Rory Stewart (1:53)

Welcome to the Restless Politics with me.

Alistair Campbell (1:55)

Alistair Campbell, and with me Ro Stuart. We should explain the slightly formal setup, which slightly looks as though you've just pulled off a coup d'. Etat. We're about to address the nation, so maybe you should explain where we are.

Rory Stewart (2:04)

We are in Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, and behind me is a Moldovan flag, and behind you a flag of.

Alistair Campbell (2:12)

The European Union in a building which was a Soviet building. So really the architecture tells the whole story of why we're here in Moldova, which is that this is a country which was part of the Soviet Union achieved its independence, hence that flag, and is now under Maya Sandu, the president, moving towards joining the European Union, a country stuck between Romania and Ukraine, right on the front line of the confrontation with Putin and Russia. And we've spent a lot of last night, a lot of today, trying to get a sense of that Russian strain. And we'll get onto that in the second half of the podcast.

Rory Stewart (2:45)

And I think also just to tell people the reason we're here was to interview President Sandu, and that will be out on leading on Monday. And in the second half, we will talk about Russia and Ukraine and indeed Moldova. But I think for the first half, we probably have to talk about Donald Trump and Venezuela again.

Alistair Campbell (3:01)

Yeah. So we did an emergency podcast shortly after it happened. And let's begin with that, rethinking that, do you think, in the immediate aftermath, I guess we went pretty soon after the abduction happened. Are there things we missed, things we got wrong? In retrospect, what's developed over the last two, three days. And I'd encourage people to listen to.

Rory Stewart (3:19)

It, I mean, because we're both Western and we consume a lot of British, European, American media. I wonder if we underplayed the extent to which China would be watching this and working out a very different way to react to the way that we've seen other leaders react to it, and we can maybe come on to that. As to what's happened, I mean, a large part of what I think happened on the day and is happening now, first of all, it is incredibly serious. It is hugely consequential. But at the same time, I think there is something horribly theatrical and performative about the whole thing. I thought that the portraying yesterday of Maduro, every single step of the way, being filmed, taken out of his custody onto a helicopter, flown into this van, doors open, cameras able to see him, shackled, legs and hands, all of which.

Alistair Campbell (4:15)

Of course, I mean, it's completely mad. I mean, it's completely unnecessary to shackle his legs. This is purely for camera.

Rory Stewart (4:20)

Of course it is. I mean, where's he going to run to? He's surrounded by about 10 guys with machine guns, all with Daa Dea written on them. So it's all performative. And it's all as well designed to send a message back to Venezuela to those who have left, stayed behind. And we can get on to where Vice President now, Interim President Rodriguez, Delsey Rodriguez is, and what her status within this is. But I think it was performative to that extent. But I think the other thing, if you remember one Thing we did say on Saturday night said, I can't help wondering and worrying about what Mark Carney and Meta Fredriksen are thinking about watching this. And I think from Metta Fredriksen's point of view, it's become horribly clear that when Trump goes on about taking Greenland in whatever shape or form and whatever that means, he is as serious as he was about taking out Maduro.

Alistair Campbell (5:13)

Well, we've kept coming back to this and of course, we interviewed Meta Ferrissen, the prime minister of Denmark, on the show. And one of the interesting things there is that she was still trying to tread this very delicate balance because Denmark is a small country, very small country, very dependent on the United States, very keen not to alienate the U.S. but I think, as we've been saying for a year, we've said repeatedly it hasn't happened yet. I keep predicting that he's going to invade Greenland hasn't done it yet.

Rory Stewart (5:40)

Do you literally mean invade?

Alistair Campbell (5:41)

I have said, I think on the podcast many times, that if we're trying to think about what Trump could do next, your Michael Wolff story, that he's a reality TV star who wants to generate a big story. Greenland is an obvious story. It's an obvious spectacular. And if you think about him and his legacy to add to the United States the largest single bit of territory that the United States has acquired since it took Alaska from the Russians the late 19th century, to be the president who has suddenly made America look like.

Rory Stewart (6:13)

The risk border, make America bigger again.

Alistair Campbell (6:15)

Yeah. Is almost irresistible for him. And maybe we'll stick with this for a second just before we go back to Venezuela, because you encouraged me to watch a rather interesting inter done by Jake Tapper from CNN was Stephen Miller. Stephen Miller's Trump's deputy chief of staff, his head of policy, the major man driving most of his ideas on immigration. And this was an interview where.

Rory Stewart (6:37)

And on national security.

Alistair Campbell (6:38)

Yeah, a big interview, a lot of it about Venezuela justifying what they've done in Venezuela. But then he moves on to Greenland. So maybe tell us a bit about that and we'll put a link in the description.

Rory Stewart (6:46)

Well, he spoke with complete contempt about a NATO ally. He actually said at one point, you know, what right does Denmark have to hold on to Greenland? Well, the right that was agreed in law between you and them sometime way back when he talked about, and it's interesting when Trump was talking about Venezuela, I've yet to hear him use the word democracy in terms of what he's trying to achieve. And likewise with Miller, he was not talking about democracy. He was basically saying, when Trump says he needs Greenland for American security in the Arctic, then that is what he means and they're going to do something about it.

Alistair Campbell (7:20)

Yeah, just a quote, because I, I watched it on your recommendation. And Jake Tapper, this CNN interview keeps saying, can you rule out taking Greenland by force? And Stephen Miller absolutely refuses to rule it out. The answer normal person would say is, oh, yes, of course we can rule out taking Greenland by force. Don't be absurd.

Rory Stewart (7:35)

It's a worse than that. He actually said, he said, I wrote it down as well. He said, we are a superpower. We will behave like a superpower. We will assert American interests without apology. And he said the U.S. is the power of NATO. Obviously Greenland should be part of the U.S. well, you could make that case for Scotland. You know, Scotland is part of the uk, part of the NATO.

Alistair Campbell (7:57)

And I think it's worth just interrogating that a little bit because Miller is the chief propagandist for the regime. He's the guy who, after the killing of Charlie Kirk, made that Goebbels like speech. So if I'm right that Trump is moving towards taking Greenland, we will hear these lines again and again and again and we need to start challenging them. And one fundamental line is Greenland is absolutely essential to the security of NATO because Russia can use the Arctic, China could come in, and therefore the United States obviously has to make Greenland part of the United States. Now, there's a number of claims there. Number one, this isn't an administration that actually behaves as though Russia is an existential threat. If they really believed Russia was an existential threat, they'd be doing different things in Ukraine. In fact, it's an administration that keeps assuring us that Putin has perfectly reasonable demands in Ukraine. If you just gave him Ukraine, he's not going to cause him trouble to anyone anyway. So how does that stack with we need Greenland because Russia is an existential threat. Number two, there is no limit basically to the number of troops that the United States could keep in Greenland. They have actually radically reduced the number of their troops in Greenland. There's no reason for them to own Greenland. If what they're saying is this is vital to NATO security, the corollary is logical and obviously, therefore, it has to be part of the United States. Not true. The only conclusion is if they think it's vital, they need US Troops there, but they've decided not to put US Troops there despite the fact that Denmark is happy for them to keep troops there.

Rory Stewart (9:23)

Well, there's Three things. The first is Denmark is already one of the biggest spenders in Europe. I think they're at 3% of GDP on defence, so they can't really call them out on that. They already have an American base there, and the Danes are very happy for them to grow that base and indeed to start other bases. And what's more, their minerals and rare earths. The Danes are very happy for American investors to go in and check it all out. There doesn't appear to be that much demand. So I think what's happening with Denmark, and if you're Danish, I think this is kind of terrifying right now with Venezuela. What happened was this slow, steady buildup of a narrative. And the narrative was drugs.

Alistair Campbell (9:58)

And this is what you call rolling the pitch.

Rory Stewart (10:00)

Is it rolling the pitch? It's kind of rolling the pitch, but it's more than that. It's more Putinesque. It's giving reasons for actions that you may already have decided to take. And we now know that they had decided to take that. We know that from the guy, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, who was explaining how they'd been planning this for months. So what it was doing was giving a narrative to the world, because he has the bully pulpit for the world about why Venezuela was a threat to the United States, even though I've yet to hear a single international lawyer, and I don't think Stephen Miller counts as an international lawyer, give a credible reason why this was legal under the UN Charter.

Alistair Campbell (10:41)

Just to remind people. So the story is that Maduro was formally running a cartel, smuggling cocaine into the United States. Whereas, in fact, all the detailed evidence, including a very long 80 page report that we shared on Saturday, suggests that, yes, there are people in the Venezuelan government who have facilitated drug cartels and movement or turned a blind eye or taken bribes. But not only is Maduro not running a cartel, but insofar as Venezuela is producing cocaine, most of that cocaine is going to Europe, and that the actual flow of drugs into the United States, Venezuela, is a relatively small part of this is a point that you keep making.

Rory Stewart (11:22)

And the one that he's been making. The drug that he's been talking about, that has been posing this threat, the threat he talks about is actually fentanyl, which isn't coming from Venezuela. So the narrative that's being created about Greenland and Denmark is, as you say, the strategic importance of the Arctic and the fact that Russia, this great threat to America, even though Donald Trump keeps saying Putin's his best friend, could exploit it. So they have to have greater control of that space. And secondly, the narrative is that Denmark is not a reliable ally. And if you remember, that is exactly what JD Vance said when he went there.

Alistair Campbell (11:58)

Just remind people of that for a second again, because that was one of the most astonishing things. Denmark had made it very, very clear that the American vice president was not welcome in Denmark. And he flew despite Denmark saying he wasn't welcome to Denmark. Turned up in Greenland in this Danish territory.

Rory Stewart (12:16)

See, that was rolling, the pitch, gave a big speech.

Alistair Campbell (12:19)

And then there has been the capture of two American citizens who appear to be American intelligence agents trying to stir up a separatist movement in Greenland against the Danes. A classic hybrid warfare disruption. Get the independence movement going so that you then say, we're intervening for the rights of indigenous people. But the more dramatic thing, which we've been saying, I think, for a year now, is that Trump doesn't even really bother that much with legal arguments. There's not even the hypocritical stuff that gunboat diplomacy in the 19th century did. When Britain was going around doing terrible things and taking other people's territory, they were always pretending they were doing it for a good reason. They were dealing with the slave trade, or some consul of theirs had been outraged, or they were protecting a missionary, or they were dealing with some human rights abuse. Trump is almost the first person since Genghis Khan to say, I'm just going to help myself to territory. I'm not even going to pretend actually this ever belonged to the United States. I'm not going to pretend the indigenous people do it. But instead, quote Stephen Miller, the US.

Rory Stewart (13:28)

Should have Greenland, the word he and others have been using, I've noticed. I think Vance used this word as well when they were questioned about is this legal? And they talked about, well, we can sit here and talk about international niceties, okay? And so the nicety is the idea that there's such a thing as a sovereign nation. I mean, I read a statement from the. So the Prime Minister of. I suspect that most of our listeners would not be able to name the Prime Minister of Greenland. As Stephen Miller said, it's a very small. It's a very large country with a very small population, but it's a country, it's a people, it's a culture, it's a history. And they talk about them. And he actually said, you know, we're not just sort. Sort of tool in great power politics. And yet that is how they are treated.

Alistair Campbell (14:10)

It's heartbreaking. Sorry, I'm interrupting a bit. But it is heartbreaking because in fact, in many ways, Greenland has been through a very, very difficult evolution since the Second World War. They were basically treated as a colony of Denmark. The local people who are related to the Inuit, felt as though they were second class citizens, as though the Danish crown had acquired this in quite a complicated period. As Greenland was pushed back and forth through Scandinavian monarchies during the Middle Ages, even England had an attempt to grapple.

Rory Stewart (14:41)

This is one of the American lines to take, by the way.

Alistair Campbell (14:43)

Right, absolutely. But since the Second World War, there has been a lot of change. There's been a movement for much more autonomy. The Danish constitution has been changed. Much more development investment has gone in. And certainly if I was a Greenlander, I would be much more comfortable with a Danish government than I would be being a Native American in a reservation in the Lakota reservation of South Dakota. I don't think you look at the United States and think this is a country that really treats Native American populations well, really treats Inuit populations well. Right. This idea that Trump is presenting himself as the champion of indigenous rights, what he's actually doing, and this is exactly the line presenting it as a blank space on a map. He's basically pretending nobody lives there and the United States can just take minerals.

Rory Stewart (15:31)

Couple of things, of course, that it means that we're not talking about one is Epstein and the other is the state of the American economy. Now, we were, I think, both moderately gobsmacked on Saturday that Trump was so brazen and so open about. This is about oil. And the American companies are going to come in and they're the biggest companies, the best companies. They're going to get lots of money. We're going to get compensated for the stolen oil, which was when the industry was nationalized. But I was just looking at some polling for Trump affordability. The Zoran Mamdani word. Trump is doing very, very badly. On cost of living, 57% bad. On prices 36 good. 48% of Americans saying they find housing, medical, groceries and transportation is putting them under massive financial pressure. 27% of Americans since Trump was elected have skipped a medical appointment because of the cost. 23% have not taken a prescription. And here's an interesting one. 36% of Trump voters from 2024 saying tariffs aren't working and that they're hurting the economy, compared to 22% who saying the opposite. That's Trump voters. So I think there is, because this is his genius. There is an element of this is just a gigantic distraction, but it is serious. I don't want to get away from the fact he is serious about what he's doing. But it is also having that political effect.

Alistair Campbell (16:52)

Remember, Putin went into Ukraine in 2014 and again in 2022 at a time when the Russian economy was weak. It's a classic thing to do if you're beginning to lose domestic support. If your domestic economy is weak. A great foreign adventure is a wonderful, wonderful way of getting people back on side. So I would have thought another reason to be even more worried about them acquiring Greenland is exactly those economic statistics that if Trump's thinking, well, what do I do in the midterms or coming up for next election to deal with the fact people are feeding it in their pocket and things aren't going wrong, let me deliver the greatest victory ever. Let me land on Greenland. Let's put the troops out. Let's have these maps showing something like a risk board with this huge territory added to the United States.

Rory Stewart (17:33)

But don't you think that with this affordability issue, so the American oil companies are going to think long and hard about the cost that it will be demanded of them to go in and sort out what is a pretty wrecked oil industry in Venezuela. It will be some time before real money starts to come from that that is felt by American people. Could actually create an even bigger divide. The oil companies get richer, the rich get richer. The corporates do well out of his, have his little play with Maduro. And the other thing is, you know.

Alistair Campbell (18:02)

We'Ve told British geeks, though I think I'm right in saying that in the early 1900s, a whole election was run on the Boer War in Britain. Nothing to do with cost of living in Britain. In fact, the economy had been suffering quite badly through an agricultural recession. Conservative and Liberal Party went into a khaki election which was all about jingoism, international self abroad jingoism with 30,000 Greenlanders.

Rory Stewart (18:27)

Where you're going to put the entire US Europe relationship at risk.

Alistair Campbell (18:31)

Does a MAGA voter care about that? If the MAGA voter says, this guy has just increased the land mass of the United States by the largest amount in 120 years, handed all this extraordinary minerals to us, made America great again, secure again, big again. Who except for a few Democrats on the Northeast, are going to be worrying about European relations?

Rory Stewart (18:50)

I think it depends on the consequences. I think that it will take time for the money to come through. The kind of really weird thing going on in the oil industry is that their sort of absolute dominance in fracking and shale gas oil actually has not been helping them because it's been driving the price down, not up. So their exports are going to cock. I don't know. Look, I guess I'm just being optimistic from the sort of humanity perspective that there are enough people out there who actually won't necessarily watch Stephen Miller today as we did, and think, God, this is disgusting, but will at least think, no, hold on a minute. No, hold on a minute. This is just going too far.

Alistair Campbell (19:29)

Let me push you on another thing. What should Europe do about this? So I don't think anybody currently in the German Defense Ministry or the UK Ministry of Defence thinks it would be a sensible idea to put British or German troops in Greenland. Because if you do that, they say the Americans could just land boats on another part of Greenland, claim the territory, and you've got a bunch of troops isolated and surrounded. So, but hold on.

Rory Stewart (19:54)

But Rory, it's a NATO country, so NATO is dead at that point.

Alistair Campbell (19:58)

So then NATO would be dead. So then the question is, what do you do to deter the United States? How do you think UK Europe about an economic package that hurts the United States so much that Trump backs off in the way that China spent years preparing for the moment when Trump was going to put tariffs against China and they knew exactly where to hit him to get back?

Rory Stewart (20:22)

Well, just, I mean, I mentioned earlier about how I don't think maybe we thought enough about China last time, we'll come back to Europe. But I think on China, it's really interesting. I think they're going to take a very legalistic approach to this. They're going to basically be saying, excuse me, we've done lots of deals in Venezuela. We've got all these countries that you and I are saying you're going to pick off here and there. We've got legally binding deals with them. So it'd be very sort of clever way of saying, we're the rules people and this is a cowboy and we've got to deal with it on Europe. Listen, you occasionally refer to my family WhatsApp group and the sometimes more colorful views that get expressed than I might say. I know there is a big part of people who will have heard Keir Starmer on Sunday morning and thought, oh, for God's sake, man, just say the gut, say this is illegal. Say this, say that, say what, whatever. And Keir Starmer was very, very deliberate not to do so. And most of them, I think Sanchez is the only one Spanish prime minister who's really come out pretty hard on this. And the, and the statement that Kaiacallas put Together for Europe as a whole, yes, it talked about the importance of international law, rules based order, whatever, but they're all very, very conscious of the that fact that not least in relation to Ukraine, we're not sitting here not far from Ukraine. In relation to Ukraine, they all face the same challenge as before this. That is, how do you keep America engaged in Ukraine? Because without American support right now, both military and above all, intelligence, it will be very, very difficult for the Ukrainians. So I think Keir Starmer, Merz Macron, I think they're all prepared to endure a bit of sort of loathing and hatred from people who hate Trump. They can't say the things that we say.

Alistair Campbell (21:57)

Absolutely. And I think the former head of MI6 has come out and said, look, let's be realistic, Latin America is not within our sphere of influence. We can't control it very much. But Greenland is. So to come back to the question, okay, I understand Europe has decided it can't do much about America.

Rory Stewart (22:15)

They've all just about said the right thing on Greenland.

Alistair Campbell (22:16)

And what are they going to do, though, to make Trump see the consequences if he went into agreement?

Rory Stewart (22:22)

I think they're probably going to have to do a version of what they've been doing on Ukraine ever since the damn thing started, which is to not to call him out too heavily publicly, but privately constantly be trying to pull him back to a more sensible position. So actually, they will have to have really difficult conversations where they say, look, you know, are you seriously saying you're going to tear up this alliance between America, the United States and Europe, which has kept Europe safe? Are you really going to do that? And if they get to the point where the answer to that might be yes, then I think there have to be some very, very, very serious thoughts about whether we have to be more open about this sense that America is leaving us behind.

Alistair Campbell (23:03)

But we need a deterrent package. We need to be able to say to him, if you do this, this is the conspiracy.

Rory Stewart (23:08)

What's the United States into Ukraine at the moment? I think that's impossible. And they're all aware of that and he's aware of that. But let me just read you what Donald Tusk, the Polish Prime Minister, said. No one will. And I don't know what stage this was of the, of putting together the statement of 26. And the reason it was 26, because our friend Mr. Orban in Hungary refused to put his name to it, because that's what he does. Tusk said no one will take seriously a weak and Divided Europe, neither enemy nor ally. It is already clear now we must finally believe in our own strength. We must continue to arm ourselves. We must stay united like never before. One for all, all for one. Otherwise, we, we are finished. Okay, It's a rhetorical flourish on one level, but I think both Russia and Trump and this sort of new America that's emerging, they have to understand that Europe, for all its difficulties, if it could get its act together, it's way more powerful than Russia and it could at least have the power to stand up to Trump on some of these issues.

Alistair Campbell (24:01)

But of course it doesn't because both.

Rory Stewart (24:03)

Of them, because they're trying to keep them on board for Ukraine, both them.

Alistair Campbell (24:05)

Brilliantly know how to do divide and rule. It's not just Ukraine, it's also, you know, Britain thinks it's got a better trade deal than Europe. So we don't want to annoy Trump or he might hit us there. Maybe the Swiss are worried about this and that other thing. Finally, before we move on to the break and onto where we are today, running Venezuela. So when we did this Saturday piece, we talked about Trump's astonishing statement in the press conference that these guys behind me are going to be running Venezuela, which made no sense. I mean, this is a guy who is absolutely allergic to the idea really of American boots on the ground and running other people, people's countries. It now seems that what he meant by that is they're gonna be pulling the strings. Yeah. Is that Maduro's regime basically would remain in place for that Maduro. So all the same evil, corrupt, human rights abusing generals would remain. In fact, as soon as he did his abduction, there have been detentions of journalists, phones being taken, things being locked down, the regime is gone. And all the people in Latin America who were like, well, we don't like the way it was done or the legal justification, but thank goodness we finally got rid of the Maduro regime.

Rory Stewart (25:12)

They get Maduro light.

Alistair Campbell (25:13)

They get Maduro light. And the idea is the United States running it, according to Miller, just means the US keeps a lot of troops off the border and runs it by threatening to abduct any future leader of Venezuela that doesn't do what the United States says. Now, I can see that the one view which would be that the Venezuelan generals are purely self interested and corrupt and that that will be enough to make them compliant. But there's another view which would say in the end, for better or worse, these are nationalist generals who've come from a left wing populist tradition. Who are very closely tied in with Cuba. It doesn't seem to me credible that they're all going to start jumping to America's tune just because Trump says, if you don't do what I say, I'll start abducting a few more people.

Rory Stewart (25:58)

Well, one of the people we mentioned on Saturday is the sort of little group that was just below Maduro, who now seem to be still in charge. And one of them was this guy, the interior minister, who's seen as like the real, the real hard man, and he's all over the media in Venezuela and also our social media today, posing with these guys with machine guns, just sort of posing like you do. And essentially the message is, we're still in charge. Any expression of support for what's happened to Maduro, there's a crackdown. Now, if that goes on for, okay, Trump could get bored, move on to something else. But if that goes on for too long, then the question will start to emerge, well, who really is running this place? And you talk about MAGA and what they think, if they're meant to be really sort of excited and pleased and thrilled that they've finally taken out Maduro, what do they then think and think, well, actually, they've just been left in place to carry on doing the same thing. And meanwhile, Trump's not trying to do all this stuff for his rich mates in the oil industry. So I think that is where I don't think we were wrong on Saturday. For all Stephen Miller's boasting that this was the most meticulous operation, it was an amazing military operation. Have to give them that. But what the planning was thereafter, I think they're still making it up as they, as they go along. And I even wonder whether the whole Denmark thing right now is them creating another distraction. Don't forget, it was started by Stephen Miller's wife. And this is how ridiculous this old damn thing is. The reality TV show, she got a map of Greenland and she covered it with the Stars and stripes and posted a tweet saying soon. And Miller was asked about it in that interview with Jake Tapper, and he just sort of laughed. You know, it's like a big game. And because they're so powerful, they think they can do what the hell they want and when. I don't know if you saw Trump on Air Force One. So they've just done Venezuela and he's in a kind of, you know, he's one of his sort of real macho, bravado moods. So those kind of sycophant reporters are throwing questions at him. So what about Cuba, sir? Well, Cuba's going to fall. We don't have to worry too much. But Cuba's going to fall. Iran, well, if they carry on with, you know, if they kill any of these protesters, we're going to, you know, I'm going to get interested. I'm going to take charge there. Colombia, Mexico. Colombia.

Alistair Campbell (28:04)

Colombia. Very sick, too. He's very sick. Man likes selling cocaine, you know, his end is coming.

Rory Stewart (28:10)

So anyway, I think it's all bloody depressing, that's for sure.

Alistair Campbell (28:13)

But anyway, and maybe the transition, we'll go into the break now, but the transition then I think as we move to Putin and Moldova is the question of if you are Vladimir Putin, what's to stop you abducting the president of Armenia or a Georgian opposition leader in exactly the same way that has just happened with Maduro?

Rory Stewart (28:31)

Better lay off Maya Sandu and I should say Rory as well, in case you didn't know. The rest is classified. Gordon and David have done a very, very good deep dive on the operation itself, which as I said on Saturday will be the stuff of movies.

Alistair Campbell (28:46)

Into the future, into the break and then back off the See you soon. Looking to create the bath you've always dreamed of without all the hassle, The Home Depot makes it easier. Shop fully styled rooms and curated collections to bring your vision to life. Use digital tools to preview flooring and finishes in your space. And get everything you need from tubs to tile delivered fast and priced right. The Home Depot dream baths built here. Welcome back to the Restless Politics with.

Rory Stewart (29:28)

Me, Rory Stewart and me, Alistair Campbell. So shall we talk a bit about here, Moldova, why we're here, why it matters? We're here obviously, technically to interview the president for leading on Monday, as I said earlier, but I think we're here because for a country of 2.4 million, it matters an awful lot.

Alistair Campbell (29:46)

Yeah. Well, I think the first thing is that the president gave us as a joke at the end, an old Brit British board game. And the title of the board game was where is Moldova? Right. And the joke that she was making is that until recently, obviously people in Britain didn't really know anything about Moldova, otherwise the game wouldn't have been called where is Moldova? It's a general knowledge game. Moldova is an extraordinary history. I'm going to try to do a sort of 60 second explainer on it. Basically, this is a territory right on the very edge of empires. It was on the edge of the Hungarian kingdom, the Polish Lithuanian kingdom, then the Ottomans and then the Russians. I actually have Moldovan relatives, my great grandparents, two great grandparents. And if you look at their passport entries from the 19th century onwards, you can see how complicated this country is. So they are.

Rory Stewart (30:35)

So hold on. Three generations back in Moldovan. Correct. On your mother's side.

Alistair Campbell (30:40)

On my mother's side.

Rory Stewart (30:40)

We're not diluting your Scottishness on the other side.

Alistair Campbell (30:42)

Not diluting my Scottishness on the other side. If you look at their passport entries, they are described at one point as being Ottoman. Another point, one of them who's in such Eva, in what was then northern Moldova, is then described as Austro Hungarian. Then there's a moment where my great grandfather's passport entry, he calls himself a Romanian. Then there's a moment where he calls himself a Russian and then a Romanian again. And if he'd lived long enough, he would have described himself eventually as a citizen of the Soviet Union. Now, the only reason why I'm telling this, I don't need to explain all the complicated movement back and forth, the territories, but this is a country with a very, very contested national story, achieved its independence from the Soviet Union and had this huge debate about whether it was going to rejoin Romania, whether it was going to be an independent country, whether the oligarchs, who's been running in the recent elections, been suggesting it sort of should rejoin Russia, and yet somehow has emerged as critical because it is stuck between Ukraine and. And Romania. And if you're looking around the world at what are the countries that Putin might go after next, after Ukraine, Moldova would be one. And then we can talk a little bit about the Caucasus, but we're right at the front line here.

Rory Stewart (32:01)

I think the other thing we've learned is that they are absolutely dependent, defence wise, on Ukraine and Romania. I really do urge people on Monday to listen to the interview. A very, very, very strong woman, Very interesting. And as you say, I mean, look, we've got some Moldovans in the room. I'd be a little bit scared if I was here right now when we.

Alistair Campbell (32:25)

Talk about the way in which Putin and Trump are disintegrating the global order. And Moldova has a really good way of bringing this to people's attention because basically, Moldova, it's a pretty peaceful country. The cliche under the Soviet Union was the sunny part of the Soviet Union. People would often come here on holiday, famous for its wine. It's not like a sort of warlike Balkan Chechen mountain.

Rory Stewart (32:52)

Even when the oligarchs were in charge, it wasn't sort of as violent as Some of the other parts of the region.

Alistair Campbell (32:56)

And so this relatively peaceful, relatively neutral country is now finding itself facing these incredibly brutal choices. One of those choices is going to be about joining the European Union, which is what this flag's about. And as we've pointed out to listeners, the presidential election, the parliamentary election referendum, all pushing towards this move to join the European Union. But it joins a very large number of countries trying to join the European Union. There was a big accession in 2004. The last accession was Croatia in 2014. So we've had now 12 years where nobody's managed to join Europe.

Rory Stewart (33:31)

As you know, I have now worked on however many election campaigns is with Eddie Ram before, and every one of them has been partly fought on the idea of stick with us and we'll get into the European Union.

Alistair Campbell (33:42)

Albania, Montenegro, where I was based as a British diplomat for a year. Again, then they think we're a tiny country. Why on earth would anyone prevent us joining? We're not going to be a great thing. Serbia will be another example. Bosnia is another example. So let's sort of maybe begin with that, because for President Maya Sandy, this is existential. If Europe fumbles this and doesn't take Moldova into the European Union, Moldova will naturally go back into a sphere of Russian influence. Well, I think it will be very difficult for them to resist.

Rory Stewart (34:13)

It truly depends what happens in Ukraine. Because the military threat that you talk about, that presumably, I'm hesitant to look at, we actually have got their national security advisor in the room. Not because they're censoring at all. Not at all. This is not Russia. But surely that only happens if Ukraine falls.

Alistair Campbell (34:34)

I'm afraid that even if Ukraine doesn't fall, her ability to keep winning elections is going to deteriorate very rapidly. If people get the impression that she was elected to get people into the European Union, and the European Union doesn't want you. And we've seen this in many other countries. We've seen this in the way politics change in Turkey, the way politics has changed in Serbia, and that will then give a huge boost to basically the socialist, communist pro Russian parties here. And that will create a much more permissive environment. If they get in and get elected, you'll then see Russian civilians being able to get through to Transnistria, maybe the reinforcement of the Russian army and this little bit of Moldovan territory just on the other side of the Dnieper River.

Rory Stewart (35:16)

Well, just on that. I mean, Transnistria, again, is something which, you know, some of our listeners will be expert on, but others Might not be, but I found, and people will be able to listen to this on Monday. But I found that part of the discussion quite difficult because there are 1500 Russian troops there. The officers who are in charge of them are not being rotated in and out for fairly obvious reasons, because the Moldovans don't want them. They want them to stay there rather than constantly change. How does a skeptic European country, given the processes that they all have to go through for another country to join the European Union, how will they feel and how will the argument be used against them that you're welcoming in a small country which actually has Russian troops in part of this disputed territory?

Alistair Campbell (36:03)

So this is a big problem. I mean, the European Commission is very keen, and of course Macron and Meltz have visited and the President is saying that this is really important for Europe, for European security against Russia. And the assumption here is that Europe will take them. The risk is that populist governments are elected in Europe who don't want any more EU expansion. And then, if you have to guess what would be the arguments that those governments would make or parties would make against the accession, Transnistria would be one. And then there's also the question of this very complicated past. So although Moldova is now going in a much more positive, pro EU direction, the populist parties will remember that in the 90s, early 2000s, they will talk about crime from Transnistria, human trafficking, organ trafficking, weapons sales, all this kind of stuff in order to give the impression to European populations, we don't really want this place. It's too difficult, it's too dangerous.

Rory Stewart (37:07)

Again, people will be able to see this on Monday. She's not one of those leaders who loves to talk about herself. And she kept saying when we asked her about herself, it's not about me, it's about the things we're dealing with. It's about the future of the country, about this, which it is. But I do think we should not understate the scale of what she achieved in a tiny country where she is, everybody says, completely uncorruptible, where she built her own party up, starting with just herself and two other people in a room and without business money, just sort of small donations and all that stuff, and to become the president and then to win second time around in a campaign where, at conservative estimates, the Russians put in about 100, 200 million euros in terms of disinformation, vote buying and.

Alistair Campbell (37:55)

All the rest of it, it's incredible, it's unbelievable. And if we take the two elections so there was the presidential election referendum and there was a parliamentary election. The Russians may have put in, as you say, 100, 200, 300 million into another, maybe 500 million euros into the. The other one, with her own party spending a few hundred thousand euros, or a million at most. And you have the Russians with an entire unit based out of the Kremlin, working with the svr, who are absolutely confidently saying to Vladimir Putin, don't worry, we've got this, we can buy it. There's cryptocurrency going in. We've got amazing political technologies using Telegram in order to put local news stories together. We're buying mayors, we're taking priests to Moscow where we're putting them on junkets. We're literally paying money. We're giving televisions to some people, but other people, we're literally giving 50, 100, €150. We're running Carousel techniques, which means that people go into polling stations with a fake ballot paper and then take out the stamped ballot paper, pass it to the last in the queue so that they can all get through. You have these incredible spikes in voting from pro Russians who didn't vote in the past. You've got this man, Shaw, who's a pro Russian now, pro Russian oligarch, probably an opportunist, but have you gone to the pro Russian camp at the moment? So if you were one of Putin's political technologists, you would look at this country and think, sure, I can do this. Of course I can do this. I mean, maybe it's worth telling listeners a bit about some of the extraordinary kind of salacious social media stuff that was going on.

Rory Stewart (39:27)

Well, I mean, again, she kept saying, look, it's not about me, but some of the stories were absolutely extraordinary. So there was a sort of production of this fake website that looks a little bit like, okay, hello, magazine type thing. And it ran a story that she. This is a woman who's uncorruptible, everybody says, including her opponents, and who earns less than a thousand dollars a month. Okay? And the story was that she had spent $300,000 to buy the sperm of Elton John and Ricky Martin so that she could produce a gay child. Okay, now you can see how clickbait wise that would fly. And it did fly, and all that sort of stuff flew. So the stuff that was about her personally and she said in our interview, and it started when she was really shocked when she became Education Minister, that this was sort of happening. She's had that on a scale that probably, I think the only other person that we've spoken, spoken to who's got anything like it was Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand.

Alistair Campbell (40:27)

And that wasn't hundreds of millions of dollars of Russian money.

Rory Stewart (40:30)

Not at all. So. But in terms of the sort of content and the sort of sort of messaging around it, real misogyny and, and also they got the church involved, so lots of stuff, really dark arts going on. And I guess the other thing it's maybe worth. You mentioned Armenia just before the break. We talked about Brexit in the interview because I am still of the view that we have not got to the bottom of the extent of the Russian involvement in the Brexit referendum and in the rise of reform. I still don't think we've got to the bottom it, because those who allowed it to happen do not, or who benefited from it do not want the questions to be asked. Okay. She's pretty clear in her own mind that there's no way the Russians wouldn't have got involved if they're prepared to put this sort of resource into a presidential election in Moldova. Where else are they putting in that sort of resource and where else might be next?

Alistair Campbell (41:20)

Well, we certainly knew that they did it with the US Election. She also said that reconstituting the Soviet Union is very, very important to Putin, hence his interest in having Moldova as a Russian puppet. And if he looks around the map, you've just mentioned Armenia. Where is he going to move next? Georgia we covered. We interviewed the president of Georgia, the former president of Georgia. He's basically got Georgia. He's pretty happy with Georgia. Got a very, very pro Russian administration now in Georgia, very sadly. And actually the European Union really missed a trick. They weren't making the visits there, they weren't investing, they weren't getting behind the pro EU presidents in Georgia and they weren't behind the demonstrations in Georgia. Next place to look is Armenia. So Armenia is not like Moldova. Moldova has put so much energy into anti Russian exercises. Moldova has really put in place incredible coordination of intelligence, tax, border in order to try to stop the Russians from stealing Moldova. Armenia, there's a lot of Russian presence on the ground. And I think it's perfectly possible to relate to the first half that Putin, this is quite a good time for him to abduct the president of Armenia, saying he's bringing him back for trial on drugs or corruption. In fact, the more he makes it look like Maduro, the better. Just put him on a plane next to him in the uniform manacle's back and then move in to change the administration in Armenia. What possible grounds could the US have to complain if they did that in Armenia?

Rory Stewart (42:53)

Well, that is, of course, the real reason why what happened at the weekend is so alarming. If we get to a world where basically the big countries can do what the hell they want, international law doesn't matter, old alliances don't matter, truth doesn't matter, facts don't matter, then we really are going back not just years, but centuries in terms of how the world is run.

Alistair Campbell (43:15)

Well, I think we're kind of coming to the end now, but I suppose we've linked Venezuela, Moldova, Armenia, maybe. Let's just finish with where we are in Moldova. And in a way, what a wonderful story it is. It's managed to, against all the odds, get this very improbable president who's quite sort of shy and introverted, who has led this extraordinary anti corruption campaign in one of the most corrupt countries on earth and won. It has managed to stabilize the economy of a country that was basically the poorest part of the Soviet Union. And the country that did worse after 1989 economically is really pushing hard to join the European Union. And then I think the thing to end on is where is the energy and the idealism and the imagination on the other side, where is the European Union? Where's Starmer, Where's Metz, Where's Macron? Where are people coming with open arms saying here is this sort of miracle and it's a country we absolutely can absorb. It's not so big that it's going to bankrupt us. It's not going to create some sort of Grexit issue. Why doesn't Europe really lean into this hard?

Rory Stewart (44:20)

And you see, this is the other. I mean, look, Trump, as we know, incredibly difficult to handle, incredibly difficult to deal with, but this is the time to do it. Look, the only other potential power in the, okay, India maybe, but the only other real potential power that ever gets anywhere close to the power that America and China have, it's not a single European country. It's Europe and it's above all the European Union. But if the European Union gives the sense of the drift and division that it's been giving of late, if the populist right do make the sort of advances that they look like they might make, I would argue, argue one of the reasons why she's so popular and strong is because she's out there all the time giving people a sense of the enormous risk to the country if they don't take the decisions they're taking. And I think we need a bit of that across Europe. We need a bit of, you know, are we really up to speed with just how dangerous the world is right now?

Alistair Campbell (45:18)

What she calls the big narrative. I mean, she was being polite towards the end of the interview, but basically what she was saying is that she's worried that the kind of centrist technocrats tend to bang on about tiny issues, Mercosur, cultural war issues, identity issues. They're not making the big framing narrative either in terms of people's everyday standard of living or the geopolitics.

Rory Stewart (45:39)

Okay, should we just maybe close. We said, I think at the top we're going to talk a little bit about Ukraine. Let me just say I thought Zelensky again said something. He put out a post the other day. He said the Russian army is defeated, in quotes, yet another hospital in Kyiv with a functioning inpatient unit. Patients have had to be evacuated. There are casualties, condolences to the family, etc. And then he says, of course, we will restore this hospital. That's the kind of people we are. Ukrainians always rebuild what has been destroyed. Likewise, repair crews, energy specialists, all essential services are working in the regions where the Russians have caused new damage and new power outages. 165 attack drones were launched overnight and around 100 of them were shaheds. And it's crucial, he says, that our partners never forget. Air defense is needed every day. Funding of interceptor drones is needed every day. Equipment of the energy sector is needed every day. So I think we are still in that place and we're now getting not far off the point where this war becomes as long as the first World War. We talk a lot about narrative in the first part of the program. I think a lot of the narrative that Putin has managed to get going over the holiday period has been that this is all going his way right now. Venezuela will have helped him on that. But there's the other Vladimir saying, no, we're still fighting.

Alistair Campbell (46:58)

Well, see you soon.

Rory Stewart (47:00)

See you for Question Time.

Alistair Campbell (47:01)

Bye. So what's really going on between Donald Trump and Venezuela right now? I'm Gordon Carrera, National Security Journal. And I'm David McCloskey, author and former CIA analyst. And we together are the hosts of the Rest Is Classified. In our latest emergency episodes, we go deep into the inside track of what's really going on in the spy war in Venezuela. And we're looking at how, with the help of the CIA, Donald Trump has managed to oust Venezuela's leader. So get the full insider scoop by listening to the rest is classified. Wherever you get your podcasts.