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- [00:05]
A
This episode is brought to you by Whoop.
- [00:08]
B
Whoop is one of my favorite all time products. It's clear we're living through pretty stressful times right now. It's easy to underestimate how much that can affect our sleep and ability to stay focused day to day.
- [00:21]
A
Yeah, avoiding burnout can feel like a full time job in and of itself.
- [00:25]
B
Whoop helps with the bit people miss that shows what actually is going on beneath the surface. It's a screenless, wearable device that monitors your sleep recovery, lifestyle and stress.
- [00:40]
A
Yeah, and this matters to me. It even looks very elegant.
- [00:43]
B
Did you hear that guys? Whoop is so stylish that even Caddy K will wear the Whoop.
- [00:48]
A
It's the little gold clasp. I like that.
- [00:50]
B
I'm telling you, I had no idea how much my old routine was impacting my health. But since using Whoop and making those small adjustments, I've already started to feel the difference. Better sleep, clearer thinking, even more energy.
- [01:03]
A
Head to join.wh-oop.com politics to get started with WHOOP today. Hello and welcome to the rest is politics us. I'm Katie K. Sitting in the kingdom of Washington D.C. where everyone is warning over royals. Anthony, you love us. You want us back.
- [01:34]
B
Well, it's sort of like Hamilton, right? You'll be back, you'll be back. But you know, I'm gonna send a battalion to show you my love. But yes, Trump posts just to irritate everybody on Truth Social. 2 Kings. Catty K. What do you think about that?
- [01:51]
A
Yep, of course he likes it. And then the other thing that Trump posted after making nice with the King, just to make sure he's not being too nice for those of you who can't see it on YouTube no more Mr. Nice Guy. So we go from the decorum of the King and we'll talk about that in the second half to Trump back to good form. Before we get to the King's speech to Congress and how all of Washington seems to have fallen in love with King Charles, including Republicans, sort of. We are going to talk about the charges against former FBI Director James Comey over an alleged threat to Donald Trump's life. Jim Comey, the former FBI director, has been indicted by the Justice Department for the second time. And I just thought it'd be worth reading people the indictment because I spoke to a prosecutor who said to me, this is the most embarrassing paragraph ever written in a Justice Department indictment. So let me just read to you. This is what it says. James Brian Comey Jr. Did knowingly and willingfully make a threat to. To take the life of and to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States. Sounds serious, right? Sounds really bad in that he publicly posted a photograph on the Internet social media site Instagram which depicted drum roll seashells arranged in a pattern making out 8647, which a reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret as a serious expression of intent to do harm to the President of the United States. They are dangerous things. Seashells, Anthony. Dangerous things. And Jim Comey is now using a picture of seashells allegedly to try and threaten the President of the United States. This must be one of the more bogus indictments that the Justice Department has ever launched. But it's probably a very good job application for the acting Attorney General. What say you, Mr. Law Professor?
- [03:54]
B
Well, the tweet is everything right. No more Mr. Nice Guy. We're going to knock a domino into Jimmy Kimmel. We couldn't fire him last time. We're going to fire him. We're now going to launch an FCC investigation into the licenses of Disney and abc. We couldn't get the indictment done last time in America. I took criminal procedure 40 years ago, and I was told you could indict a ham sandwich, but not Trump's injustice department. They could not indict Tish James. They could not indict James Comey the first time. And so here we are. It's gonna get thrown out. You know it's gonna get thrown out, and I know it's gonna get thrown out.
- [04:38]
A
I bet it doesn't even make it to a jury.
- [04:41]
B
No. Yeah. The judge right now is punting. For those of you that don'. Football. Whichever judge is getting assigned to this is stretching their hamstring and is gonna punt that document as far as they can out of the court. But, Katty K, you're the genius on this podcast, so please explain to everybody why Donald J. Trump is doing this. No more Mr. Nice Guy. Donald J. Trump. Why is he doing this?
- [05:12]
A
Well, first of all, two things. The acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche, is doing this to prove that. That he is more of a pit bull than his predecessor, Pam Bondi, who was thrown out of office in part because she could not enact a campaign of retribution against Donald Trump's enemies. Donald Trump is doing this because he has a campaign of retribution, and he wants it enacted, and he wants his political enemies to be punished. And he also likes the distraction, and he also wants to be front and center of the news cycle. And it is a heck of a lot better to be talking about Jim Comey and, and his seashells than it is to be talking about gas prices, the war in Iran that is not going so well, the Epstein files that have not been opened. And it's a way of dominating the conversation. He genuinely does, I think, believe in a campaign of retribution. He has talked about my FBI, my generals. He believes he controls the government. And when he has a director of the FBI. Jim Comey was his director of the FBI and in the first Trump administration who he disagrees with, he feels that he should be able to punish them for disagreeing with him. Do you have another theory? Have I missed anything?
- [06:23]
B
I sort of have a little bit different of a theory. Just going to add a few paragraphs. I agree with everything you're saying, but I'm getting to the midterms and I need to punish as many people as possible before those midterms. And I need to scare the daylights at every. I want Jimmy Kimmel's wife. Pillow talk in the Kimmel household. Hey, Jimmy, knock it off, okay? Dial back on Donald Trump. He's more powerful than you. I want to intimidate Bill Maher, Steve Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, a White House correspondent. I want to pummel them into submission
- [07:07]
A
because that's his mo, Right? I mean, he's always. That's what he's always done.
- [07:10]
B
Yes. He cares about the overlording power over these people. You see? You see what I mean? And so now I'm going to come after. I'm going to come after this man because I need to send a message to people. Look out. Okay? Oh, by the way, the Jerome Powell, I'm coming after you. And we had to drop it because finally one Republican stood up to me and I couldn't get something done because of procedure in the Senate. So Jerome Powell, that was a message to Kevin Warsh. You don't do what I want, I'll be suing you. I'll be suing your family. And I've got willing, willing support. Now, one more question, if you don't mind. You are the spiritual and moral advisor for Todd, Blanche and Jeanine Pirro.
- [08:02]
A
How much are you going to pay me for that role, by the way? Can I just say, can I ask for a pay raise straight away? If you're putting me in that position,
- [08:09]
B
you're going to need all of Goal Hanger's revenues. Let me make a personal service. And Gary Lineker, if you're listening, she's getting your money, too. Okay? You're getting all of our revenues. Gary, you're in the room now with Jeanine Pirro and Todd Blanche. You're having tea. You've read the King's Speech for inspiration. Okay, Charles's speech. And now in your delicate English way, you're going to say WTF to these people and what are you thinking and how crazy are you people? Go ahead, go. I want to hear.
- [08:41]
A
Yeah. Do you have a hope in hell, Jeanine Pirro or Todd Blanche, of managing to make a convincing case that the government can persuade a jury that they have proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Jim Comey intended with that photograph to do harm to the United States? And by the way, both of you just calm down a little bit because we know what 8647 means. It is used in restaurant language 86 for killing an item on the menu. So there are no more pork chops. 86 the pork chops. We haven't got any more of those. It doesn't mean go out the back of the restaurant and take an AK47 and shoot the pork chop. That is not what that phrase means. So calm down, Mr. Blanche. You've got acting Attorney general. That's pretty good. He'll probably give you the job. But you don't need to disgrace yourself because in about six months time this is going to be a lame duck president. And in two and a half years time he will not be president anymore. And you have been in law enforcement, both of you, your whole life. Do you want to have it on your legacy that you were the person that wrote such a fanciful indictment as to suggest that a photograph of seashells is beyond reasonable doubt, intent to cause bodily harm? I don't know if I was very soft and touchy feely with them, though. I'm not sure I did quite enough spiritual values?
- [10:07]
B
You were great. It was. You know, my grandmother would have taken the wooden spoon. For all of you Italians listening, my grandmother would have taken the wooden spoon. She would have bit her finger like this and ran into the room and clobbered the two of them. But I now have to ask you another question because now I'm on the street and I'm walking, someone says hello to me. I like your podcast, but I think you're dead wrong, Anthony. I'm dead wrong? What am I dead wrong about? You're talking about letting things go and you're talking about not going after these miserable sobs. How do you say that? Don't you feel that these people should be prosecuted for their corruption, for their wrongdoing and for all of the different things that are going on in the Trump administration. And what I'm worried about is the Lula Bolsonaro situation, right, where we build jailhouses and jail cells for each of our political adversaries and we go back and forth. Alula's in jail, comes out of jail, wins the presidency. Now he wants to put Bolsonaro in jail, and you're going to go back and forth building jail cells for each political adversary that you have. But Caddy, should the Democrats, if they take power again, annihilate these people?
- [11:30]
A
So, look, I think that I actually had a really interesting conversation with somebody about exactly this this morning, and I think they're gonna have to be careful to resist the calls from the base to go after everybody, particularly people in the Trump family. Now, Donald Trump's already said he's gonna pardon anyone who has been in spitting distance of the Oval Office already. So we know he's gonna pardon all of his family, he's gonna pardon all of his mates. So you're not actually going to be able to do very much to do with Trump and his family. And I think this calls for a real review and may well do after the midterms of the presidential pardon, because I suspect we're going to see an awful lot of people getting pardoned. But they're going to have some choices to make. If they go after everybody, blanket, it's going to look like this is just a continuation of the witch hunt. Look what it did for them when Joe Biden was out of office. And by the way, is it dumb of Jeanine Pirro, Is it done of Todd Blanche, from a. Purely from a legal, scholarly point of view, to launch indictments? Yeah, this is a. This doesn't read like serious law, legal issues, but it's not illegal of them to do this. What they're going to have to figure out is where to subpoena people. I think focusing on one big issue, and that's the corruption. Do they go after people for corruption? And do they go after people who have clearly committed crimes? And do they go after people they can actually have an impact on? Because they're going to have to watch out for whom Donald Trump is indicted. But I think if they go after everybody and they spend the whole of the next two years not focusing on affordability for Americans and trying to do something about that ahead of 2028, and not focusing on corruption, which I think is a valid area for them to focus on the corruption of the Oligarchy then I think they're going to be in problems. They can't start going after Todd Blanche for having committed a crime. This isn't a crime to launch this investigation, this indictment. It's an indictment that's not going to go anywhere. But it's not a crime on Todd Blanche's behalf, right?
- [13:30]
B
No, it isn't. But it is overreach. It's prosecutorial overreach. It's unethical. He could be disbarred. He's in the realm of unethical behavior and you could bring him up on ethical charges. Someone could file a formal complaint against him and say that this is completely unethical and you're not supposed to do unethical things like this.
- [13:54]
A
It doesn't help him that Donald Trump put the quiet part out loud when he sent out that post saying, I want you, Pam Bondi, to go after my political enemies, which he'd meant to center in private and then center in public. That doesn't help Todd Blanche's case. I would also, I mean, it is gross hypocrisy. There you have JD Vance waltzing around Europe accusing the Europeans of having a lack of freedom of speech at the same time that you have the FCC and Todd Blanche trying to clamp down on freedom of speech here. But I don't think hypocrisy is a crime.
- [14:26]
B
So, Katty the 86, just so everybody knows American slang, it's a rhyme with nicks, you know, like apples and pears means stairs in a Cockney accent. So when you say 86, you mean nicks. So if I say 86, 40, 46, I want to nix Joe Biden. And guess who was selling merchandise on their website. Kati K. Who was selling that?
- [14:54]
A
Matt Gaetz, who was the initial candidate for Attorney General of the United States. Is the Justice Department now going to go after Matt Gaetz, the conservative MAGA commentator, Jack Pacibiak? Is that how you say his name? He's also been out there with tweets saying 86, 46. So then you have to go after everybody. Neither of them, I think, would make it in court in either case.
- [15:18]
B
But my point is you're not. How are you going to go after everybody? Gates also said, this is a new Republican Party. We've 86, you know, different old school Republicans out of the Senate, like Mitt Romney and stuff like that. Is that, is he calling for the death of them? Okay, I mean, what are you, what are you guys doing? I don't understand it. Me personally, I Am very frustrated by it. And I'm going to say something that I really wish won't happen, is that the Democrats take the playbook and they do the same thing. I hope to God that doesn't happen. People are mad at me. I mean, somebody stopped. Like I said, somebody stopped me on the street. Oh, no, we have to prosecute, and we have to drive them as crazy as they're driving us or driving the Republican. No, we have to create new process caddy, and we have to create new regulation and laws and perhaps even some greater independence of the Justice Department away from the executive branch now to clean this up. Do you agree or disagree with that?
- [16:28]
A
Look, I agree that the Democrats in the House, if they take back the House, which we're all assuming they will at this point, will be under enormous pressure to launch subpoenas left, right, and center all over town against Trump and the people who've been making money around him and against people in his Justice Department. We know that they want to subpoena Pam Bondi already for being in defiance of the Epstein act, for example. I think one of the things that you and I have spoken about on this podcast, when it comes to really trying to understand what the lasting implications of this Trump presidency are on the United States, one of the things that I have been most concerned about is the breakdown of the firewall between the White House and the Justice Department and the expansion of presidential powers that the king made a little reference to in his speech. And that whoever comes in next, whichever Democrat is elected in 2028, is going to come in and think, I would be stupid not to take some of those powers for myself, because the Republicans have done it to us and now we have to do it to them. And they will sell this as we need to restore law and order. And we have to do that by showing that we will prosecute people who have broken the law and by going after people that have broken the law. And if we don't, we are not enacting a campaign of law and order ourselves. The biggest damage that Trump has done will be tested by whoever takes over from him. And if that person assumes they have to act the way Trump has done, or if they have to act in a way that is more driven by commitment to the country and purpose and civility and respect for the norms and traditions of democracy, not just the laws of democracy. And I can see whoever is being elected as a Democrat thinking, wow, look at all that power you can grab if you have no respect for the traditions of democracy and if you are shameless and I would be a mug, I would be a fool politically not to use some of that power myself. And I think that's, I hope that doesn't happen. But I can see that being the debate that plays out in 2028.
- [18:41]
B
Caddy, do you think Todd Blanche and Jeanine Purro are going through the vendor list on Amazon.com right now? And if you just search up 8646, which is obviously the reference to Joe Biden, are they going to now prosecute and indict every one of those merchandise vendors that are selling hats and T shirts and stickers that say 86 46? Is that going to happen, Katty?
- [19:10]
A
No, they're only going to go after Donald Trump's enemies. They know full well this doesn't have a chance. I don't think it even gets to a jury, let alone going to a trial. I think this gets thrown out. And I imagine Todd Blanche and Jeanine Pirro know that. But it is extraordinary how year and a half into a presidency where the economy is being tanked, where we are at a war that we don't know how to get out of, where the president's approval ratings are now heading towards the low 30s, the power that he has over members of his administration and still over the Republican Party, so that people will go against their better instincts and all of their knowledge and all of their expertise to make him happy. It's still pretty striking. As you've said, Antony, he's a lame duck president. He is months away from being a lame duck president. But if you look at the way the Republican Party and his administration is behaving, you sure wouldn't know that. They haven't got that message yet, right?
- [20:12]
B
No, they don't have the message. But I'm going to make some predictions here. He is going to eventually turn on Mandani. I don't know when that's going to happen. But there will be prosecution against Mandani before the two years are up. That will happen. He will likely go after one of the big Democrats. So it'll be Gavin Newsom or it'll be Gretchen Whitmer or it'll be Pritzker. Something will happen and they'll try to bring a lawsuit. He's going to go down a list of people that have wronged him. He's talking to Dan Scavino right now and he's saying go on people's X accounts, here's high profile people that hate me and see what you can find on There. And let me bring specious and intimidating, criminally, from a criminal procedure perspective, completely invalid lawsuits. Because it turns out that the Trump family law firm, which is now the Department of Justice, has unlimited money. It's the federal government has unlimited resources. And now James Comey's gonna have to hire somebody to defend him in court to get this case dismissed.
- [21:26]
A
Yeah.
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B
And that's what Trump does. You know, there's a friend of mine. Trump put his father out of business. He. He painted lots of the condos in Trump Tower. And then he presented Trump with the bill, and he said, no, I'm only paying you 10 cents on the dollar. And, well, that doesn't even cover the paint. Forget about all the labor. Well, you know what? Go sue me. Could you see all these people standing outside my conference room? They're on my payroll. Anyway. I don't care. Go sue me. Maybe you'll get 15 or 20 cents on the dollar, but it'll cost you millions of dollars to sue me. Bye. Bye. And so the guy had to bankrupt the company, foreclose on his house, move into an apartment, and restart his business. That is Donald Trump. That is Donald Trump. So that's what he's gonna be doing to these people. We should probably flip over and talk about something optimistic like King Charles III here. But I'm just saying to people, get ready when he's putting out a Tweet. No more Mr. Nice Guy. Get ready for more of this. And Caddy, when you have that meeting with Todd Blanche and Jeanine Pirro, report back to us and say, geez, what are you guys doing exactly? Jeanine Pirro. I've been on her radio show. I've been on her Fox News show.
- [22:43]
A
She's not a dummy.
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B
Jeanine, are you really the Nadia Comanici of morals now? Are you really doing a backflip on the moral balance beam for Donald Trump? You know, it's crazy. And by the way, all of these Fox News people were praising the crime fighter James Comey prior to the arrival of Donald Trump. And the Clinton people would tell you that Comey made Trump in the first term.
- [23:09]
A
Yes, by reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails. This is just a test of your Trump bona fides. It's a test of how much do you love Donald Trump and how much are you prepared to bend over backwards to accommodate him? It won't go anywhere, but it does cause a lot of pain and costs to the people who are the targets of these indictments. Okay, we're going to Take a break, come back and talk about how America actually is going to ditch the revolution and become a monarchy again.
- [23:39]
C
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- [23:57]
A
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- [24:14]
B
Welcome back. It's Monarchy Week. We have a monarch who I think we hold in high esteem and we have a monarch wannabe. Catty K so what did you make of King Charles III's speech to the Congress yesterday?
- [24:29]
A
Look, I thought it was really interesting. Obviously he is only the second monarch to give a joint address to Congress. I thought it was more political than I thought it was going to be. Anthony he raised a whole load of issues that actually Congress all stood up and cheered about. But half of my brain was thinking are they actually listening to what he's saying? Because these are the kinds of things that normally Republicans would boo at if anyone else said them. He talked about the brilliance of the system of the checks and balances against the executive. He talked about nature and protecting our planet and the beauty of the American planet. Normally you wouldn't think that was controversial, but one Democrat congressman who'd been in the room with him last night said only the Pope and a king could get away with talking about climate change, even in veiled terms and have Republicans still applaud. He got a huge line of applause over Ukraine and NATO and then he ended by saying, and again, I thought he was being pretty political in that kind of veiled coded way that the monarch has to be of saying America's words and deeds matter. I did notice that JD Vance looked more and more gloomy and maybe it was because there was the king and it took a king of a country. You booted out on the celebration of the 250th anniversary of your glorious revolution. But it took a British king to come back and say, hey guys, shape up. This is what you need to be doing. You need to be adhering to the Constitution you wrote after you booted us out and enacting those checks and balances against your executive and look at all of the issues the King spoke about. They are all popular with the American public. The American public overwhelmingly believes something needs to be done about climate change. They overwhelmingly support Ukraine. They overwhelmingly believe in NATO. It's just that the Republicans who are sitting in that room have been too afraid to say some of that under the leadership of Donald Trump. And it was interesting. I was thinking to myself, are they cheering? Because actually they believe this and they want to cheer for Ukraine and, as the King said, the bravery of the Ukrainians, or are they just not really listening? And they're cheering because they're starstruck by the monarch. Anyway, I thought he did a good job. He mixed moral clarity with levity, and that's a pretty good combo in a speech. And brevity. What did you think of it? I know you like the King. I'm sure you liked it.
- [26:52]
B
I like the King a lot. I don't. I've never met the King, but I have an enormous amount of respect for him. Cause, you know, you know what it is, Caddy, you gotta stay in the job. You know, the turtle wins the race. He's been in the public domain for 50 years. It was a great picture yesterday of him with Richard Nixon, the 37th president.
- [27:12]
A
I thought that was great. In the Oval Office, the Oval Office, looking a little less blingy.
- [27:17]
B
You know, Liberace didn't influence Richard Nixon the way he did Donald Trump. But, you know, here is a sentence that I wrote that wasn't in the King's speech, but was in the King's speech. This is what I love about you Brits, right? You say things without saying them. And this is a Long island decoder ring. And so I'm gonna read you the following sentence, okay? Because he threaded it back to his mom and the 1991 speech that she gave to the Congress. So now he has this once in a generation opportunity as a monarch to address the Congress. And he doesn't lose the moment. He excels in this moment. But here's a sentence that I wrote that I want to read to you. Ready? In 1991, my mother, Queen Elizabeth, came to the Congress that had just won the Cold War. It's 2026. Her son is here to come to you to tell you that you're busy losing the peace. Now, you didn't say that, Katty K. And you're laughing because that's too long island for a British mother. Look at you. You're even going back on your heels a little bit. Look at you. You didn't say that. Katty K. Because that's not British. Catty K. But let me tell you, that's what I heard, and I thought it was brilliant because he did delicately say, be unyielding in Ukraine. Be unyielding for NATO. He did explain. And he's been a champion of climate preservation his whole life. He did talk about the mosaic of the country and the beautiful diversity. Right? He did. He didn't mention it directly, but he definitely doesn't endorse the war. So much so that Trump had to say that the King and I agree on the war. And of course, Buckingham palace had to announce a statement this morning saying no.
- [29:13]
A
They got a little nervous about that.
- [29:15]
B
Right. The King agrees on the policies of the UK government. But you didn't react super well to my sentence. Katty. But I heard that you didn't hear that.
- [29:27]
A
So I thought that it was a sentence. He will never say, obviously, because he's King Charles and his job is to come over here and be diplomatic and not make any problems. And I actually thought, given those constraints and how bad the relationship is at the moment and how Keir Starmer is basically firing his best weapon right at Washington D.C. in the White House, and that is King Charles. And King Charles's role is to come over here and smooth feathers and make sure everything is nice and make nice. I was actually surprised at how far he did go. I mean, invoking checks and balances against the Executive, I thought was pretty stunning. Talking about America's words and deeds was pretty stunning. In talking about climate change, effectively talking about faith. I've been told that the King was very keen to talk about faith because he was not happy with the way that Donald Trump has attacked Pope Leo. So you needed a little bit of a translator for Royal speak, but if you took that speech and you ran it through your AI Royal Speak translator, you came up with already a speech which was pretty political. Can I give you my one little bit of good gossip?
- [30:40]
B
Yeah, please.
- [30:41]
A
From a. Now gratuitously throw in that I went to the royal garden party on Monday, which was very fun. And I arrive at the garden party
- [30:50]
B
and, Fiona, could we please put up the dress? Because, you know, let's face it, the dress was fabulous. So when we. When we're doing this on YouTube, let's see the Cate dress. Okay. Keep going.
- [31:02]
A
Thank you. Thank you very much for the compliments on the dress. And what was fun was to see hundreds of Americans, including nearly all of the members of the administration and members of Congress, FAWNING over a British monarch. I mean, they were crushing in the lineup to try and say hello to the king or say hello to the queen. And I saw Ted Cruz there, who was out. Ted Cruz with his camera during your national anthem. Is this even allowed? And instead of standing there with his hand on his heart, he's standing there filming. He's got his iPhone up filming the king and queen. And I asked him, you know, how. What he thought about the relationship. And he said, well, obviously, we think they should have done more on Iran. And I asked him, what on Iran? And there was kind of a long pause as he thought of something to say. And he said, well, Diego Garcia. They should have kept the base at Diego Garcia. That was pretty much all he could come up with. And I said, yeah, but it predates that. You know, there's obviously been other problems in the relationship. And Ted Cruz, the thing he comes up with, yes, the real problem in the relationship is the lack of freedom of speech in the United Kingdom, where you can get put in prison for a tweet that's not quite right, but anyway. And I don't want America to become like Great Britain. I don't want the United States to go the way of the United Kingdom. I mean, in the context of the conversation we had in the first half of this show, that was pretty stunning. But then there is Ted Cruz standing in line. He stood at that garden party for an hour and a half waiting to shake the king's hand, and yet he's just said that he doesn't want the United States to go the way of the United Kingdom. I mean, it was just watching these people starstruck over the monarch to the extent that they will say, we're very worried about the state of the United Kingdom and lack of freedom of speech, and it's going to the dogs. But I still want to shake the hands of the monarch was pretty satisfying, I have to say, as a Brit, it was a kind of a fun week for me.
- [33:00]
B
I think the other question that's out there is the king gave this speech in the Congress with all those hidden Easter eggs, and then he gave a little funny talk at the state dinner. Couple more Easter eggs in that one, too. And is Trump pissed about it? And so I'm going to answer the question. No, he's not pissed about it.
- [33:26]
A
No.
- [33:27]
B
Do you think he is?
- [33:28]
A
No, he's not pissed about it. There are certain people. I mean, maybe he will go after Mamdani, as you said in the first half of the show, but there Are certain people he forgives, they can kind of get away with saying whatever they want. I mean, obviously, if he'd been very rude to Trump directly, he wouldn't have liked it. But I thought actually what Trump said in the Rose garden when the king arrived about his mother and how wondering, you know, what would my mother be thinking? Looking down, he clearly felt enormously proud. He really does have this kind of affection for the monarchy, and I think it's sort of just affection for his mother. It's this love of his mother that translates into something his mother loved. It's interesting psychology.
- [34:11]
B
He also is enamored with the pageantry of the whole thing and the process.
- [34:16]
A
Would kind of like to be a king.
- [34:17]
B
Yeah, exactly. No matter how much gold leaf he puts in the White House, he's never gonna have the Riz of the royal family from the United Kingdom. And so there's some of that. So, no, he's not pissed. But I wrote more sentence because I was really trying to think about this. From a Long Island. You don't say Long island on Long island. You say Long Island. Okay, so from a Long island perspective.
- [34:42]
A
Long Island.
- [34:43]
B
Okay, yes. I'm going to give you one more sentence. Yesterday, a British king stood in the United States Congress and defended the American century better than the American president has in the last year. And Keddie, that tells you everything about where we are today in our world. And when Harold McMillan turned to Jack Kennedy and said, you know, we're Athens, you're Rome, even though Trump is older, I believe, than King Charles, I believe he is King Charles. And the nation of the United Kingdom is the older brother of the young rebels with a cause of the United States. And he was showing them the way yesterday, whether they like it or not. And you know what? J.D. vance, he didn't like it. He wasn't cheering. J.D. vance was stirring in his seat, and Mike Johnson was looking at him. The sycophant, Mike Johnson was, I'm barking like a seal. JD why are you not? Why are you not barking like a seal? And why was J.D. vance not barking like a seal?
- [35:58]
A
Katty K. Because J.D. vance understood what the speech was actually about.
- [36:03]
B
Correct?
- [36:04]
A
Because he is actually smart enough to hear what was being said. But listen, anyone who can turn up in Congress and say, by Jove, Mr. Speaker, and get away with it gets my vote. It was a good speech. References to Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, Abraham Lincoln. It was all there. Great sense of humor. They loved all of that. Very well delivered. I'm a little skeptical that it will make very much difference because the last time Donald Trump went to the UK for a state visit last year, it was only a few months later that he was trashing the United Kingdom and Keir Starmer and our army. So whether this makes any difference in the long run in the special relationship between Donald Trump and the UK Donald Trump is quite capable, as we have seen this morning, of reverting to type pretty quickly. And if you want something from the United Kingdom and Keir Starmer, who is the political leader, not the monarch, who is not the political leader, if Keir Starmer decides that it is not in Britain's best interest to go along with trying to take Greenland or whatever else it is might be that Donald Trump throws at us next in terms of foreign adventures, then I suspect he will be back to his usual ways of trashing the UK but for a few days, we have peace and harmony before
- [37:20]
B
we close out, because where that could happen is over the Falkland situation.
- [37:25]
A
Oh, yeah, that was another good gift that the government dropped just before the king arrived.
- [37:30]
B
Yeah. So he's quote unquote, reviewing the security agreement and so forth.
- [37:35]
A
The sovereignty, Britain's sovereignty over the Falkland Islands is what they are reviewing.
- [37:40]
B
Remind people, because there's more research that happened in the 1982. You may remember Al Haig, the first secretary of state for Reagan, was doing the shuttle of diplomacy back and forth between London and Buenos Aires. But one of the things that happened, and this was the genius of Reagan, is he silently and very privately authorized Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. He authorized him to resupply. There was a resupply operation for the UK Government. We sent Sidewinder missiles, satellite intelligence, and we sent fuel at Ascension Island. And we did this without saying that we were doing it. And Margaret Thatcher said to people afterwards that this was really the decisive thing that helped the Brits re secure the Falkland Islands. And Thatcher told one of the Reagan biographers that without Weinberger, we could not have won this. H.W. brands, who's a history professor at SMU for open book other gold hanger podcasts. I interviewed him yesterday for American Patriarch, which is his new book coming out on George Washington. But he wrote a book on Reagan. And Professor Brands talks about how Reagan had this quietness about him to get things done. It was very reminiscent to what FDR was doing with Len Leese. And so now we have the opposite. We have a tiny stick. We have a big mouth with a tiny stick. Teddy Roosevelt speaks softly carry a big stick. And we got Donald Trump big mouth Tiny stick. We'll have to see where it ends up.
- [39:24]
A
Yeah. And as the king quite rightly said, both matter. Words and actions both matter. And however much pomp and circumstance and bonhomie, there's been this. Don't mistake that for thinking that Europeans and Brits are not watching closely what is both being said from the Pentagon, from the White House, and what is being done by the United States at the moment.
- [39:45]
B
Do we still have a special relationship? Katty?
- [39:50]
A
We can call it a special relationship if it makes Britain happy. And that has been the way that it's been for a while. But I think actually those leaked comments to the Financial Times by the British ambassador from earlier this year that America's most special relationship, this administration's most special relationship at the moment is not the United Kingdom, it is Israel. He got a lot of flack for that. But for the moment, I think that's probably more reflective of reality. But we like to call it the special. We like to think we're special.
- [40:22]
B
I think it's in a downtrend, but it's like a Catholic marriage caddy.
- [40:25]
A
We can't get out of it.
- [40:27]
B
Can't get out of a Catholic marriage. So he goes, but it could be heading up again with the next president. You never know.
- [40:33]
A
Says the Catholic who got out of a marriage. We're going to leave it there.
- [40:37]
C
Oh,
- [40:39]
B
I mean, there's. If you can't see me, there's like a mushroom cloud and there's a crater in the seat that I was once in.
- [40:45]
A
If you can't see me, join us as well for our second episode for our founding members on Marco Rubio, the enigmatic weather vane. Marco Rubio, the man with huge amounts of ambition but perhaps not much center. We will unpack his role during the first and second Trump administrations. If you'd like to become a founding member, you know where to join us. The restispolitics.com we'd love to have you. Thanks, guys.
- [41:13]
B
Thanks, guys. We'll see you next week.
- [41:26]
D
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- [41:54]
E
hello, it's Norman Peston. From the Rest Is Money. I've just had the most gripping conversation with an economist, Nick Bloom from Stanford, who's published a very influential paper on the costs of leaving the European Union. He and his colleagues calculated that leaving the EU has cost us 8% of our national income, our GDP, that's 240 billion more than we spend on the NHS every single year. What's really striking is that his numbers are now the numbers being used by the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, when she talks about the advantages of getting closer to the eu. So, if you want to know how damaging Brexit has been and whether that 8% number is robust, whether it's real, join me for the latest episode of the Rest Is Money.