423. Question Time: Glastonbury’s Israel fallout, New York’s socialist mayor and why NATO called Trump ‘daddy’

Summary

The Rest Is Politics - Episode 423 Summary

Title: Question Time: Glastonbury’s Israel fallout, New York’s socialist mayor and why NATO called Trump ‘daddy’
Host: Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart
Release Date: July 2, 2025

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1. Introduction

In this episode of The Rest Is Politics, hosts Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart delve into a range of pressing political issues both within the UK and internationally. From New York's surprising mayoral race outcome to controversial stances at the Glastonbury festival, and from U.S. foreign policy maneuvers to NATO's peculiar tributes, Campbell and Stewart provide insightful analysis and engaging debate on these topics.

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2. Zoran Mamdani's Triumph in New York's Mayoral Race

Alistair Campbell opens the discussion by addressing the unexpected victory of Zoran Mamdani in the Democratic primary for New York's mayoral race, defeating the favored Andrew Cuomo.

• Impact on Global Politics and the Democratic Party:
  Cambridge notes: "Zoran Mamdani's win is a beacon of hope for progressives worldwide" (01:30).

• Campaign Strategies:
  Rory Stewart highlights Mamdani's grassroots approach, emphasizing his use of TikTok to engage voters, contrasting it with Cuomo's heavy reliance on traditional television advertising. Rory remarks: "Zoran came from nowhere and used essentially TikTok to cruise to victory over Cuomo" (02:40).

• Implications for UK Labour:
  The hosts predict that UK Labour may adopt similar progressive strategies, focusing on wealth taxes and a social democratic approach. Stewart suggests: "Mamdani senses that we're in a moment more comfortable with wealth taxes, and UK Labour will follow his example" (06:23).

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3. Glastonbury's Support for Gaza and BBC Censorship

The episode shifts focus to Glastonbury Festival's stance on the Israel-Gaza conflict and allegations of BBC censorship.

• Festival's Political Statement:
  Campbell criticizes the impassioned yet divisive chants at Glastonbury, questioning the lack of proportionate outrage towards the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. He states: "Where is the outrage about thousands of kids? I just think it's sort of exasperating" (13:06).

• BBC's Role:
  The hosts argue that mainstream media, including the BBC, often ignores significant reports on Gaza, contributing to a skewed public perception. Campbell observes: "The very strong conclusion was, if anything, there is a very, very strong pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian bias" (13:48).

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4. Trump's Involvement in the Rwanda-Congo Peace Deal

A significant portion of the discussion centers on President Donald Trump's role in brokering a peace deal between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

• Nature of the Peace Deal:
  Rory Stewart provides a comprehensive overview of the conflict's history and the peace negotiations. He explains: "The peace deal includes demobilization, reintegration, ceasefires, refugee return, and joint coordinating mechanisms for security" (18:24).

• Skepticism About Effectiveness:
  Both hosts express doubts about the deal's long-term viability, citing the exclusion of key groups like the M23 rebel faction. Campbell remarks: "They haven't done the work to give this deal a chance of sticking" (23:08).

• Trump's Motivations and Future Impact:
  The discussion critiques Trump's possible ulterior motives, such as securing access to Congo's mineral wealth. Rory opines: "Trump is phoning his big friends saying, I'm going to get the Nobel" (21:56).

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5. U.S. Health Secretary's Withdrawal of Funding from Gavi

The hosts analyze the implications of the U.S. Health Secretary's decision to pull funding from Gavi, the Global Vaccine Alliance.

• Reasons Behind the Withdrawal:
  Campbell attributes the decision to the Health Secretary's vaccine skepticism and conspiracy theories. He states: "He's been a vaccine skeptic for an awful long time" (28:04).

• Global Health and Geopolitical Consequences:
  Stewart emphasizes the dire ramifications, predicting the premature deaths of 14 million people over five years due to the funding cut. He asserts: "This is one of the most simple, straightforward arguments for international development aid" (29:59).

• Broader Context of Aid Cuts:
  The discussion links this move to broader trends of reduced international aid, notably under the Trump and Musk administrations, exacerbating global health crises. Campbell warns: "Low and middle-income countries are now going to face a shock comparable in scale to a global pandemic" (31:45).

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6. Sir John Major's Critique of Donald Trump

The episode features an examination of Sir John Major's recent speech criticizing President Trump and assessing the state of the UK-US special relationship.

• Content of the Speech:
  Major questions: "Is barbarianism now acceptable?" and "Has the law, human decency, and political morality been cast aside?" (35:22).

• Implications for the Special Relationship:
  Campbell and Stewart discuss whether Major's outspoken criticism signifies irreversible damage to UK-US ties. Major emphasizes: "We're beginning to elect leaders concerned only about national self-interest" (35:22).

• Impact on UK Policy:
  The hosts correlate Major's warnings with current UK policy shifts, such as increased defense spending at the expense of welfare and international aid, attributing some responsibility to Trump's destabilizing influence. Stewart reflects: "Populism creates violence, conflict forces an increase in defense spending" (36:28).

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7. NATO Leader Mark Rutte's Reference to Trump as 'Daddy'

A particularly contentious topic is NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte's characterization of Trump as 'daddy,' examining its implications for international diplomacy.

• Context of the Comment:
  During a NATO summit, Rutte reportedly referred to Trump affectionately, which Campbell and Stewart find both humiliating and strategically flawed. Rutte's message in the transcript reads: "Donald, you have driven us to a really, really important moment for America and Europe and the world" (38:19).

• Critique of Diplomacy:
  The hosts criticize Rutte's approach, contrasting it with leaders like Angela Merkel and Theresa May, who maintained dignity and professional distance. Stewart argues: "Mark Rutte is ... making Trump feel that he's completely won, that he's totally vindicated in all his disgusting international behavior" (42:43).

• Long-term Consequences:
  They warn that such flattery undermines the credibility and effectiveness of international alliances like NATO, paving the way for inconsistent policies and weakened strategic positions. Campbell concludes: "It’s all the same story. Just remind people the message goes like this..." (37:43).

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8. Conclusion

Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart wrap up the episode by emphasizing the need for principled leadership and coherent policy-making in the face of destabilizing political figures and trends. They advocate for learning from emerging progressive successes, like Mamdani's campaign, to forge a more equitable and stable political landscape both domestically and internationally.

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Notable Quotes:

• Rory Stewart on Mamdani's Victory:
  "Zoran came from nowhere and used essentially TikTok to cruise to victory over Cuomo." (02:40)

• Alistair Campbell on Media Bias:
  "The very strong conclusion was, if anything, there is a very, very strong pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian bias." (13:48)

• Sir John Major's Reflection:
  "Is might now right? Has the law, human decency and political morality been cast aside?" (35:22)

• Rory Stewart on NATO's Conduct:
  "Mark Rutte is ... making Trump feel that he's completely won, that he's totally vindicated in all his disgusting international behavior." (42:43)

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This summary encapsulates the key discussions and insights from Episode 423 of The Rest Is Politics, providing listeners with a comprehensive overview of the political debates and analyses presented by Campbell and Stewart.

Transcript

[Alistair Campbell]

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[Rory Stewart]

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[Alistair Campbell]

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[Alistair Campbell]

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[Alistair Campbell]

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[Rory Stewart]

Welcome to the Rest is Politics Question time with me, Rory Stewart, and with me, Alistair Campbel.

[Alistair Campbell]

And Rory, by my reckoning, in the main episode, you mentioned Zoran Mamdani three times and that's very good because we got lots of questions about him. Here's one from Henry Allen. What do you think the impact of Zoran Mamdani's win will be globally and for the Democrats. So this is the guy who has beaten Andrew Cuomo in the Democrat primary for the mayor of New York and who was, you know, I'd say, given quite a lot of hope to people on the progressive side of politics around the world.

[Rory Stewart]

Well, it's an incredible story, an absolutely incredible story. So just to remind people a little bit, even friends of mine who really knew New York politics had not heard of Zoran Mamdani came from absolutely nowhere. The only people I knew who knew him well were intellectuals because his parents are an amazing celebrity intellectual couple. His father, Mahmoud Mandani, is one of the great kind of post colonial theorists. He's a big professor at Columbia. His name was very much associated with the big demonstrations at Columbia University. His mother is a very famous filmmaker who made Monsoon Weddings Salaam Bombay. So that a lot of my South Asian friends knew them. A lot of my friends in New York knew them because the parents are darling of the Cannes Film Festival, the Lun Review of Books. But Zoran is young, bright, liked by people, but my goodness, nobody in American politics was talking about him. And because the person running who seemed absolutely guaranteed to get it was Andrew Cuomo from the great political family of New York, totally stitched up. He raised an incredible amount of money. And I was talking to someone who said that basically you turned on local television in New York, you would get 19 or 20 ads in the hour you were watching just for Cuomo. And the traditional story in American politics is all about television advertising. Raise enough money, buy enough television ads and you can win. Now, of course, that model began to creak 2016 with Clinton and Trump, but my goodness, Zora Mamdani has totally blown it up. Came from nowhere and used essentially TikTok to cruise to victory over to you.

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, he actually did a version of what you did, Rory, when you were running for London mayor. Rory, the famous Rory walks. He walked the entire length of his sort of dozens of kilometres, and he was visiting sort of here, there and everywhere, brilliantly made little media packages. He had very, very simple policy messages, free buses and a lot of trolls.

[Rory Stewart]

A lot of interviewing. I mean, I think one of the other things that I learned.

[Alistair Campbell]

Listening interview.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, exactly. I learned this doing it in a much less successful way. But in the moments running for Lunmere, where I actually thought I had a chance of defeating Sadiq Khan, were the moments where I really went viral by listening, staying in people's homes, being out in the streets, being challenged by people, because I think we're in a world where we want the raw reception. But he's really demonstrated, I mean, far, far better than I ever could, because he's really native to this medium.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah. And what he did was a lot of people, when their party loses an election, think, oh, well, it wasn't that bad and we won anyway, let's go and we'll just sort of carry on with the message. But what he went out is he noted the data said that actually Trump in the presidential election did far better in the poorer areas of New York than historically would have been the case. So one of the first big things he did was to go out with a camera crew, with his own people and genuinely talk to people, not just sort of tell them what he thought, but ask them again and again, why did you vote for Trump? What was it about? Him what was it about our campaign, et cetera, et cetera. And then that sort of was reflected back in some of his campaign messaging. He cut through all the sort of big money stuff. And by the way, our colleague, rest his part is us, Mr. Mooch. He was big for Cuomo, big against Mamdami, Slightly buying into the idea that this guy is a terrible kind of lefty. I mean, by our standards he's not that left wing. You know, free buses, what's not to like?

[Rory Stewart]

There's a bit of analogy with Ed Miliband, who we just did a long leading interview with, who also had this Ed and David had this famous, very famous public intellectual, left wing father, which is true for Zoran as well.

[Alistair Campbell]

But he himself doesn't come over as a sort of, you know, lofty intellectual. And he's got a wonderful smile which you know, we talked about Kamala's smile. Smiles in politics are very, very important.

[Rory Stewart]

Also wears a suit which is interesting. Stands out in the street cause he's quite formally dressed given that he comes from the sort of Bernie Sanders aoc, edge of American politics. So what are his policies? His policies are free bus passes, city owned grocery stores, rent freezes, free childcare, a lot of focus on transport.

[Alistair Campbell]

Communism, as Donald Trump calls it. Communism. He's an out and out communist.

[Rory Stewart]

He's Talking about a 2% tax, flat tax on the wealthiest in New York as well. The reason I was talking about in the last podcast though is that he suggests where I think Labour inevitably is going to go. So my big prediction on UK Labour is that in the end they're going to go left, they're going to embrace wealth taxes and they're going to realize that the way that you have to operate in a populist environment is not to try to hold the center, but in fact what they're going to have to do is go left. And I think Mamdani senses that. He senses that he's in a moment which is much more comfortable with wealth taxes, much more comfortable with a more soft, socialist, social democratic approach to the world. And I think that's where UK Labour will follow him. They'll take his example.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah, I was actually talking yesterday to an American who works for the kind of he helps progressive politicians get elected. And he was, he made a very interesting argument. He says that we've got to somehow get away from these labels of left and right and that in the current circumstances taxation should be seen as an issue of fairness, of equality, and also of actually trying to get the economy going because one of the best ways to get growth going is to give poor people a lot of money to spend rather than have your money wrapped up in rich people keeping their savings and their, and their assets. So I think that. Thank you to our listeners who've been nagging us to interview Gary Stevenson. We've, we have done it. It will be coming out in the next few weeks. But I think there's something in this. And look, I, I think that the other thing that he's done, I watched his interview. I heard he was on Meet the Press on the weekend, you know, one of the famous Sunday shows in the States. So I watched it and actually the other guy who was on it was Chris Murphy. And we should give him a shout out because he's been brilliant on Trump and Corruption, which we talked about in the main podcast. But what really refreshing about watching Mamdani is he's very relaxed when he's talking. Now, listen, they're all going to pile on in him now. Eric Adams is going to go for him. The establishment is going to go for him. The Republicans are clearly going to go for him big time. Trump's already started, but he's got this very refreshing manner. He was given several sort of opportunities just to whack back at the Republicans, whack back at Trump. And he didn't. He just kind of, he's got his own message, he's got his own framing for it just kept coming back to it. Speaks very fluently, very naturally. No, I think he's a breath of fresh air. And the fact that we're talking about him here in London just underlines how much people are yearning for these sort of young progressive voices to give us a bit of hope.

[Rory Stewart]

Final one for me is that of course, he's coming in on the back of the Eric Adams corruption scandal. So the existing mayor of New York got up to extraordinary shenanigans. The FBI and the DOJ were after him. They were just on the cusp of being able to really pin down the kinds of benefits he'd taken from the Turkish government in return for granting favors to them, including tapping his phone. And then Trump decided to drop all charges against him. And Adams went from being the darling of the Democratic Party in New York to becoming a Trump synthesizer. He's now thinking of running as an independent again. He's very pro crypto. Back to that story again. So crypto money could come in behind Adams, but he's been banned from the matching funds program in New York, so we could end up In a world in which Adams is running as an independent, Cuomo is running as an independent, and Mamdani's trying to run against both of them. Anyway, good luck to Mamdani.

[Alistair Campbell]

It's the first time we've talked about him. I suspect it won't be the last. Now, Rory, this one's from Jess. After Glastonbury's displays of support for Gaza and accusations of BBC censorship, is impartiality becoming a cover for moral failure on Palestine? What are your thoughts on this and the coverage of BB Bob Villains, chants. Don't forget kneecap people.

[Rory Stewart]

Well, again, I mean, I. I've been slightly out of it because I've. I've been in and out of doing stuff, including some medical stuff. So what I saw was emerging and suddenly seeing the astonishing anger on every side, obviously. Front pages in the Telegraph, many friends reaching out to me, saying, this is completely disgusting. This is the end of the BBC. How dare Bob Villain do this? And what I haven't seen in the reporting is anybody finding a way of expressing disgust and outrage at people calling for the death of soldiers and linking it to what it would feel like to be calling for the death of national soldiers in any country, along with the way in which this whole thing has become sucked into the vortex of people's views, either pro Israel or pro Gaza. And that we can't actually step back and let. I suppose if I was going to be cliched, let the police do their job, work out whether these people have committed a crime, work out how they're prosecuted, instead of immediately deciding whether we're against them or for them.

[Alistair Campbell]

Let me have a go at being measured and sensible and all the things that people look to us for. Point one, musicians down the years have, as part of their stock in trade, said and done controversial things, often because they believe them, but often because they want attention. And we are living evermore in an attention economy.

[Rory Stewart]

Is the Sex Pistols in the Royal Family an example of that?

[Alistair Campbell]

That would be a very good example of that, but so would Elvis gyrating. I mean, Elvis started a global moral panic by making sexual gestures while he danced. Okay, I'd say the Beatles have done stuff, the Rolling Stones have done stuff, Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Sex Pistols, as you say, it's just part of what musicians do. Second point that I would make is that it is entirely possible to be offended, upset, disgusted, particularly if you are Israeli, let alone an Israeli soldier, to have a guy standing up on a stage in front of thousands and thousands of people live on the Television saying, death, death to the idf. Okay. And at the same time, feel that the reaction to it. And this is where I'm coming from. I think the reaction to it underlines the complete loss, both of genuine moral bearing and any sense of perspective. The fact is that. So this guy gets. I don't know about you, Rory. I'd never heard of them.

[Rory Stewart]

I definitely never heard of them. But don't know about me. I mean, obviously, I've barely heard of the Sex Pistols.

[Alistair Campbell]

Right. Well, you mentioned this. I'd heard a kneecap. I was aware that. Kneecap. That one of them was involved in a court case, that he'd been pictured carrying a Hezbollah flag, et cetera, et cetera. This guy comes along and starts going, death, death to the idf. As it happens, I was watching it because I couldn't work out when Rod Stewart was coming on. Obviously, I wanted to see how many Celtic shirts would appear on stage with Rod Stewart.

[Rory Stewart]

And we look with shadow that just not to trivialize this huge issue. Both of us have said to Rod, if you're listening, that we would be very happy to appear on the.

[Alistair Campbell]

With.

[Rory Stewart]

With Rod if he would ever have us. But not least because he's obviously my cousin, he's a steward. But also because you're a huge fan of his.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah, I was less of a fan of him saying that Nigel Farage is worth a go. I mean, I don't know what that was about, but anyway.

[Rory Stewart]

No, but he's trying to wind you up. It's musicians being outrageous.

[Alistair Campbell]

He could well be getting a headline. Exactly. Exactly. Because not just before the election, he said Keir Starmer was a good bloke and he should give him a go. So blah, blah, blah. The minute he said it, this guy, the minute he started that chant. And my sense was when they were doing Free, Free Palestine, I reckon 80% of the crowd was going along with it. When they went to death, death, the idf, I think it. My sense was the volume went substantially down, but thousands of people were saying it. Okay. The next point I would make is that immediately Kemi Badenok, Nigel Farage all out there, Richard Tice, and they were all. And making the difference between this woman, Lucy Connolly, who's in jail because she did a tweet saying. I can't remember the exact tweet, but it's basically, you know, it was interpreted as saying, these people deserve to have their hotels and their homes burnt down. Okay, Surely we can differentiate. And I'm sure when it comes to this criminal investigation, this is where it will probably go in the middle of riots that are taking place in your country where you are covered by the law of that land. Any suggestion of it's okay to burn people's houses and hotels down. I think that's a bit of a problem. You can argue about whether the sentence was too long, too short. You can have those arguments in the end. We've got judges who do that stuff. And are we seriously saying that as a result of this guy standing up there and doing these chants, somebody in that crowd is going to say, oh, yeah, I haven't really thought about that before. I think I'll get on a plane to Tel Aviv now and I'll go and kill an Israeli soldier. It's just. We've just lost our bearings. And meanwhile, Rory, meanwhile. And by the way, I didn't think the music was very good. The bits that I heard, I thought the attention seeking was off the scale. Meanwhile, the same day that we're all getting excited about this, there are children queuing for food at these so called humanitarian centers being shot by Israeli soldiers. And it's not even on the news. Last night, Channel 4, and well done, Channel 4, by the way, for showing the documentary that the BBC have refused to put out about the healthcare system in Gaza. So last night, Channel 4 news, they did a. A report on the activity of Israeli settlers in the West Bank. When was the last time we heard about that in our debate? So we have Keir Starmer, Kemi Badenok, Nigel Farage, all of them out there. Absolutely terrible, terrible. This guy, Bob Villain, this band, Bob Villain. Right. Where's the outrage? Where is the outrage about thousands of kids? I mean, I just think it's sort of. It's exasperating. And meanwhile, Rory, the BBC will do what the BBC usually does when it's under pressure. It will now sort of cave a little bit the other way. Not a single national media outlet covered the report that was published a couple of weeks ago. Vested interest. Not vested interest, but I contributed to the report, an analysis of the BBC coverage of Israel and Gaza, which, far from being anti Israel, is actually this analysis showed pretty compellingly. They analyzed over 30,000 pieces of content on language, on prioritization and so forth. And actually, the very, very strong conclusion was, if anything, there is a very, very strong pro Israel, anti Palestinian bias. And I just think, what are we talking about? We're on day three, four of talking about Bob Villa, and yesterday was his agents dropped him. He's had his visa to the US revolt. I've Got to be honest, I don't care that much, but I do care a lot about what's going on in Gaza. Right. Rory, let's have one of your famous explainers, because that's what people are asking for. Lizzie, in your emergency episode on Sunday, you mentioned Trump taking credit for the Rwanda, Congo peace deal. How true is that claim? The claim that he's taking credit, I think is true. The actual role he played. I don't really know what's the real story behind the agreement. Looks like the US Is in it for more minerals and trade. I'd love to understand more how this has come about and why it's not making other news outlets or headlines, because it feels very significant.

[Rory Stewart]

Okay, quick explainer. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, which used to be known as Zaire, is geographically the largest country in Africa, stretches all the way from East Africa right the way to the West Coast. And it's been a very, very tragic place. In 1994, a war, civil war broke out in Rwanda that brought in a lot of the neighboring countries. Three million people were killed. UN Peacekeepers were deployed. By the time I was the Africa minister, there was a moment of kind of temporary peace. The Kabila family had been ruling it. I went to see Lauren Kabila, the president. He stepped down. Man called Felix Tishkedi took over. But over the last couple of years, there's been an explosion of violence again in eastern Congo. And in particular, the center of this is a group called the M23. And the M23 are predominantly led by Tutsis Kinya, Rwanda speakers connected to the government of Rwanda. So that's the government of Paul Kagamen. And since the beginning of this year, they captured Goma, which is an enormous city in eastern Congo. And then they've taken another major city down called Bukavu, down on the south edge of the lake. 3,000 people were killed as they took Goma, 570 children being raped a week, according to UNICEF. 700,000 people displaced. The airport was closed. A lot of this connects to coltan smuggling, gold smuggling, minerals moving through into Rwanda, a completely dysfunctional Congolese state. It's almost two large ethnic divisions. And Qatar and the US have been involved in peace deals. And as you say, Donald Trump announced this great triumph, which is the government of Rwanda, the government of Congo signed up to a peace deal. And what's the contents of peace deal? The contents of peace deal is the stuff that you often see in peace deals. So demobilization, reintegration, ceasefires, refugee return joint coordinating mechanisms for security. But how does it work? And as far as we can tell, the M23 isn't really involved in these conversations, nor are the governments of Uganda and Burundi, who had troops on the ground along with the Rwandans. Angola isn't really featuring in this. So there is a real risk that although it's absolutely the right thing, that the us, Qatar and others are trying to bring some kind of peace and that they're getting Rwanda and Congo involved because Rwanda is the major player now in eastern Congo. I still have my doubts that it's going to be able to bring peace to a completely tragic situation.

[Alistair Campbell]

I mean, if you look at the pictures that emerged of the thing, it was classic. You had Trump sitting at the Resolute desk. You had leaders from Rwanda and the DRC there. You had Vance and Rubio standing behind Trump. And of course, he, he signed his thing. He loves his signature. And he, then he holds up the thing. And for him, I suspect that'll be job done. According to, according to Michael Wolf. I don't know if you follow Michael Wolf on Instagram, Rory, but he's, he's, he's, he's so sardonic. But, and he's still clearly quite well plugged in. He said, he said on one of his posts the other day that Trump was phoning all his usual sort of his big friends the other night and saying, I'm going to get it. I'm going to get the Nobel. I'm going to get the Nobel.

[Rory Stewart]

The story there is, of course, all these countries, the Pakistanis did at first, but now this is true. From Congo, Rwanda, they nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. I mean, I think we should go into a break, but I'm not going to be very surprised if your friend Mark Rutter, the head of NATO, doesn't nominate Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize, too. I mean, it is incredible that Trump sort of, by behaving outrageously, humiliating people around the world, undermining the international legal order. The result is that everybody kowtows, flatters him.

[Alistair Campbell]

It also leads to bad policy because what's happened is Rubio, who presumably has done with the US diplomats quite a lot of the groundwork on this. They are under pressure. Trump's got to have something to sign, he's got to have something to sign. Then the leaders come over or the politicians come over from the countries and they're under pressure. Got to have something to sign, got to have something to sign. And then, as you say, back in the real world, you have all these groups who are not being brought into the process, and they're the ones with the arms, they're the ones with the grievances. And then what happens when they decide, you know what, we don't like this deal, it doesn't really work. So they haven't done the work to give this deal a chance of sticking.

[Rory Stewart]

And why would people stick? Because the experience of Vladimir Putin, the experience of Netanyahu, is that you can apparently make a deal with Trump and then you can flout it and just go on and do what you were doing and nothing happens to you. The M23 in Rwanda, which now controls Goma, is incredibly well armed and organized. And this is partly to do with support from the government of Rwanda.

[Alistair Campbell]

We should point out for our British listeners, we are not talking about the motorway from London to Brighton.

[Rory Stewart]

Not talking the motorway, no, exactly. This group, if you go and see them, I was talking to a friend in Goma recently. They are very, very well armed. They have very fancy high tech kit. They're operating as a government. They've basically shifted the international border and they're issuing passport stamps. Their political head is the old head of the Congolese electoral commission. Goma is a city that I love. I mean, Congo is. I mean, one thing maybe that gets lost in this is that along with all the horrors that are happening, it's the most wonderful country on earth. Goma's very beautiful right against this lake. Congo has this incredible history of, as you know, music. We should talk more about Congolese music. It's got some of the most stunning natural landscapes in the world. It's got the most incredible potential in terms of its. Its mineral wealth. Actually, if I wanted to move somewhere in the world, I'd probably want to live in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It's one of the most attractive, astonishing places left on earth. And yet, at the moment, as you say, being driven into horror with Trump putting this sort of peace process on top, I struggle to see how it's going to work.

[Alistair Campbell]

And also his peace process embedded into it, some of his big donors. Who are the guys who are already looking at the minerals and why? Because I don't know whether we've answered the. The question just before it goes a bravery. My favorite cartoon of the week. I can't remember. I think it might be the New York Times. It was an American newspaper and it was the Nobel Prize committee that you mentioned sitting around a table. The caption just said, shall we just give it to a barber again as a joke. That would be good. Global Trolley. Anyway, let's come back. When we come back from the break, we will talk about Gavi and usaid.

[C]

Hello everyone, it's Gary Lineker here from the Rest Is Football. Just a quick message to tell you all about the Club World cup tournament that's taking place in the US at the moment. It's 32 of the best teams from all around the world battling it out to be crowned the best side on the planet. We've reached the knockout stages of the competition, which means all the big guns will be going head to head. Manchester City, Real Madrid, psg, Chelsea and Bayern Munich are just some of the sides vying to lift the trophy. Join myself, Alan Shearer, Micah Richards, and our expert out in America, Alex Aljo as we guide you through the explosive final stages of the tournament. To make things even better, if you're watching the video version of the show on Spotify or YouTube, you can also watch all the goals and the best bits of the action as we discuss the games. A first for podcasting. Just search the Rest Is Football. Wherever you get your podcasts.

[Alistair Campbell]

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[Rory Stewart]

Well, what used to be a complex civil liberties issue is now just standard user agreement.

[Alistair Campbell]

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[Rory Stewart]

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[Alistair Campbell]

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[Rory Stewart]

And it even is a little hack trick for you. It can even help actually with dynamic pricing. So if you're browsing from a hidden location, the flights, hotels, subscriptions are less likely to spike and the Threat Protection Pro blocks malicious ads, scans downloads before they reach your device.

[Alistair Campbell]

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[Rory Stewart]

Welcome back to the Rest is Politics Question time with me, Rory Stewart and.

[Alistair Campbell]

With me Alistair Campbell.

[Rory Stewart]

Question for you Alistair. Why has the US Health Secretary pulled funding of Gavi, an organization that helps children get vaccinated. What are the global and geopolitical implications of this?

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, the reason that he's pulled it is because he is a vaccine skeptic. And it's not as if we weren't warned that he's a vaccine skeptic. He's been a vaccine skeptic for an awful long time. His argument, the argument that Robert F. Kennedy made, was that he thought that there were legitimate questions about vaccine safety and that gavi, the organization that comes together, which is a mixture of governments and people like Bill Gates, that they were silencing dissent. So we're totally into the kind of health conspiracy world. That's where he is. And the worst thing about it is he did it as a. So Gavi was having this annual big event where all the big donors and Gates was there, Ursula von der Leyen was there representing the European Union. And to be fair to them, they came up with $9 billion to go forward. So they were, I think, 2 billion short of what they were hoping to raise, which is pretty good considering, you know, the Americans are pulling the plug. And Kennedy couldn't even be bothered to sort of turn up. He just sent them a little video message saying, by the way, we're pulling the plug. So that's the reason he's a vaccine skeptic, and that's who Trump's been charge, and people are going to die as a result of this.

[Rory Stewart]

Just a quick explainer on Gabby. The Global Vaccine alliance is one of the most simple, straightforward arguments for international development aid anywhere in the world. It's not one of these things which gets discredited by people talking about countries stealing the money through corruption or incompetent NGOs. This is very straightforward. It's remarkably cost efficient. It's literally vaccinating people with basic vaccinations. So meningitis, polio, typhoid, yellow fever, and many others. And the funding for this organization was basically the uk, The US and the Gates Foundation. And it was the one thing when I was the Secretary of State for International Development.

[Alistair Campbell]

European Union is a big donor, Rory.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, but the three biggest traditionally were us, UK and Gates. And when I was the International Development Secretary, this was the least controversial thing that we did. It was the one thing where every year we would put billions into it because you could see that it was going to save tens of millions of lives around the world, preventable deaths of children. And the cost of it is not many dollars per person saving lives. If you're looking for a way to really get value for money. You cannot do better, really than vaccination in terms of saving lives. And we began to see the problems emerging when to remind people, Trump and Musk cut usaid basically stopped all the money that the US government gives all the way around the world for every kind of project, ranging from projects working with humanitarian aid and food right through to vaccination, etc. And it became apparent, of course, immediately that nobody was going to be able to fill the gap. So the Wellcome Trust, the Danish foundation that owns Zempic Gates, thought, okay, can we step into this breach? They can't. They just don't have the money to replace these big donors. And then the UK government cut its funding for international development as well at the same time as the US was cutting it, not as much, but took billions out of the system. So thanks to this cut, and a lot of it is to do with this cut and the other cuts that USAID have introduced, 14 million people will die prematurely over the next five years. And if you want more details, please listen to Atul Gawande on leading, which is an incredible insight into how this is all playing out.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah. So the Medecines Sans Frontieres, they have said there is absolutely no doubt countless children will die from vaccine preventable diseases as a result of the US withdrawing support for cavi, another major charity in the States. To invoke misleading and inaccurate claims about vaccine safety as the pretext for cutting all global vaccine funding is cruel and reckless. And Rory, the thing about the 40 million, this is a report by the Lancet, which, you know, so we're talking sort of serious medical journal rather than, you know, headline grabbing, clickbaiting media organization. And they have done. You can model these things, you know, this from the time your times at dfid. You can model how you put investment in, when you take investment out. And this report has concluded that low and middle income countries are now going to face a shock comparable in scale to a global pandemic or a major armed conflict as a result of the decision that Trump has taken. Marco Rubio, I mean, that guy has lost his soul because he's somebody who has spent his entire life believing in supporting, advocating for usaid. He is now sort of standing there alongside Musk and Trump, although they've fallen out now, but Musk and Trump sort of saying that nobody needs to die. It's all about abuse and waste and fraud, etc. This is, this is, you know, we talk about the unreported stuff of the Trump administration. We did corruption in the main podcast yesterday, but this is a really, really big one. And, you know, I just worry that people are going to shrug their shoulders and move on. Where was the rebellion among labor ranks about labor cutting aid?

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah. Question from Liz. Has a former prime minister ever come out against a sitting American president as strongly as Sir John Major has just done against Donald Trump in his speech this week? Is the special relationship irreversibly damaged? Give us a bit of an explainer on what John Major said in that speech.

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, he was doing the Ted Heath lecture. TED heath, FORMER BRITISH PRIME Minister JOHN Major FORMER BRITISH PRIME MINISTER Both Conservatives and John Major's speech, which was it was a really good, I mean, you know, I thought it was a very, very well crafted speech. And he made some very big points and essentially saying is that we can't take American leadership for granted. He was calling out the, as he's done before, the damage that Brexit has done to Britain. He was saying within all of our politics that this sort of focus on standards in public life, partly what we're talking about yesterday, is being eroded. So it was a very, very strong analysis. Solutions. Well, you know, that's the hard bit at the moment. We'll put the full speech link to the full speech in the newsletter. I think it's worth.

[Rory Stewart]

Yeah, well, I mean, here's just a little quote to get a sense of Major on fire. Is barbarianism now acceptable? If the barbarian is strong enough or the victim without friends, can it be that our world is so exhausted, politics so tainted, self interest so predominant, that it has abandoned compassion? Is might now right? Has the law, human decency and political morality been cast aside? Or is it perhaps as simple as this that our world is now beginning to elect leaders concerned only about national self interest? If so, if politics leads countries to hunker down in their own little trenches of interest, ignore reason, bypass diplomacy, forgo enlightened self interest, then heaven help us all.

[Alistair Campbell]

Well, that is pretty strong. I meant to all that one thing.

[Rory Stewart]

That I felt that he emphasized, which we haven't done enough and which made me sit up, is we've of course in many ways sympathized with the push to increase defence spending. But of course, what Major's pointing out is that increasing defence spending is at the cost of other budgets. In Britain, very explicitly we're increasing defense spending and we're cutting aid money. But he's also pointing out that the reason we're cutting defence spending is partly because Trump and others are creating an ever more unstable, violent world and in which the US Is effectively forcing everybody to increase defense spending by saying we're not necessarily going to hold to our Article 5 commitments on NATO, we're going to let Putin get away with what he's doing. So we've created a world where populism creates violence, conflict forces an increase in defense spending, and in doing so will take a trillion euros. So 1,000 billion euros out of the money that otherwise could be spent on, on welfare, social justice, international aid is all going to go to defense manufacturers.

[Alistair Campbell]

You frame the speech in the context of a jigsaw. All these different pieces and how they fit together. And that's what I find so sort of impressive about it as an analysis. But you're right, he's basically, he's saying that, you know, we're allowing this one man essentially to drive policy in different countries around the world and maybe that's a good place to go to the NATO summit. Phoebe Walker, what do you think about Mark Rutter calling Trump daddy? Has there ever been a politician worthy of that title? We'll come on to this quotes fun element of that in a minute. But the NATO. So I was talking to one of the NATO leaders who was there who said that it was the most bizarre event they have ever been at. It was like every was waiting for the king to arrive and we were all reduced to courtiers just sort of wandering around hoping that he didn't ruin everything and celebrating when he left. I mean, it's pretty nuts what went on there. Now, if you're Mark Rutter, the head of NATO, former prime minister of the Netherlands, he's probably thinking my sort of prism of objective strategy tactic objective get more money for NATO strategy use Trump tactic flattery. And it sort of worked, but it's just, it's humiliating.

[Rory Stewart]

It was unbelievable. So to remind people he sent Trump a WhatsApp message, or at least so Trump claims Trump released this thing, which.

[Alistair Campbell]

Was Rutte verified it was true.

[Rory Stewart]

I'm still sort of stuck in a conspiracy theory on this that the thing reads so much as though it's Trump saying, I wish someone had sent me a message praising me and thanking me for how awesome I am. And then Rutte felt that he had to say, I wrote it. But in a way, it doesn't really matter whether the story is that Rutte was mad enough to cosplay Trump and send Trump or whether Trump put it out himself and Rutter acknowledged it. It's all the same story. Just remind people the message goes like this.

[Alistair Campbell]

Give us the cap, Rory, give us the caps.

[Rory Stewart]

Congratulations and thank you for your decisive action in Iran. That was truly extraordinary and something no one else dared to do. It makes us all safer. You are flying into another big success in the Hague this evening. It was not easy, but we've got them all signed on to 5%. Donald, you have driven us to a really, really important moment for America and Europe and the world. You will achieve something. No caps. American president in decades could get done. Europe is going to pay in a caps big way, as they should, and it will be your win. Safe travels and see you at His Majesty's dinner.

[Alistair Campbell]

Quite interesting conduct of Her Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands. She, she was sort of looking a little bit, as she was doing these little mimickings of Trump's body language.

[Rory Stewart]

I get that when you're dealing with a country which is a quarter of the world's economy, you don't want to go love, actually, obviously by love, actually, I mean you don't want to necessarily go out there and mount a massive attack. But what has gone wrong? I mean, let's go back to Angela Merkel and Theresa May when they were dealing with Trump the first time around, okay, they were not openly out there attacking him, but it was very clear with Angela Merkel and Theresa May that they were retaining their dignity, that they were not endorsing this guy, they were dealing with him professionally. But my goodness, they were not going out there basically saying, everything that Trump has done to demolish the rules based international order since January is terrific. Good on you, Mr. President. You've done it in a big way. Nobody could have done it without you. You're the best American president ever.

[Alistair Campbell]

I mean, it's unbelievable on one level, what Rutter said is sort of debasing, humiliating. But he will have left that NATO summit thinking, phew, we got there, we got through it. He didn't do what he did in Canada and storm off in a huff. We've got people to sign up. Although there'll be a lot of devil in the detail, because the other thing they know about Trump, he doesn't do the devil in the detail. He does the big thing, then he moves away. So then he's on his plane and he's posting. Had a great time. These people love their countries, et cetera. I still think the one that's really interesting, the one that sort of stood aside from the sort of more obsequious approach, is of course, Mark Carney. And Mark Carney's now Having to deal with the fallout of Trump, basically saying, Canadians, give them a go, they're bad people, no more deals.

[Rory Stewart]

But this is why we should have stayed together.

[Alistair Campbell]

Yeah.

[Rory Stewart]

I mean, Carney was gambling that there was still some self respect in Europe and the United Kingdom that we would stand up together for these values. And I think what Rut has done is not just demeaning, but it doesn't work because what we know about Trump.

[Alistair Campbell]

It works short term.

[Rory Stewart]

You can't remember next week what he said last week.

[Alistair Campbell]

Exactly.

[Rory Stewart]

I mean, literally, again and again he will attack Putin, come back on side of Putin, attack Iran, come back on side of the fact that he says last week these are great people who defend their country. Does anyone think he can't literally tomorrow come out and say, they're all a bunch of criminals, non democratic, ungrateful, human rights abusing people, I'm going to slap a 20% tariff on them? Of course he can. So what does Russia think he's gained? I mean, unless he thinks that Trump, he's just trying to win a few days, what is the point of doing this? How is this a way to manage someone?

[Alistair Campbell]

What he thinks he's gained is the political buy in and support now to get to keep pressing the other members of NATO to deliver on the things they've said they would, knowing that Trump will move on to other stuff. So I guess that would be his short term argument, I imagine. But listen, I'm not disagreeing with you. I think that the demeanor of a lot of our leaders has not been strong. I actually think that Trump will have given more respect to Merza for him standing there and saying, no, we don't want Putin at the G7 because the guy's a criminal and a warlord than he would for Rutter doing what he has done. But I think Rutter will say, my job was to get them all to sign up to more money for NATO and I use Trump to get that.

[Rory Stewart]

It's shameless. And we'll post in the newsletter also a picture that tells you a lot about Rutter, which is him sitting at the Oval Office desk with Biden behind him, pretending to use the telephone and pretending to be American president. There's something fundamentally childish and ridiculous about Rutte. I know. I'm so disgusted, so disgusted. And I can't have you on the podcast. I can't believe that Europe and the United Kingdom is making Trump feel that he's completely won, that he's totally vindicated in all his disgusting international behavior.

[Alistair Campbell]

I said in the miniseries that, that we've done on J.D. vance, which, and thank you to all those of you who become members. On the back of that, I would have thought the reaction of Europe to JD Vance's speech at Munich when he basically went there and said, you're all a bunch of losers and you don't represent your countries and why the hell should America protect you? The whole time would actually have been for Europe to stand up pretty strong against that. Now they've done it a little bit in relation to Ukraine, but generally the posture has not been strong. And I agree with you. I think long term that's a mistake.

[Rory Stewart]

Alistair. I agree very strongly and it's something we're going to have to come back to again and again. So as we close this question of how you handle Trump, how you get that balance between not provoking him but actually caring about your own dignity, caring about your principles, caring about the future of the world, I'm much more taken with the way that Mark Carney's approached it, much more taken with the way that John Majors approached it, much more taken with the way Mam Dani's approaching it than we are with what we've closed this podcast with, which is the Mark Rutter poodle.

[Alistair Campbell]

Okay, well, Mark is in Rory Stewart's eyes. Mark Rutter is not the daddy. See you next week.

[Rory Stewart]

See you next week. Bye bye.

[Alistair Campbell]

Right, well done everybody who's still listening because that means you've listened right to the end of the episode. Thank you. Very impressive. But can I ask you something? Did you hear an advert on today's episode and did you think, you know what? I'm sure the listeners would rather hear about my brand rather than all these other things they're promoting. Well, you could be right. But there's only one way to find out.

[Rory Stewart]

That's right. You could be the next NordVPN or BetterHelp. Put your brand in front of millions of like minded listeners by advertising on the rest is politics and other shows across the Goal Hanger network work. So who are Goal Hanger? Well, they're the company behind this very show. And if you're in the market to increase the value of your brand, they want to hear from you. You can register your or your company's interests by going to goalhanger. Com right now. That's Goal H A N G E R Com. See you.