I talked to you about this awful briefing against Zelensky, you know, Rutte, the NATO Secretary General, criticizing him, people saying immediately afterwards he didn't quite wear the right clothes. All of this tying in to the Kati K. Mooch story that, oh, it's very obvious what needs to happen. Zelenskyy just needs to apologize, go on Fox News, humiliate himself. And then what? And the answer is exactly nothing. Yeah, I mean, Trump has. I mean, look, I don't know how to repeat this enough. Trump has no interest in American troops or American planes doing anything in Ukraine.
- [43:58]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah.
- [43:59]
Rory Stewart
So he cannot provide a security guarantee.
- [44:02]
Alistair Campbell
Well, listen, my final word, Rory, is a message to JD Vance that if and when the state visit happens and he comes with Trump camp, I'd like him to meet my friend Bobby from Hereford. He wants to speak to him. Bobby. Bobby from Hereford is really not happy with J.D. now, listen, this is a. So what day is today? Wednesday. So this is Wednesday. It's a Wednesday afternoon. I don't know how many of you are at work, but There are over 15,000 of you on this stream. And the live show that we did the other day, Rory, on the back of the zelensky meeting, over 2 million people we had by the end of it who watched it. So there's a lot of interest in this. If you've enjoyed today's stream, do please hit subscribe, become a subscriber, and Rory will tell you all sorts of great things that we get out of that. I'm always a bit more embarrassed because he's. He's sort of probably. He's a bit populist. About it. He says, you know, we have exclusive interviews that. No, we did an interview with Trump the other day, but we just gave it to subscribers. But we are gonna, we're gonna. So this has been live. Thank you for all of you who watched and listened. We'll put out this on general release overnight. And then on Friday we'll put out our question time where we've got some very, very interesting.
- [45:17]
Rory Stewart
But if you want to listen earlier to the question time, become a subscriber. And that's also true for some of the interviews we're going to put out and other stuff. Thank you all very, very, very much for listening. And I think the main point is this. There's a real tendency because of Trump not doing so much in 2017-2020 to think that people have got Trump derangement syndrome, that it's all exaggerated, he's got it, that he's not really doing very much. It's not going to be so bad. I met someone today, a Swiss woman saying maybe it's going to be good for the world. Just try to concentrate on what he's actually doing. He has destroyed any possibility of reconstruction for Gaza with his absolutely irresponsible, illegal comments about Gaza. He's destroyed that. He's destroyed any possibility of trying to challenge Russia effectively over Ukraine, forcing Europe into this very high risk strategy which at the moment is teetering on the edge of an open conflict with Russia and with his nearest trading partner. For all those bankers and business people who are still celebrating Trump and how splendid he is for the American economy, these are real. These are real 25% tariffs, which will mean an effect on nearly. I mean, sorry, I don't want to go through this again, but I mean, let me just try once more on these figures. So people, get this. 75% of all Canadian exports, imports, 35% of all Canadian imports, 18% of Canadians gross domestic product. And it's mutual, as you pointed out. It's not just hitting Canada, it's hitting the American economy. And he's doing it to Mexico and China as well. So it's not all bluff and bluster. It's not all a great thing because he's bringing efficiency, he's doing real stuff and we need to watch it.
- [47:09]
Alistair Campbell
But Rory, we're talking about, he's the center of attention in every country in the world and that is what he lives for. But just hold on to this thought. One day he won't be there. Thank you for listening. See you soon. Bye bye.
- [47:22]
Rory Stewart
See you soon. Bye bye. Alistair.
- [47:27]
Al Murray
Hi there. I'm Al Murray, co host of we have ways of making you talk, the world's premier second World war history podcast from Goal Hanger.
- [47:35]
Ryan Seacrest
And I'm James Holland, best selling World War II historian. And together we tell the best stories from the war. This time we're doing a deep dive into the last major attack by the Nazis on the west, the Battle of the Bulge.
- [47:49]
Al Murray
And what's so fascinating about this story is we've been able to show how quite a lot of the popular history about this battle is kind of the wrong way around, isn't it, Jim? The whole thing is a disaster from the start. Even Hitler's plans for the attack are insane and divorced from reality.
- [48:01]
Ryan Seacrest
Well, you're so right. But what we can do is celebrate this as an American success story for the ages. From their generals at the top to the gis on the front line. Full of gumption and grit, the bold should be remembered as a great, great victory for the usa.
- [48:16]
Al Murray
And if this sounds good to you, we've got a short taste for you here. Search we have ways, wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks. Yeah.
- [48:28]
Ryan Seacrest
Anyway, so who is Ober van Furer? Joachim Piper.
- [48:32]
Al Murray
But I see his jaunty hat and I just think skull and crossbones. Well, I see his reputation and I think, you know, you might be a handsome devil, but the emphasis is on the devil bit rather than that.
- [48:42]
Ryan Seacrest
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, be that is May. He's 29 years old and he's got, he's got a very interesting career really because he comes from a, you know, a pretty right wing family, let's face it. He's joined the SS at a pretty early, early stage. He's very. International socialism. He's also been Himmler's adjutant. Yeah, he took a little bit of time off in the summer of 1940 to go and fight with, with the 1st Waffen SS Panzer Division. Yeah, did pretty well. Went back to being Himmler's adjutant, then went off and commanded troops in, in the Eastern Front. Rose up to be a pretty young regimental commander. I mean it's not many people that age are no Besturm Banfuhrer, which is sort of. Colonel.
- [49:17]
Al Murray
Yes, I, you see, what must it have been like if you're in, if Himmler's adjutant turns up and he's been posted to you as an officer, do you think? Well, he only got that job because of, because of his connections. For Piper, it must have been always, he's always having to prove himself, surely, because he has turned up, he's not worked his way through the ranks of the Waffen ss. He's dolloped in having come from head office, as it were. It must be a peculiar position to be in. Right. He's got lots to prove. Right, that's what I'm saying.
- [49:45]
Ryan Seacrest
Yeah. And he's, he's, he's from a sort of middle class background as well.
- [49:49]
Al Murray
Yeah.
- [49:49]
Ryan Seacrest
But he's got an older brother who's had mental illness and attempted suicide and never, never really recovers and actually has died in of TB eventually in 1942. He's got a younger brother called Horst who's also joined the SS&TOTEN cop Verbanda and died in a never really properly explained accident in Poland in 1941.
- [50:08]
Alistair Campbell
Right.
- [50:08]
Ryan Seacrest
Piper gains sort of growing reputation on the Eastern Front for being kind of very inspiring. Fearless, you know, obviously courageous, you know, all the guys love him, all that kind of stuff. But he's also orders the entire, the destruction of entire village of Krasnaya Polyana in a kind of revenge killing by Russian partisans. Yeah. And his unit becomes known as the Blowtorch Battalion because of his penchant for touching Russian villages. So he's, he's got all the gongs, he's got Iron Cross, second class, first Class Cross of Gold, Knight's Cross. Did very well at Kursk briefly in Northern Italy actually, then in Ukraine, then in Normandy. He suffers a nervous breakdown. Yeah. And he's relieved of his command on the 2nd of August and he's hospitalized from September to October. So he's not in command during Operation Lutech. And then he rejoins 1st SS Panzer Regiment as its commander again in October 1944. It's really, really odd.
- [51:00]
Al Murray
I mean, but isn't that interesting though, because if you're a lancer, if you're an ordinary soldier, you're not allowed to have a nervous breakdown. You don't get hot hospitalized, you don't get time off. How you could interpret this is. This is a sort of Nazi princeling, isn't. He is Himmler's adjutant. He's demonstrated the necessary Nazi zeal on the Eastern front and all this sort of stuff. It comes to Normandy where they, where they're losing. Why else would he have a nervous breakdown? He's shown all the zeal and application in the Nazi manner up to this point and they're losing, you know, and because he's a knob, you know, because he's well connected, he gets to be hospitalized. If he has a nervous breakdown, he isn't told like an ordinary German soldier. There's no such thing as combat fatigue, mate. Go back to work.
- [51:37]
Ryan Seacrest
Yes, and it's a nervous breakdown, not combat fatigue.
- [51:39]
Al Murray
Well, yes, of course, but.
- [51:40]
Ryan Seacrest
But you know what SS soldier said of him? Piper was the most dynamic man I ever met. He just got things done.
- [51:47]
Al Murray
Yeah.
- [51:47]
Ryan Seacrest
You get this image I have of him of having this kind of. Sort of slightly manic energy. Yeah, kind of. He's virulently National Socialist. He's got this great reputation. He's damned if anyone's going to tarnish it. You know, he's a. He's a driver. You know, all those things.
- [52:01]
Al Murray
He's trying to make the will triumph, isn't he? He's working towards the Fuhrer. He's imbued with. He knows what's expected of him. Extreme violence and cruelty and pushing his men on. I mean, he's sort of. He's the Fuhrer Princip writ large, isn't he, as a. As an SS officer, which is why cruelty and extreme violence are bundled in to wherever he goes, basically.