← The Rest Is Politics
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A
Thanks for listening to the Rest Is Politics. To support the podcast, listen without the adverts and get early access to episodes and live show Tickets, go to therestispolitics.com that's therestispolitics.com Is Trump a fascist?
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B
When you say I think Donald Trump is a fascist, they often mean this person is very right wing and I don't like them.
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A
Far right. Authoritarian nationalism, obsession with military strength and centralized power, a determination to suppress opposition. I think he ticks a good 90% of that.
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B
TRUMP is a narcissist. He's only interested in himself. I don't think he's powered by a wider ideology.
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A
We're dealing with somebody who is surrounded by sycophants, nobody talking the truth to him. That's what happens with a cult. It is a cult.
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B
Is there not a slippage here between the tribalism and the cult, as it were?
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A
Now, Rory Stewart has decided that he and his family should have a podcast free holiday. But I obsessive that I am, having never missed a week in the Olympiad, we've been doing this. I am here with an absolutely brilliant stand in. So welcome to the Rest Is Politics
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B
with me, Alastair Campbell, and me, Dominic Sandbrook.
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A
There we go. It is none other than Dominic Sambrook from our sister podcast the Rest Is History. And now also co presenter of Gollanger's new show, the Book Club. And boy, do we love books and are we living through history right now. So, Dominic, thanks so much for stepping in. There could not be a better time to have your perspective.
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B
Thank you, Alistair. It's nice to be working on a properly professional podcast for once with the really big star of Gohangers Stable.
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A
Exactly. Anyway, I think it's fair to say that as we enter the second month of the Iran war for the fifth week running, the issue will dominate the Rest Is Politics podcast. There are so many issues and angles to look at. Are Donald Trump's expletive laden war crime threatening social media post sign of a man losing the war, losing the plot, losing his mind. Even just hours before he was triumphant at the Americans rescuing a couple of airmen who'd been downed in Iran. But is the fact of their jets downing one more sign that they perhaps have been underestimating their enemy? We've had Pete Hexorth firing General's Galore, some say because they don't support the Defense Secretary's notion that this is a war for Jesus, something the Pope has spoken out against. Then we have Lebanon at breaking point. We have Iraq and the worry that is being drawn into this war against its will and maybe especially pressing for us in Europe, is NATO finished? And perhaps most of all, I guess, who's actually winning? So there's a lot of questions that we're going to get into, Dominic, but I wonder if, first of all, we shouldn't just have a little seconds out. Round two. This is to revisit an excellent debate we had on election night in New York. You joined me and Rory Anthony Scaramucci and Marina Hyde. As the Trump victory unfolded, we had quite a heated discussion, especially with the Mooch on the question, is Trump a fascist? I was basically yes. Mooch was a very big yes, underlined many times, and you were a no. And I just wondered if you've changed your mind at all given all that's happened happened since Trump returned for his second term.
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B
Okay, so the short answer is no, I haven't. It's funny that you mention it because that's something that I'm asked about a lot. Like a lot of people remember that election night debate about was Trump a fascist? Especially the exchange between me and Anthony, because Anthony was so adamant that he wasn't fascist. And I think part of the confusion is that people use the word fascist in two different ways. So, number one, people use the word fascist to mean an authoritarian demagogue that they don't like. So when you say I think Donald Trump is a fascist, or when lots of people say I think so and so is a fascist, I mean, people said Thatcher was a fascist, they said Nixon was a fascist. They often mean this person is very right wing and I don't like them.
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A
I wouldn't say that about either of those two.
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B
No, of course I, I'm not saying you would. By the way, the other definition is more historically specific, which is the one that I would use, which is that I think fascism was a very distinctive sort of historical phenomenon. It came about in the ruins of the First World War. There's a paramilitary politics, you know, to fascism. There's also, if you look at people like Mussolini and Hitler, what they want to do is to, they have total contempt for democracy. I mean, I'm sure you'll say, well, there are lots of people now who have contempt for democracy, but they believe that the world is entering this new age because of modernity and because of new technology and all of these kinds of things. They want to create a new society. They want to create new kinds of people. They want, they are obsessed with change. And I mean, of course they're looking back to the past a lot. But they believe all the old ways should be thrown out and let us create a new way of being. They're both massive overthinkers, actually. Mussolini and Hitler. If you were sat next to them by some hideous mischance at a dinner party, they'd be extremely boring and they would be telling you about all these things they had read. You know, Hitler's a great autodidact. He writes Mein Kampf.
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A
He's.
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B
He's somebody who's always giving sort of these long, boring lectures about eugenics and racism and all of this kind of stuff. Trump, I think, has very little of that. Trump is the narcissist. He's only interested in himself. I don't think he's powered by a wider ideology. I do think he has obviously total contempt for democratic norms, but I don't think that's because he thinks democracy is rotten and it's weak and all this. I think it's just because it gets in his way and that so he wants to get rid.
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A
Let's revisit this briefly after we come back from a short break. This episode is brought to you by Fuse Energy.
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A
If we go back to the night of the election, your principal lines of argument against what Anthony and I were saying. You said that he doesn't have a paramilitary force. Well, I think we could argue that he does now with ice. And he also he and Hexith treat the Pentagon as though it's an extension of their particular operation. You said he doesn't have a cult for war. Yeah, indeed. You actually said in his defense, he was actually a draft dodger. That's how Much. He hates war.
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B
Yeah.
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A
He now actually would seem to be, despite constantly saying he's ending wars, he's actually started a war that we're going to talk about that is potentially catastrophic. You said he doesn't have a plan for aggressive expansion, Greenland, Monroe Doctrine, etc. And he said there was no ideological dimension to recreate society in his image. I definitely think tick, tick, tick on the first three. That makes him a fascist by the definition I would put on it. But then I think even on the no ideological dimension, I think MAGA has morphed into one, not least because of the way that the people around him have made it.
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B
So let me just say, by the way, that I think it would be. You mentioned maga.
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A
Yeah.
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B
I think there are people who are associated with Trump who I would say are much, much more, as it were, fascist adjacent.
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A
Well, you said on the night you thought Musk was a fascist.
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B
There's people like Musk. There are a lot of these tech people. The way they talk is very similar to how people talked in the 1920s and 30s or someone like Stephen Miller. So again, somebody who's very close to Trump. But some of the stuff that he comes out with, I would say is very reminiscent of kind of mid 20th century. The aggression of it, the. The nihilism of it, all of that kind of st. Yeah, but Trump himself, I just don't think he's that interested in ideas, frankly.
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A
Okay, I did a couple of things as I was thinking about how we were going to talk about this. The first is I did what all good people do when they're looking at big historical concepts. I went onto Wikipedia and looked for a simple definition of fascism, and what that says is, at its core, far right authoritarian nationalism with an all powerful dictatorial leader, obsession with military strength and centralized power, a determination to suppress opposition, not least by seeking to control media, curb the judiciary, distaste for the rule of law, and a passionate hatred of communism, liberalism, pluralism, democracy itself. I think he ticks a good 90% of that.
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B
I think a lot of authoritarian demagogic populists would tick some of those boxes, but not all of them. So first of all, I don't think ICE is a paramilitary movement equivalent to the paramilitaries that you saw on the streets of Italy or Germany in the 1920s. I mean, I don't like ice and I don't like the way they behave, but I don't think it's the same kind of. It's not a volunteer paramilitary movement that inspires Enormous enthusiasm from young people as.
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A
No, but you could see it morphing alongside his misuse of the National Guard, alongside using troops on the streets of cities, you could see him morphing into something that we could at least equate with it. Because this is the thing, I think, when we talk about fascism, I think people with your perspective think that fascism as we saw it in the 30s and what it evolved was so horrific, we should be very careful about making the parallels. My point is that what started out in the 30s is now judged by how it ended. The Holocaust, et cetera, 6 million Jews being exterminated. But I sort of feel that Trump is on that sort of path, particularly in this term, faster than Hitler was in his time in office.
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B
Oh, I think that's a big claim. I think there's a massive difference between Trump and Hitler. Now, I know a lot of the rest of his politics listeners will be throwing their phones at the wall at this point because they love to think that Trump is like Hitler. But I think Hitler had an exterminatory program from the very beginning. He was driven by virulent racism. Trump can be racist, by the way, but I think it's casual rather than virulent. I think it's casual and boorish. It's the racism of the boar at the golf. I think Hitler's racism, he couldn't shut up about it. He talked about it absolutely openly and unashamedly. And he saw it in terms of kind of. He talks about racial hygiene and cleansing society and all of this kind of thing.
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A
So does Trump. Somali garbage.
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B
But again, I think that's the kind of thing that somebody says when they've had a few too many drinks. Of course, Trump doesn't drink, but they've had a few too many drinks at the golf club bar and they are boring on and they're revealing that the ugliness of their, their kind of political instincts. That to me, is what Trump is, I think, rather than the sort of the cold blooded, pseudo, pseudo intellectual side of fascism. Now, one thing I think you're, you're right about, I think if fascism was, were to return in the 21st century, it would look very different from how it looked in the 20s and 30s. So in the 20s and 30s, there were kind of torchlight parades and there were mass, you know, marches and all that kind of thing. That was the sort of political world of that era and that we would have something very different. Now the other thing I think actually Trump is not going to run again in the, in the next presidential election. I mean, he's, he's basically said that himself, and I think it would be almost impossible for him to do so. I think our, after November, when we have the midterm elections, we won't be having the same kind of debate because he will be a lame duck president, because basically he'll be yesterday's man. Now we'll be having, maybe we'll be having a different conversation about J.D. vance, let's say. I know we'll be talking about Vance probably a little bit later in this episode, but I think the Republican Party, even now, I think there are people who are conscious that they've maybe overreached a little bit, that people are tiring of the. That they are in a democracy, whether they like it or not, and people are tiring of the constant aggression and that abrasive style of politics. And of course, the MAGA movement now is so unstable because there are so many people who don't like what Trump is doing in foreign policy.
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A
Look, I obviously hope you're right, and I think the midterms will be crucial. I also think that the Supreme Court, which I think has been pretty lame most of the time, it has actually started to show a bit of what you might call independent judgment. But maybe before we go on to around Dominic, I. The last time Rory and I discussed this on the podcast, I recalled a visit that I made to the US Holocaust Museum in Washington. And there's this very. I don't know if it's still there or whether it's been taken down in the light of the cultural revolution that Trump is supervising. But there's this very yellowing, very thin piece of paper, and I don't think it's even got an author on it, but the headline is Early Warning Signs of Fascism. And there are 14, but I'll read them very, very briefly. And again, you listeners, viewers, just, you know, bear Trump in mind as we go through, number one, powerful continuing nationalism. Number two, disdain for human rights. Number three, identification of enemies as a unifying cause. Number four, supremacy of the military. Number five, rampant sexism. Number six, controlled mass media. Number seven, obsession with national security. Number eight, the intertwining of religion and government hexus. Number nine, corporate power protected. Number 10, labour power suppressed. Number 11, disdain for intellectuals and the arts. Number 12, obsession with crime and punishment. Number 13, rampant cronyism and corruption. Number 14, fraudulent elections. Now, I think he ticks them all, with the possible exception of number 14. He passes that one merely by the fact that he claims the election he lost was fraudulent. But. But I think that's. That's the American Holocaust Museum's warning signs of fascism. I think he takes all of them.
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B
See, I think he's not sufficiently ideological and not sufficiently consistent to count as a fascist. What I do think, however, is the. The political ecosystem is moving in that direction anyway with or without Donald Trump. I think Trump has hastened that.
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A
And that's why your point about the tech Bros is so important, because they are such big drivers of the change that are bringing this about.
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B
Yeah, I think so. So I think that we are. It's a really interesting question about how sustainable, you know, the democracy that you and I grew up in, the model of democracy, how sustainable that is in the 21st century where the institutions that were so important to the survival of that democracy, so they would be things like big mass membership organizations like trade unions, or let's say in Britain, an organization like the Conservative Party where, you know, hundreds of thousands of people would be affiliated with it one way or another. They turn out for fates. They turn out for all these fundraisers, all that stuff, as they did in the Labor Party or before then, the liberals. So those institutions have gone. People see themselves much more as atomized individuals. And they get their news not from, as it were, responsible institutions like the big newspapers or the BBC or big broadcasters that felt they had a duty to reflect the pluralism of a democratic society, but they get their news from X or from, you know, TikTok or whatever. It's much harder to have a pluralistic, democratic conversation, I think, where you recognize the legitimacy of other people's positions. If you live in this hyper polarized, hyper partisan world that the tech giants want us to live in because it's good for the, you know, for the. Because their algorithms drive it and it's good for their revenues. And that's what would really worry me, that actually fascism or, or a. Or a more modernized version of fascism can really thrive in such a climate in a way that it couldn't in, you know, 1960s or 1970s Britain or something, where you have these big institutions that basically act as gatekeepers, keepers.
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A
Okay, we'll clip that up and send it onto the mooch and see whether he has. He has moved in his opinion. But I, he definitely.
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B
I know he has not.
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A
I suspect he's hardened his view that we're dealing. We're definitely dealing with a wannabe fascist, I would argue. But let's turn to Iran. I said in the introduction, we're now into week Five, We've had a lot of claims from Trump that it's been won. We've had a lot of promises that would just. It's about to end. I think we're now onto the eighth final warning to Iran to avoid complete obliteration. But as so often with Trump, the realities don't really square with the claims that are coming from his bully pulpit. And the brutal truth, I think, is that the war shows little sign of ending. I don't know if you'd agree with this, but I think the Iranians seem, for all the destruction and for all the cost, I think they seem happier with the way that it's going. And meanwhile, for the whole world, the costs, the consequences and the risks, particularly of economic catastrophe, are rising. But I wonder if we shouldn't start with that question that I've trailed at the top. Who do we think is winning this war?
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B
Do you know, it's such a strange war. I was trying to think of a historical precedent for it, and I couldn't think of one. And it's a sign of how warfare has changed. So the Americans, by a sort of conventional measure, are obviously winning the war. They've killed the Iranian leader. They've killed a lot of senior Iranian leaders. I mean, just before we started recording this, I think the intelligence chief of the Revolutionary Guard was announced as having been killed, and, you know, his predecessor was killed six months ago by the Israelis. So the Iranians are losing a lot of their top people. They're obviously taking a battering. So by conventional standards, you might say, well, they are obviously, you know, they're losing. But there is an argument, isn't there, that this is going to end up as a big strategic defeat for the United States that they have. They're torching their own reputation yet again by launching this sort of. This attack that feels more like a spasm than a sort of cold, you know, coldly calculated planned operation. It's never been clear what their objectives are. It's never been clear what their rationale for the invasion, for the attack was. I mean, I called it. I was about to say invasion. It's not really an invasion. I mean, that's the peculiar thing about it, that they said they're hesitating to put in ground forces. There's no end game in mind.
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A
What do their.
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B
You know, has this strengthened their allies in the region? Has it strengthened their bonds with countries like Saudi Arabia or the other. The other nations on whom they depend? No. Is it likely to make the Middle east more or less stable? I Mean, it's hardly going to make it more stable. I suppose the one thing you would say if you're playing devil's advocate, is that it has emasculated Iran's ability to strike beyond its borders. You know, Iran definitely looks, I would say Iran looks weaker as an offensive actor now because its ability to project its power beyond its borders has been hampered by this. You know, if you were a client state of Iran, you wouldn't look at Iran and say, gosh, they're so powerful. I, you know, I'm glad we're in bed with them. I suppose the other. But the counter to the counter argument is Iran looks more resilient than people thought it would be a few weeks ago. You may think of all the protests at the turn of the year, and there was an expectation, I think, in Washington, well, maybe, you know, the Iranians will seize the opportunity to rise up and overthrow the regime. I mean, that was Trump's rhetoric, wasn't it? He said, it's now up to you to take to the streets. And people haven't done that because, you know, one of the. Put my historians hat back on. A lesson of history is if you rely, if you think aerial power will cripple a regime, it never works out that way. Often it solidifies support for a regime because people say, frankly, I'd rather, I hate our leadership, but I'd rather side with them than with those bastards who are dropping death on us from the skies. So I would say, I mean, it's very hard to make a case the Americans are winning the war, isn't it? I mean, no matter how many people they kill.
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A
I think also, I completely agree with that. And I think the other point to make is that we talk a lot about asymmetric warfare because of Trump and Rubio and Vance and the competing narratives and objectives they put out there. And because of this superlative language that Trump uses all the time. It's the biggest, it's the best, it's the most daring, we've got, the most amazing, etc. Winning for America literally has to mean a changed regime. The regime has been decapitated, but the same regime is still in place. And the other thing is that for the Iranians to win, they just have to survive. They can tolerate a lot of death. We've seen that in the way they treat their own people. And I'm not sure I agree with you about your point about extending their power beyond the borders. We'll talk a little bit in a moment about what's happening in Iraq. But I think their power at the moment, which they are using absolutely brutally, is an economic power based upon their access to and control of the Straits of Hormuz. That is a form of power. And let's just look at what Trump said yesterday. Actually had a debate going in America Yesterday about the 25th Amendment, whether you can remove a president on mental health grounds. So this was the tweet, the post in full, on truth Social. And I can't believe anybody was in the room with him when he did this, because even though I know people in there who tell me that the only person who speaks truth to power still a bit is Susie Wiles, He's Chief of Staff, who's now got breast cancer. So I don't know whether that's going to take her out of the picture for a while, but I think even Vance and Rubio, even possibly Hex. No, not Hexa, let's forget him, Would have said, Please, Mr. President, don't do this. So this is it. I'll read out in full. Tuesday will be Power plant day and bridge Day all wrapped up in one in Iran. There will be nothing like it. Open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell. Caps. Just watch. Praise be to Allah. This is Easter Sunday, by the way. President Donald J. Trump.
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B
Yeah. Demented.
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A
I mean, that is, if I may use the F word too. That is fucking insane.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And it's strategically stupid.
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B
It is because he's making a threat that it's not clear whether he can
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A
follow through with it if he does their war crimes.
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B
Yeah. To attack the power plants.
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A
It's all very well to say we call. I mean, Netanyahu is an indicted war criminal. We regularly call Putin a war criminal because he attacks hospitals, energy, infrastructure. This is Trump saying he's going to destroy your civilian infrastructure. That is a war crime.
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B
The crazy thing here is, I mean, you mentioned Putin. Putin's obviously a very bad man and Putin has made some, some horrendous miscalculations, you know, most famously in 2022. But Putin is a cold blooded, you know, he's a cold blooded killer, isn't. He sits there, he makes his plans, he thinks what he wants to get out of this. He weighs up the odds and then he makes his decision. Trump is just lashing out. Yeah, I mean, that he. What is this, his eighth deadline or something? You said his objectives for the operation have changed over time. His what he thinks about the Straits of Illness has changed over time because just a couple of days Ago, he was saying, if the Europeans want the oil so badly, why don't they go and get it themselves? Oh, they can't, because they haven't got a proper navy and all of this kind of thing. So he's just making stuff up on the fly. I mean, the extraordinary thing is this is how he has run his. This is how he has run his administration since day one. I mean, not just in. When he. The second term, the first term as well. The first time he had people there who were restraining him. Now he's basically just got a cabinet of enablers, an administration of people who enable him. Somebody like. I mean, you mentioned Hegseth. Hegseth is just Trump's mini me, isn't he? He doesn't seem to have any sort of plan either, which is why he's getting rid of generals who disagree with him. So how do they get out of it? You see, I think there's a very easy way to get out of it. They declare victory and leave. I mean, this is what people used to say about the Vietnam War. Why don't you just say we've won and go home? I don't think he necessarily has to have regime change to stop. You see, I think he could say we have degraded the Iranian regime to a point where they can. They are no longer a threat to America or to the wider world. We're finished, mission accomplished, thank you very much. We're going home. I mean, if I was in Trump's administration, God forbid, that's what I would tell him to do, okay?
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A
And what the Iranians might be sitting there thinking is, okay, he's desperate, he's worried about the midterms, gasoline prices are going through the roof. It would be nuts of us to engage with him on negotiation because he took out our leader, he took out our new leaders, wife, children, all the rest of it. There's no reason to engage with his country. So they let him do that for 48 hours. And then back to my point about asymmetric warfare, Houthis, or they get Hezbollah, they get one of their proxies to. Or they do things in London or they do things in Berlin or they do things in Paris. They go down the kind of terror route. Where does he go then? In his mind, he has to go back in. And what I think that Post said to me me is that psychologically they've kind of got him where they want him now. He's put himself there. But I don't think this is as easy to get out of as you Think, because they are thinking now because they're desperate as well. They've got a population that. They're not stupid. They know the population doesn't like them. This war, as you said earlier, has brought them together to some extent. But I think this is. I think he's in this for the long haul. And of course, for the world, that's a disaster.
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B
But do you think it's in it for the long haul, in terms of putting it? I mean, they've moved troops to the region, haven't they? There was some talk of them seizing, what is it, Kharg island, which is the crucial oil refinery island in the middle of the straits. I mean, I could imagine them seizing that, even though it's very heavily defended. But a ground invasion of Iran, I mean, that's clearly not. That would be absolutely insane.
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A
No. Well, just look at what happened. This is the other thing, because we talk about Trump as the reality TV master. If he was at the top of his previous reality TV game, he would have let the episode about the rescued airmen run for at least 24 hours.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Because it was an amazing rescue mission. Yeah. Right. And it would allow him, truthfully, to say, we have these amazing forces. Etc, Etc. Etc. But because, as you say, he's operating by spasm, he kind of wipes that out by coming out with this. You crazy bastards. Open the fucking straight. So I think we're dealing with somebody who is. Is surrounded by sycophants, nobody talking the truth to him, angry with Europe, angry with the rest of the world lashing out at them. That's giving them the opportunity, with massive public support, to pull back. It's allowing the Chinese just to sit there, as they do. Russia is now feeling financially empowered, politically empowered. Putin sitting there, seeing the air defenses being shifted from Ukraine to the Gulf. Good for Putin, bad for. Bad for Zelensky. So I think he's created a mess then. You've got the economy, you've got every government in the world having to pick up the economic pieces of this. Yeah, of course, I think this is a catastrophe for him, for the world. But I don't think it's that easy for him, credibly, even with the MAGA crowd, to say, I've won a walk away.
- [27:02]
B
Well, a lot of the MAGA crowd are very. Are very, very divided about this. I mean, one of the things that people forget is that there's a. A real strain of isolationism to the Trump movement. I mean, remember when he won in 2016, it was partly by saying, we've had a generation. No more wars. We've had a generation of leaders who have taken into these mad wars. No more wars. I'm going to keep us out. I'm going to keep American boys at home, all of this kind of thing. And one thing that I did not anticipate, I have to say, I don't know if you anticipated this, was that his second term would be so different in that regard from his first. His first, he wasn't really interested in foreign policy coups. In his second term, it's been a search for one foreign policy set piece or photo opportunity. It could be Greenland, it could be annexing Canada. Kind of these, these crazy ideas is a sort of ceaseless search for validation abroad.
- [27:53]
A
I kind of did see it, because if you remember, again, back to our night on election night, I was obsessed with this Project 25 document, Project 2025, which I think signaled a change of direction domestically and internationally. That's, for example, where they started to talk about Europe and such hostile and detrimental terms. You mentioned Pete Hexseth there, the Fox News commentator turned Secretary of War, and you mentioned the generals. He sacked Randy George, who's the 41st chief of staff, and they announced he's going. They made no bones about the fact he's being sacked. He'd been nominated by Biden, confirmed by the Senate 2023. So he had another couple of years to go. But I thought just as interesting was the removal of a guy called Major General William Green Jr. Whose job is to be in charge of the Army's Chaplain Corps.
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B
Oh, yes, I saw this. Yeah.
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A
There is this suggestion that's been doing the rounds that the reason these guys were sacked was because the refusal to go along with the idea this was a war for Jesus.
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B
Yeah.
- [28:57]
A
Hexith has been having Bible readings inside the Pentagon. He reads the Bible and says prayers at briefings. Now, I've been at a lot of briefings in my time. Domination. Most journalists are not interested in what's being said at prayers of the Bible. And they also had. This was the Easter weekend, and they had a service at the Pentagon for Protestants only. So I don't know whether this is a religious thing. And don't forget, we had the Pope in his Easter message. He said the Christian mission was being distorted by a desire for domination entirely foreign to the way of Jesus Christ. He didn't mention Hexoth, he didn't mention Trump, but I think we know what he's talking about.
- [29:36]
B
But isn't the peculiarity with all this, though it Constantly bewilders me that so many people on the kind of nationalist Christian right in America, the kind of. The real evangelical kind of hardcore that they've taken as their champion, a man who could not be incredible, more contemptuous of the moral teachings of Christianity. I mean, everything in Trump's life, and whenever he speaks about it, there's a sort of smirk playing on his lips, you know, that he doesn't believe a word of it. I mean, I always remember when there were the. It was after the George Floyd.
- [30:06]
A
Yeah.
- [30:06]
B
And there were the big protests and there was tear gas in Washington and was all this kind of thing. And he came out. Remember, he stood there holding the Bible.
- [30:13]
A
Yeah.
- [30:13]
B
Outside the White House for a photo opportunity. And even then there was this sort of little half grin on his face because he knew how performative and how contrived and how fraudulent this was. And it astounds me that so many people like, I mean, is Hegseth a true believer? I don't know, but let's assume that he is. Does he look at his commander in Chief and think, you know, this is a Christian warrior. This is a man who is standing up for Jesus? How can he possibly believe that, given Trump's track record?
- [30:39]
A
Well, also, how can anybody believe it about Hegseth, given his track record in terms of his private life, et cetera? And yet you see all these. I mean, there's some of the most extraordinary scenes. There was a wonderful tweet recently. It was a picture of Trump surrounded by about 20 pastors all laying their hands on him in the Oval Office. And somebody tweeted, see, I told you this was a war between religious fanatics. So it's horrific. But that's what happens with a cult. It is a cult, and you now have people. I mean, we've managed to go almost half an hour now, Dominic and I haven't even mentioned the B word yet, but it reminds me a little bit of Brexit here.
- [31:19]
B
I knew it was coming. I knew this was coming.
- [31:23]
A
Even when people will, in the quiet of their own lives, say to themselves, it's not really going as I expected, and maybe I'm a bit poorer than I was. You will still have people who will look at anything Trump does and say, he's doing the right thing.
- [31:37]
B
But hold on, Alistair. So I'm going to challenge you a tiny bit on this. Not about Brexit, because my specialism when I was back in my Daily Mail days, was columns that began with the words as a remainer. I think that's we should drop a nuclear bomb on Brussels or whatever it might be. So you, for example, you're a keen, you're, you're a Labor man to your fingertips, you're a Labour. I mean, I don't know whether you would like the word, but you're a tribalist, you believe in the Labour Party, you're part of it. Is there not a slippage here between the tribalism and the cult, as it were? So lots of people think, well, yeah, my party has rather let me down, they are a bit useless, all this kind of thing, but they don't want to admit it to other people, they don't want to admit it to themselves because they're emotionally invested. So all of these Christian pastors standing around Trump put laying hands on him, some of them deep down must know he's a very unchristian man. But they don't want to admit it to themselves, they don't want to admit it to other people because that would be giving in to their enemies. And there's a link there between the tribalism that we've always known in Britain, yeah, you're a Labor, you're a Tory, all of that kind of thing, and the sort of politics as a cult.
- [32:39]
A
But for example, pretty much ever since 2016, various shades of Labor. I have attacked them publicly for not being hard over enough in understanding the disaster and in doing something about it. I still am. My position as a kind of labor tribalist is I can see there are good things they're doing, I can see there are things they're not doing well and I want them to do it better. What I see with the MAGA people is how dare you say that it's not perfect. How dare you say that he's not doing the right thing. How dare you say that he's corrupt. How do you say that? How dare Dominic Sambrook question his Christian virtue and morality? That's the difference.
- [33:16]
B
First of all, I think people are much more likely to jump to that extreme position when you have only two parties because then it becomes so clear cut, us versus them, we are on the side of virtue, they are on the side of vice.
- [33:33]
A
I think that's a fair point. Point.
- [33:34]
B
And I think when you have a multi party system, even in Britain, we've never had a purely two party system. So there's always been a sense that there are more than two voices, you know, there are other people to fit into the conversation so you can be a little bit more, more nuanced.
- [33:48]
A
I worry we're pushing it a Little bit far at the moment.
- [33:51]
B
Yeah. Maybe also the two other things. One is America is a much more religious political culture, so it's much more extreme in that way. It's much more existential, apocalyptic, you know, good and evil, but also the changing sort of the ecosystem, as it were, rewards extremism and partisanship, doesn't it? The X, the all the various social media forms, it becomes so tribal, us versus them. And it makes it very hard for people to say, you know, if you are a commentator like my ex student Owen Jones of the Guardian, your supporters just want you to double down at every opportunity. Never to admit you're wrong, wrong, never to admit flaws in your own argument, never to concede that the other side have a point. And that means you just end up with this ratchet effect of ever greater partisanship. And if you're a Trump adherent now, if you question him at all, you're out, aren't you? You're seen as a, an apostate. You're thrown, you know, you're thrown to the wolves.
- [34:46]
A
Exactly. Well, listen, let's take a break and then when we come back, also a bit about Lebanon, a bit about Iraq and then I think for, we should talk about NATO and whether the Trump's threats against NATO actually mean the end of NATO, even if it's not formally dissolved. See you soon. This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.
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- [36:15]
B
Welcome back everybody to the rest is politics. That's a sentence I never thought I'd say. With me, Dominic Samrock and my sidekick, Alistair Campbell.
- [36:23]
A
Sidekick? Oh, I don't know about that. Dominic. Listen, I'VE always whacked you for being wrong about fascism. I don't want to whack you.
- [36:29]
B
Robin to my Batman, I think, is the technical.
- [36:31]
A
Okay, very good, very good. Listen, let's talk about Lebanon. Yeah, it's getting far too little attention because I think this is a absolute catastrophe in the making. This is a country. Rory and I were actually there not that long ago on our way to Syria to see Ahmed Al Shara. It actually was quite peaceful and calm at the time, but you saw the signs of. Of war all around. So you've had a financial meltdown 2019. You had that terrible port explosion in 2020 which caused $8 billion worth of damage. You've had 11 billion wiped out from the fighting from 2324. But you've also got a new government, very weak government in many ways, for obvious reasons. Part of whose appeal has been that they said they were going to take on Hezbollah. They probably have been trying, but Hezbollah is now. They've launched between 1,000 and 2,000 rockets in recent weeks. Israel meanwhile, has conducted hundreds of strikes across Lebanon, including in parts that even previous wars didn't really touch in the same way. So I think this is something that demands a lot more of our attention than the world is currently giving it.
- [37:38]
B
Well, Lebanon, I mean, this is a long running issue. So Lebanon has been in a mess since the 1970s when the Civil war began. It's already a very unstable mix. So as lots of your listeners will know, I think the, the mix is something like 33% of the population are Shia. About another third are Sunni. Then there are Orthodox and kind of Maronite Christians. That's what lay behind the civil war in the 1970s and 1980s. I know lots of people saying, well, Lebanon become a failed state. I mean, you could argue that, you know, with apologies to Lebanese listeners, it's basically been a failed state for 50 years. And I mean, it's interesting. What is Israel's plan for Lebanon? So they've called up an enormous number of troops, haven't they? Reservists, the Israelis.
- [38:25]
A
450, 000 on the. That they can call up.
- [38:27]
B
Yeah, something like that. Hardliners are talking about pushing Israel's border further north, basically making southern Lebanon an annexed part of Israel. What would that mean? Massive ethnic cleansing, massive displacement of people?
- [38:41]
A
Well, the Defense minister has been absolutely clear and open that the tactics that they're using using are going to be similar to the tactics that they used in Gaza, parts of which, again, we don't talk about that much at the moment either, but parts of which were literally reduced to rubble.
- [38:56]
B
Rubble, yeah.
- [38:57]
A
Lebanon, the population, I think is about the same as Scotland, is about 5 million, over a million already displaced. And the other thing that I think is really worrying is that the government with President Aoun is such a difficult situation. And now you've got Hezbollah stepping up a public campaign against the government, accusing them of treason because they've been saying we have to take action against Hezbollah for the violence that they perpetrated, etc.
- [39:24]
B
But Hezbollah, I mean, they're basically a state within a state and have been for decades. There are swathes of Lebanon, the Becca Valley or whatever, where Hezbollah controls it. Hezbollah effectively is the state. The Lebanese government simply isn't strong enough to go in and disarm Hezbollah. Hezbollah is very heavily armed.
- [39:41]
A
And in addition to the point that you made about essentially moving the border, effectively annexing southern Lebanon, with all the bridge crossings now bombed, in a clear attempt to kind of cut the area off from the rest of the country. And the other thing, the Israeli energy minister has said that this agreement that was signed in 2022 between Lebanon, Israel, ending the dispute over where the sea boundaries are, should be cancelled. Now what does that mean? That means that they've signed an agreement. They now will say, they will now argue that the situation has changed, we're at threat and therefore we have to take over the sea as well. I bet that issue wasn't even on any American radar when Trump was saying we're going to do this.
- [40:28]
B
What's a puzzle to me is what they're long again. It's rather like the US in Iran, what the end game is as far as Israel is concerned. Because if, you know, if I was an Israeli politician, my long term endgame would be stability and security. That's what you want. And I think surely you have that. I would argue you if you create immensely fragmented, broken, unstable countries in your backyard, they are precisely the kinds of places where paramilitary groups, terrorist groups, troops can thrive, can recruit, can find willing recruits. They can probably get weapons amid the rub, the chaos and the rubble. They can build up again and they can prepare for another attack in a few years time. I don't see how that, how creating that kind of environment is a route to long term security for Israel. And that's why I'm puzzled where he thinks he will get to in five or 10 years time.
- [41:19]
A
He's been in power on and off for well over two decades. So he, he is thinking about the next election, which politicians are entitled to think about. Just as Iranian population has to some extent rallied to the flag as a result of being attacked, so to some extent Israel has rallied to the flag over his attack on Iran, which does make the Israelis feel very, very insecure and he's making them feel more secure by what he's doing now. But I think it is a strategy of regional domination and that means weakening the other side. But as you say, and back to my point about asymmetric warfare, they don't have to do that much to keep the Israeli insecurity.
- [42:01]
B
No, of course not.
- [42:02]
A
Front of mind.
- [42:03]
B
I don't think this ends with a world in which people are no longer firing rockets at Israel. You know, I don't think this ends with them saying, oh, gosh, the Israelis are too strong, we'll never challenge them again. That's just not how history works.
- [42:13]
A
Yeah. And I mentioned Iraq. I think Iraq is really interesting in this because ever since October 7th, they've pretty much tried to stay out of things and they've largely succeeded. They've worked at keeping reasonable ties with the us They've worked at keeping reasonable ties with Iran. They worked with Iran on sitting on the Iranian aligned militias in Iraq, of which there are quite a few that emerged after the toppling of Saddam. And. And that has been effective. What's happened now is that Iraq is being drawn into it. Some of the attacks inside Iraq have included attacks on the American embassy.
- [42:56]
B
Yeah. U.S. bases as well. Right.
- [42:58]
A
And the other thing to understand is that Iraq has been a bit of an economic support for Iran as well. Their banking networks are what allows Iran to get access to the dollar. Tehran gets around sanctions by selling a lot of oil and gas to Iraq. So they're quite linked, way more than we think because of the history of the Iran Iraq War. But that balancing act, I think, is now under threat because you've got these factions that are linked to what's called the pmf, the Popular Mobilization Forces. And they've been the ones that have been firing drones, firing rockets, hitting bases, going after sites in Kurdistan, including hotels, including oil production, Russian facilities. They've killed fighters from the Peshmerga, which is the Kurds Regional Security Force. And meanwhile, unsurprisingly, America has hit targets now associated with these militias. They've hit infrastructure, they've hit weapons depots, they've taken out some of the commanders. So that front, it seems to me, is at risk of opening.
- [43:58]
B
There are two or three other things, aren't there? So one of them is that Iraq has been there's been a. Basically a political vacuum in Iraq for the last, what, almost six months now, since November.
- [44:08]
A
Yeah.
- [44:08]
B
Since there was an election with. No, that was basically stalemated election. There was a government crisis again, I think, in 2022, with a similar sort of story. So the politics is very, very delicately poised without a really strong central government. So there's that. So it makes it much harder for the government to control the militias, the different kind of groups, for sure. There's the issue of, as it were, religious solidarity. So, you know, Iraq famously, you know, it has this very complicated sort of demographic picture. It has a Shia majority. And the more that the Iranian regime can say, well, this is actually the Americans are waging a war on Islam. Obviously, it makes it very hard for militia leaders in Iraq then to restrain their followers who would obviously want to say, well, we rally to support ACO religionists in Iran. But also there's the economic issue, the closing of the Straits of Hormuz. One of the countries that's most affected by this is. Is Iraq, because Iraq's oil output has tanked, I think, from 4 million barrels a day to 1 million barrels. That's a huge part of Iraq's budget. So, again, you've got. Not unlike Lebanon, you have a very fragile, delicately poised regime that is looking at greater fragmentation, political chaos and economic meltdown.
- [45:19]
A
Yeah. And you've got. On the oil point, you've got these global companies, including bp, Chevron, that have been slowly getting back in, investing in Iraq, and this is now, I suspect, shaken their confidence as well. Your point on the religion is why I find this, Pete Hexith, this is a war for Jesus, so alarming. And Trump sort of leaning into it a little bit as well. I mean, go back to the Iraq war. Do you remember when George W. Bush. And look, I was there and I know this wasn't the sort of. When he talked about a crusade.
- [45:50]
B
Yeah, right.
- [45:51]
A
He. He was talking about a moral crusade against evil. Back to your good and evil point. I don't believe for one second he was putting it in that concept of the Crusades. Yeah.
- [46:02]
B
Richard the Lionheart. Yeah.
- [46:03]
A
Right. Whereas this law, I think, kind of are.
- [46:05]
B
Yes.
- [46:06]
A
So I think the, the religion point is a very powerful one because they will feel. And I go back, back to the point I made earlier. The Iranians are thinking, why on earth should we deal with these people? And they killed our leader, they've killed his family. They talk about bombing us into the Stone Age. We can't trust them because they keep changing their line day to day. So I think Iraq has done a pretty good job in staying out of this. But I think the next period of this, we'll see whether it gets dragged right in in a way that I think would be very, very difficult for all of us.
- [46:39]
B
What do you think China is making of all this? Because there are different arguments, aren't there, about China? Some say, well, this is a strategic defeat for China because Iran is a Chinese client and whatnot. And then there are others that say this is brilliant for China because the Americans look like idiots and the Chinese can just smile and sit back and kind of rub their hands with glee. What do you think the position is the last week?
- [46:58]
A
The front page of the Economist? A picture of a smiling Xi Jinping with the Napoleonic quote, don't interrupt your enemy while he's making a mistake. I think that's what they think.
- [47:07]
B
Exactly. Yeah.
- [47:09]
A
It's not great for them and they are being hit by the oil stuff as well. But I think the biggest big casualty out of this, well, global stability is one of them. The global economy is another. But I think if we're looking for strong powers and weak powers, I think America is doing itself a lot of damage now.
- [47:23]
B
Yeah, agreed.
- [47:24]
A
I mentioned at the top we were going to talk about NATO. I've thoroughly enjoyed the discussion, Dominic, but let's put NATO in question time, because we did. One of the reasons I wanted to talk about it, we've got lots of questions about Trump's threats to NATO, so let's talk about NATO in question time. I also want to talk about Hungary. Very, very important election coming up. And given you're here, Dominic, I think it'd be good to talk about the role of history in politics. I've got this obsession that the right uses history better than the left. And I also want you to have a think about whether you think we've had any political leaders down the years that genuinely understand and use history in the way that they've governed.
- [48:04]
B
Okay, interesting. Loads of good questions.
- [48:06]
A
See you then.
- [48:07]
B
All right, see you then. Hi, it's Steph McGovern here from the Rest Is Money. Now, obviously, there are big economic consequences to all the geopolitical turmoil. Listen to us to find out how investors are reacting and whether we're heading to a financial Armageddon. I'm talking to Karen Ward, a chief market strategist at J.P. morgan Asset Management. Listen to the Rest Is Money to get her take.