585. Rory Goes to a Trump Rally and Will the Youth Protests Spread to Britain?

welcome to the rest is politics question time with me alistair campbell and with me rory stewart and this is going out ahead of the main episode because we are going to be doing a main episode on wednesday to digest the results from the u.s midterm elections but this question time is going to lead and be substantially about the midterms uh first with rory who's uh where are you at the moment rory i'm now in roanoke virginia okay rory in virginia and then later we're going to be joined by izzy who has been to all sorts of places including louisiana which i am fascinated to hear what is going on there now rory first question rachel is the hillbilly country that jd vance famously wrote about in hillbilly elegy really is different from the rest of the u.s as he suggested and if so do those differences really affect the way people in the region vote and douglas what has been your biggest surprise when investigating the midterms just remind people who haven't listened to our wonderful mini series on jd vance hillbilly elegy is this best-selling book written by jd vance 2016 that describes his own family's journey and it's a journey from rural mountain poverty down to the factories of ohio very old story for appalachia school teachers the cliche was would say to their students who wanted to know how they could get on in life that they needed to concentrate on the three r's reading writing and route 23 which is the road that takes you out of the state into ohio and it's a book about violence and poverty in the mountains and it's a book about industrial decline in ohio and it's about the loss of pride and identity amongst the the white working class and since 2016 there have been any number of journalists heading into eastern kentucky west virginia to try to interview these voters because they flipped very hard and very quickly towards donald trump these were often counties which were pretty moderate traditionally democrats in some cases that went 80 percent trump and so it's it's those areas that i've been in uh trying to work out whether this narrative is is overdone it'll be an energy for those who haven't read it i've read it twice i read it first when it came out and i thought wow what an amazing story of aspiration and achievement and i read it again when he became vice president and i thought how did a guy from that background become so vile uh not least about a lot to my mind about a lot of the people that he left left behind so it's a it's interesting how you can how differently you can read the same book when the starring character is in a in a book and you can read the same book and you can read the same book and you in a different period of their life this episode is powered by fuse energy most energy companies are counting on you doing absolutely nothing not questioning what you're paying not switching just letting your tariff roll on which is costing you hundreds of pounds every year but the apathy goes deeper than our bills we've almost given up on energy itself we seem to all be accepting energy's expensive the system's outdated but that complacency is costing us fuse energy does not accept that because the energy transition is not something that just happens somewhere else fuse is building an energy company which is designed to bring down the cost of energy and right now its tariffs are up to 100 pounds below the off-gem price cap so switching isn't just about paying less it's about expecting more from your energy company and it only takes you three minutes switch to fuse at fuse energy.com slash politics use the code politics and you'll get a free trip plus subscription allowing you to hear all the extraordinary stories about the energy industry and the extraordinary members content that alistair and i are now producing for you visit fuse energy.com for full terms and conditions this episode is brought to you by nord vpn we work out ways to protect ourselves from unwanted things every day okay rory how do you protect yourself from small talk i say very good so you i've got to get on to get my kids from school yeah you also have another one that you use quite a lot i'm on jordan time i'm on jordan time that's good i'm jordan time i like that okay how do you how do you protect yourself from arguing with your co-host i just watch you argue with other people no i have this tactic when i'm think i'm losing my temper i just rub my thumb and my index finger together that's what i do and i just calm down yeah yeah that's cool and how do you protect yourself from online scams well the answer is i find nord vpn useful for that it's not just a vpn app they've built in next gen antivirus block scams phishing attacks before they reach you so you can carry on knowing you're secure to get the best discount on your nord vpn plan go to nordvpn.com slash rest is politics you'll get four extra months free on the two-year plan plus a 30-day money-back guarantee the link is in the episode description hi this is gary lineker from gold hangers the rest is football this episode is brought to you by wise it's only when you start moving money between currencies that you really think about the exchange rate the fee and what might be hidden away in the small print whether you're living abroad paying some one overseas or just trying to manage your money across borders you want a fair exchange rate an easy transfer and no surprises along the way wise keeps things simple wise is a smart way to move the currencies you need around the globe it works in more than 160 countries and with over 40 currencies most transfers arrive instantly wise uses the mid-market exchange rate like the one you see on google with no markups or hidden fees so when money needs to move you can move it to you can see the rate know the fee and get on with it join millions saving billions on hidden fees by downloading the wise app today be smart get wise t's and c's apply when we spoke last time i was in ohio and since then we've been in eastern kentucky and in appalachian west virginia and initially i thought maybe it isn't as dramatic as jd vance was saying because we came down through ohio into bits of eastern kentucky that looked relatively prosperous but pretty soon once you're off route 23 once you're into the valleys it's unlike anything you've ever seen these are very very steep river valleys and essentially the mountain comes right the way down to the river there's no land at the bottom and then just occasionally every couple of miles or so there will be just enough a sort of meadow at the bottom of the mountain and then there will be an array often of trailers arranged double trailers single trailers and then there will be a lot of trailers and then there will be a lot of trailers in a meadow and then you'll be back into this narrow mountain valley and then again on any available bit of land 20 30 little houses and then on again it's very very far i mean it's unlike britain where you might see i mean some of the bits of poverty that you see you would uh recognize from some bits of britain i mean maybe easington colliery maybe some bits around mirth of tidfall maybe some of the stories around green oak but here it's not pockets of poverty where you can get in and out of it it's not pockets of poverty where you can get in and out of it it's not pockets of in a car and in half an hour you find yourself in a kind of prosperous place where you can get a flat white this is hour after hour of driving before you finally get to a larger valley which might have a wendy's and a dollar store and the when we really started talking in detail to we're talking to a young woman for example um for an hour and a half uh yesterday in west virginia and she was i mean she described firstly church she had been her mother was uh an addict and actually her mother's addiction i think follows the pattern of a lot of the drug addiction here starts with opioids pharmaceutical opioids the kind of stuff the sacral family produced through purdy pharma then it goes on heroin and then it goes on to fentanyl and now it's into methamphetamines but she and her sister were adopted her sister when she was one she was when she was nine conservative christian family and when for example she was 16 uh they found that she'd slept with someone they took her into church and they forced her in front of the entire congregation to be prayed over to get the sex demon out of her and water and oil poured all over it's a very traumatic humiliating experience for a young woman she talked about the fact that this church preached um very very strong pro-israeli policies on the basis of apocalyptic christian prophecies about the rapture and she just talked about the struggle of everyday life i mean just before i flip back to you i want to finish on that you will see descriptions there's been an article in the ft recently for example about rotherham of areas of the uk which on the surface resemble this you know uh factories close people struggling to get work but this is a bit different from those areas uk firstly because it's very very white there are very many people living in it it's much smaller a minority ethnic community but secondly because unlike in england and wales there has been a massive explosion in what angus deaton calls deaths of despair the number of white men particularly but white people in general without degrees uh dying prematurely tripled this is drugs this is alcoholism this is suicide there was nothing like this in england and wales so even though we had the same globalization the same thing we had this incredible explosion we were in a town uh out actually outside the mountains Huntington, West Virginia, which is on the Ohio River. 88 million pills flooding into a place of 80,000 people. Overdose deaths going up from 30,000 to over 100,000 within a decade. So this is much more extreme than I was expecting. Over to you. I thought you were going to say something on the version of something you said on the podcast last week when Douglas's question about what surprised you, namely that you've been surprised at meeting people whose lives don't seem to be made any better by Donald Trump, who have very little in common with Donald Trump, and yet who will keep telling you that they might be voting for him. I just wondered when you're in these sorts of areas, what are you seeing politically? What is something like that young woman saying to you about the role of politics in her life, particularly as the question, as Rachel said, because we're talking here, J.D. Vance territory? So the sense is that these are very conservative areas. She was emphasizing that these Pentecostal churches, which perhaps a third of the population go to, most of the national data suggests 80% of people going to those churches vote Republican. And we were in a Pentecostal service yesterday morning, Sunday morning, with a pastor who made it clear that for him, it's basically all about abortion and gay marriage. And as a result, they sort of excused Donald Trump's moral excrescences. I was trying to say to the pastor, look, this guy's a liar. He's corrupt. And some of them will say openly, there's a range. I mean, there's extreme pro-Trump supporters who said to us, oh, I imagine the reason we went to a Trump rally. And one of those, we were waiting for him to turn up. Somebody said, the reason he's late is almost certainly because he's praying. And I thought it was a complete joke. I mean, obviously he's not late because he's praying. But there's a very broad stream of people who don't think that about Trump. They say he's an idiot, but then they go on to say, but there's no difference between these leaders. And I'm going to vote for the one who's on abortion and gay marriage. But that isn't what I think is going to define the election. I think what's going to define the election as Rory Campbell, your son has pointed out, is cost. Because again, and again, and again, people keep coming back to the fact that their gas prices are sought up, their groceries are sought up. And these are people on very, very marginal incomes. It's difficult to see because their incomes data sounds like they're wealthier than people in Britain, but healthcare costs and health insurance absorb an enormous amount. People are in a lot of debt. They might have a fancy car. They might have even have a boat, but they're really living paycheck to paycheck. And they felt that Trump's America first agenda was going to make things cheaper for them. And they may not have an explanation of how it's gone wrong. I mean, some of them might say it's the Iran war. Some of them might say it's tariffs, but they know, and they know that he's lying. And when he stands up and says, the economy's never been so good, inflation's down, employment's up, that they can see he's lying. Now they might say they're all liars or positive, but that I think is the reality. And I think that's the reality. It's what will mean that they'll either stay home and a small number may begin to flip towards the Democrats. Yeah. The New York Times had a really interesting piece about the difference between Trump's campaigning language and rhetoric compared to 10 years ago. I don't know how they've worked out. I presume it's your friend AI that has worked this out for them. He's used 19% more what they define as over-the-counter. I don't know how they've worked that out. I don't know how they've And all or nothing word is always, never, everything, all, totally. Okay. He has more than doubled from six per thousand words to 15 per thousand words now, what are loosely identified as cursing words. And the other thing is that the AI assessed level of his speaking by language assessment is somewhere between fourth and fifth grade. The average presidential speaking style in history is eighth grade. And he's now posting online 21 times a day compared to 13. This is data very kindly provided by the aforementioned Rory Campbell, who's, you haven't bumped into the other Rory at all, have you? As you've been sort of crisscrossing the, uh, this, this, I don't know. He's clearly, he's clearly on a similar trip. I mean, there's a similar trip going on. We should, we should probably actually get him on. Um, uh, it's, uh, because he's got, thinks very hard about politics and voting. Um, one thing, Alistair, I wanted to get you, I mean, just to remind people of what we're talking about, it's kind of brief, cheesy explainer. It's all about the Senate at the moment. So at the moment, the Senate is 53 Republicans, 47 Democrats. So the Democrats have got to win four seats to move it across. And normally at a midterm, it often goes against the incumbent sitting president by about seven points. We're now seeing polling suggesting 11, 12, 13 points swings towards the Democrats. Massive, you know, polling warning here, which is that the pollsters got it wrong significantly in the last four runs. And, you know, famously, uh, some of the great polling doyens of all time and Seltzer in Iowa miscalled Kamala Harris dramatically a few days before the election. And the thing that gets it makes it so difficult for anyone looking at this polling is to something really extraordinary, which is that African-American and Hispanic men who historically didn't vote suddenly turned up and voted for him. So with all those provisos and with the proviso that if the polls are wrong by three or four points, all in the same direction, it could be very tight. It's looking very exciting and it's looking very exciting at about eight different senatorial seats. And I wonder whether any of these senatorial candidates have caught your eyes, you know, Tallarico or Ossoff or, uh, Petula in Alaska, or what, what you were making of their campaigns. Um, several of them have caught my eye and several of them I think are deeply impressive. Um, I think Ossoff is impressive. Uh, I think Tallarico is impressive. Tallarico is the one that I worry about, but Rory tells me that I shouldn't. Um, the reason is because I've been to Texas and, and, you know, we went to Texas fairly regularly when George Bush was president because he was always inviting Tony down to, you know, his neck of the It just feels very, very hard. Even the more liberal areas of Texas, it feels very, very hard to imagine. I think he's been extraordinarily impressive. We'll come on maybe a bit later to talk about Abdul Alsaid in Michigan because I've actually, you know, because we've had this, in fact, let's do, let's do this now because we had quite a lot of questions about this and we'll just go to this one. Rose, will Haley Stevens flip to Rogers actually make a difference? So this is Haley Stevens who, uh, Abdul Alsaid beat for the nomination and who's been having this sort of playing footsie, whether she would or wouldn't turn up at his last rally and support him. And then lo and behold, Eva poll, she comes out and basically says that she's backing the very right wing, very Trumpian, uh, Republican. So what's your view on that? My view is it is damaging. Uh, it's horrible for the Democrats because it felt like they were, they had momentum in their sales and everybody's now talking about this. I'm not convinced that it's going to have a massive impact on the vote outside Michigan and even inside Michigan. I think it might, uh, weirdly, I think it might motivate people to get out and vote for Abdul. Michigan is currently Democrat held. So if they were to lose Michigan, that of course puts them one step backwards while they're trying to move a few steps forward. Um, Abdul Alsaid was always a risk. You know, there will be democratic voters who won't want to come out for him. He's an incredible social media communicator. I mean, I, I wondered whether our, our amazing producers could just put up the very different images of the key democratic candidates in these key races, because they're all so different. I wonder whether you feel like me that how different it is to British politics. So you've got Abdul Alsaid who you've, you know, we talk about a lot, but it's basically a kind of bro. He's a kind of big, muscular football captain who also happens to be, uh, from Egyptian heritage, pro-Palestinian, openly Muslim. You've got Josh Toro, uh, running in Iowa and Josh is in a wheelchair. He's a Paralympic basketball chief. You've got pastor Adam Hamilton running in Kansas who comes across as he is as like a senior elderly Methodist minister. You've got the candidate in Maine, who's a fifth generation logger. Who's like a heavy set, elderly working class man. You've got Ossoff who is central casting, incredibly forensic, you know, handsome kind of American dude. Ossoff could do with a little bit more height. Oh, he's not tall enough. He's not tall. He's not, he's not, he's not very tall. No. And I mean, when was the last small president? When was the last, when was the last small president? You're like a tall man. The tall, the tall ones always win, don't they? Well, Tararico is like, you know, he's like the Rory Stewart candidate. He's, he's like a sort of slightly geeky, things that are pretty close to moral. oral sermons when he speaks. It's like a kind of earnest young pastor. you've got Mary Patola in Alaska, whose slogan is fish family freedom. And she's from the UPIC community. So she's a native American. You've got Sheryl Brown, who we were looking at in Ohio, who's like a rumpled 50-year senator union official. You've got Roy Cooper, who's like a reassuring elderly lawyer. I just think it's an amazing variety of people. It's not at all like British politics, where everybody seems to come out of central casting. They're every different age, shape, size, ethnicity. It's an incredible, if they all get into the Senate, it's an extraordinary. It's diverse, not just, you know, in terms of gender and ethnicity, it's diverse in terms of kind of personality type style. It's so interesting that because we tend to think of American politics through, I guess, because we see the American president so much. And put Trump, even Trump actually has that sort of slight identikit touched him. They always wear a suit. They always wear a shirt and tie. But I think what you're saying, what you're pointing to is the fact that America is so vast and these states are so vast. I mean, you're talking about, you know, when they were talking the other day, I heard Tallarico talking about how many people had done the early voting. We're already well into the millions. And I think, look, I think the other thing is, you know, on the one hand, obviously, this election is incredibly important. And we're right. It's right that the whole world is talking about it. On the other hand, it's slightly weird that these people become household names around the world. Well, ultimately, they are, you know, okay, they're very big localities, but they're, they're overseas local politicians. I mean, I got a news alert the other day, because Chris Murphy, the very interesting Democrat guy, because he'd had a stroke. Now, there aren't that many British politicians. I mean, there aren't that many British politicians. I mean, there aren't that many who, maybe if they died, yeah, you'd get a news alert, but being rushed to hospital, there's not that many that are going to give you a breaking news alert. Just on where we are, Rory, on the polling, Michigan may change or may not change because of this Haley Stevens thing. But the closing New York Times poll, which my Rory tells me is the one that's probably closest to what they think is the truth, because they basically say that they, this goes back to their polling, acknowledges that over the past, their methodology has rated the Democrats more highly than they should have done. So this has got weighting against the Democrats, this new methodology. They have Michigan. Well, first thing to say is that North Carolina and Georgia are basically, they now think they're so far gone that they're not even sort of looking at it. The one that they're interested in is the one that they hadn't been interested before, which is Kansas. Michigan Democrats up 11, Texas Democrats plus seven, Maine plus six, Kansas plus five, Ohio plus five, Alaska plus two, Iowa plus one. So it does get very, very narrow down towards the bottom of that list. But Trump's approval rate, I thought this was really interesting. If you take those seven states, Trump's approval rating is minus 21. And you'll like this one given where you've just been. Approval for Trump is now under 50 with white voters who didn't go to college. And that's the first time that has happened. He's always been pretty high up with white voters who didn't go to college. He's now fallen below, below 50. So look, it's, I'm, I'm relentlessly pessimistic in elections. I always stay pessimistic to the end, which is why I couldn't quite bring myself to say what I thought on election night. Um, I was already gloomy even before the event. Um, but I think on this one, it's, it's hard to see with the sort of sustained polling leads that the Democrats have had in several of these places that they won't, you know, flip quite a few of these, but you know, we'll have to wait and see. I don't know whether you've seen anything from Sarah Longwell, who I think you'd enjoy a lot because she does focus groups, which I think you've always said you you're more interested in than polling. In her focus groups consistently, people saw Trump as this businessman. They'd watched him on The Apprentice. So many people watch him on The Apprentice night after night. And he had some magic sauce. He was going to come in and he was going to sort stuff out, going to put America first, bring the stuff down, and they just feel really, really disappointed. But her other, I thought most radical comment, which I've encountered going around is that when you ask people where they get their news from, and you know, my father-in-law just wrote to me saying, well, if you want to understand the trick, watch Fox News. And I've been watching quite a lot of Fox News. She says, that's no longer true, that four years ago, eight years ago, people would say, I'm watching Fox News, or I'm reading the local newspaper, and I'm watching Fox News, or I'm watching Fox News, or I'm watching Fox News, or I'm watching Fox News, or I'm watching Fox News, or I'm watching Fox News, or I'm watching Fox News. And her conclusion is that what's happening is that they're scrolling TikTok or Instagram, they're following what they're really interested in, which is basketball or a cooking show. And then somehow subliminally, some political messaging gets in, and they wake up in the morning suddenly with a political view about Iran or, you know, straight formulas, whatever. But they don't know where it's come from. And nobody can deal with that. They don't know where it's come from. And nobody can deal with it. construct these very individualized, specific to the individual algorithms, to really track where this stuff is coming from. I'll tell you one thing, Rory, we should bring Izzy in in a minute, because she's been to different places to you. But just give you some of, Rory's been sending me the early in-person voting stats. North Carolina, which was considered swing, and now isn't, then the betting market is now having them at 98%. Now here's on the early in-person voting. I don't know how they work these things out, or whether it's actually real votes that are counted earlier, because in our elections, you're not allowed to sort of tell people what the early voting, postal voting looks like. 2024, Republicans were plus 41,457. 2026, this election, Democrats are at plus 343,548. In Louisiana, where I know Izzy has been, and which is generally seen as a safe Republican seat, in 2024, the Republicans were more than 80,000 up on the early voting. The Democrats now 15,981. And here's one, Rory, how many votes do you think were cast early in Texas? Don't know. How many were cast early in Texas? 6.9 million. That's 50% more than in 2022. Help me understand this, because it's amazing. I mean, what are we most supposed to read into? I mean, I saw similar figures from Kansas on Friday. 49.6 million people have voted early across all states, which is a new record. What that normally says, what a high, high, high motivation to early turnout usually says is that there is an obvious question which the voters are seeking to answer, okay? Now, you've been there, and I've not, but I am guessing the obvious question is, do you feel good about the way the incumbents are doing? I think that feels like the obvious question. Do you have a reason to, in a polarized politics where none of the politicians are very popular, do you have a reason to vote against somebody more than the others? And that, it feels to me, is probably the question that's driving those early numbers. But Rory, just before we move on to pick with you, I know you're in America. I know it's possible to get caught up in the moment, but what on earth were you doing wearing a red Make America Great Again baseball cap? Where were you? Who put it on your head? And why was it there? So, I was with our team, with Celine and with Daisy and with Bella at a Trump rally. We went to hear Donald Trump speak in Chillicothe, Ohio, and we stood in line for, I want to say, four, five hours with MAGA supporters. And all around were people wearing these hats. And I was actually, felt very, very uncomfortable. There had been a protester on the edge who was one solitary, very, very brave woman who looked as though she might be Latino, protesting with a banner and with everyone screaming at her. Another protester who was physically assaulted, their head smacked against the pavement in a way that literally sounded like a gunshot going off. These very, very aggressive people alongside children all around us. I put on the hat partly to try not to draw too much attention to ourselves, because I was very worried we were not going to be allowed in. We wouldn't be allowed to see anything and that people would think that we'd come there to mock them, that we were protesters. In retrospect, though, I think it was a mistake. I mean, I am picking up very much from people here that wearing a MAGA hat, not quite Prince Harry putting on a Nazi uniform, but it's not cool. It's not something that Americans think is funny. It's a symbol of something that people find so disturbing and traumatizing. And they see it as an endorsement of President Trump. I mean, the rally was extraordinary too, Alistair, because I'd never sat through him speaking for an hour and a quarter and you're absolutely right. All that stuff you got from the New York Times is true. but my goodness he was so much better than the other republican speakers you know they were all there all the characters you would have heard of vivek ramaswamy who was running to be governor of ohio uh hustet who's running to be the senator he's the guy with the nice bum yeah which trump lent into he when everybody's reported that i said he's got a great ass and and he's got a great ass and look at his ass it's terrific but i didn't just say he's got a great ass he's got great feet got great shoulders got a great head and then he went on to this amazing rambling description of how this guy was an american football star and basically what trump seemed to be saying to his audiences this guy looks a bit boring but he can rip your heart out he's a real tough guy he didn't seem to be able to get up for praising vivek ramaswamy in the same way maybe because vivek ramaswamy is not like the kind of masculine i think the kind of masculine white sports star that trump lent into finds easy to sell to his audience um so vivek sat there throughout an hour and a quarter barely got any praise from trump all the thing was devoted to this is this is a real man and then he went off and talked about his um his white house repairs and for the first time i understood what was happening here because obviously when we report it we're normally like well this guy's completely demented why does he spend his whole time talking about white house repairs but for the audience of people who love him it feels as though he's got a great ass and he's got a great body so he's a guy leaning at a bar totally at ease his pacing is incredible his pauses are incredible he's looking everybody in the eye he senses the energy of the room there are these cadences there are these jokes and essentially what he's doing is he's saying it's a sort of compliment to the audience he's saying i'm not a politician who's going to do the kind of thing that you know you and i would be used to which is this is a small town in ohio i'm going to come and i'm going to do 15 minutes i'm going to get back on my plan i'm going to be out he's saying to his people i love you you're my people and i'm going to spend an hour and a quarter just shooting the breeze with you and i'm going to talk to you about my home restoration all of you guys like restoring your homes i'm restoring my home my home site house you've got your own houses and i'll just tell you stories about my wife me and the lights and this and the other and this um and i could see the charm and appeal of it for the hardcore mega supporters is it all boring no no no it was it was mesmerizing oh it wasn't boring at all boring ones were the republican congressmen and senators who were absolutely like central casting there were their suits you know uh thank god the bible jesus keeping taxes down and he didn't do anything hypocritical about him he didn't try to talk about jesus he didn't try to talk about anything what he did do was relentlessly boost there was no moment in the whole speech where he acknowledged there was any problem at all it wasn't a political style where you say look i know but stick with us it was things have never been so good this is absolutely amazing there are zero people crossing the border you know the economy's at its strongest level ever stock exchanges up and and every time there was a pause everyone would just shout usa usa usa it's real nationalism and you remember when we watched him speak live in davos you know a different audience but do you remember that two or three people i think you among them were sort of trying to keep me sort of chained into my chair and as i was shouting out that that's a lie that's another lie is were you not sort of tempted just to stand up and say you're lying again yeah i don't think you alistair would have been able to handle it i think you would have walked out after about 10 minutes i think you would have been so enraged bored and disgusted that you would have just walked out um but i i've i mean look this is a man i think these are the end days this was a very very small uh gymnasium they'd chosen so i think you would have walked out after about 10 minutes i think you so they were they must have been worried that they had to keep them in a thing that took about 2 000 people because they were worried not enough people would turn up 2 000 wow take it back in the day there would have been you know 30 40 000 people turning up and some of the mega crowd was wandering away before the end of the speech so you could create a narrative around this is the end days this is a guy who's finished tailing off but you still saw i mean i thought it was the most incredible thing to be able to do to go to that gymnasium and i think you would have been kind of rally because you could still see what the magic must have been uh 10 years ago and and it's just partly he's a much easier speaker than almost any other um american political communicator i mean he's more like a it's more the style of a a pentecostal preacher who can speak for an hour and a quarter without notes and just keep keep the rhythms going keep the jokes going okay royalist i'm fascinated that you were so fascinated and mesmerized i found his style at davos mesmerizing but in a utterly revolting way but you know he seems to he's i think he's we he's weaving wheeling you in a bit but there we are listen let's bring in we talked about izzy and fantastic piece in the newsletter at the weekend doubtless has more to come but there's a question here from diane which i think is he can help us answer there's a lot in the news about the most contested states but what states have been forgotten and why izzy how are you hello i'm good how are you very well very well so tell us where have you been first um so i drove over from texas to louisiana on thursday and since then i've been driving across louisiana i've gone west to east which only takes about four hours because it's so tiny that way um but it's interesting because as that question suggests you know there's been essentially no national or international press coverage of the race in louisiana um part of that is because it's so tiny part of that is because it's always been a very safe seat um trump has won 60 of the vote here more than 60 of the vote here since 2016 um it's so republican so you're like this i met um a group of women who were all in their late 70s and they're democrats and they're based in acadia which voted for trump 80 percent of people that voted for trump in 2024 and so they were so afraid of telling people that they were democrat because you know you stop getting invited to dinners you lose friends that they started wearing um like a special secret pin and that would let them identify each other in public and if you were wearing the pin you would say okay you're a democrat too um but the crucial thing now is that the race seems you know much closer than anyone expected so the republicans are still very likely going to win but it's a lot lot closer the democrats are doing a lot better than they have done in any way so i think it's a good thing that they're doing a lot better than they have done in any way so i think it's a good thing that they're of the last you know five or six elections and is he why why do you think this is what what's what what are you picking up you you told us when you were with us last week that the latino community in texas and you said a lot of that was about immigration what is it that's driving the sorry aggressive ice enforcement people feeling the immigration enforcement was too aggressive is that the story in louisiana um i think the big thing here is the economy uh so louisiana has the highest poverty rate of any state i spoke to one school teacher who teaches in a public school and um he was saying that so they've had to move they used to have detention after school you know like most schools do they had to move their detention to lunchtime because parents couldn't afford to come and pick their children up if they missed the school bus so there was one child who not for detention wanted to stay late for band practice and this teacher found out that he was walking himself home 12 miles off the school bus and he was like oh my god i'm going to be after school because his parents had no way of coming to get him and he couldn't afford to take um there's very little public transport so he couldn't afford to take an uber or something like that um so a big big thing is the economy the other thing is racism um both black and white people that i spoke to said that racism which had been getting a little bit better for uh you know 10 years before 2016 since then has really started to come back one pastor described it as if someone had ripped the band out of the school and they were like oh my god i'm going to be like oh my god i'm going to have a bandage off a wound that they had hoped was starting to heal um others said that you know there's just started to be people have started to sort of naturally segregate again um and sort of there would be places that you just knew you wouldn't go or events you knew weren't for you or people like you um so that's a big driver and people are just really angry about that um and then also the republicans i mean i spoke to uh some sort of more old school republicans who are furious with trump for things like the epstein files or renaming the gulf of mexico and they just think he's you know he had great ideas but now has become one person described him as godlike um so those are the sort of main drivers i think like alistair was saying you know there's been unprecedented or not unprecedented sorry there's been record early turnout um a lot of that has been black voters which is really encouraging for the democrats um so yeah so it just seems like people are really really really angry they're voting more than they would have done otherwise and it's yeah it's the economy and racism predominantly is is your sense vote this is a question for both of you really the because we talk a lot we see the polls and we think 50 50 and we think oh well that's half are going to vote this half are going to vote that are we still in a place where more people will not vote than will actually vote for either of the main parties that they've got on the lots of people, but I wonder how many of the people you spoke to will actually vote or that we're still in a deeply cynical apathetic culture yeah let me try and then is he back to you i mean my sense is that for many many republican voters they're not going to vote for the democratic party they're more likely to stay at home that it's become very very tribal and for republican voters that i talk to who say trump's an idiot it's trump's an idiot not that he's an immoral devil and they then very quickly do some what aboutery about the democrats being corrupt and useless and abortion transgender these kind of issues really really matter so those people stay at home the republican voters who might shift across that 15 might shift across talk in a different way they say oh actually um the problem there was no problem with kamala harris the problem was that he was an immoral devil and he was an immoral devil and he was an immoral devil was that biden didn't step down early enough and that there wasn't a primary i've heard that a number of times so that i think is the soft republican uh tempted towards the democrats providing a reason for why they didn't vote for kamala harris they're saying there was nothing wrong with her nothing wrong with the democratic party it was just a procedural issue around primaries and biden that kept me away those people might go back but the 80 of the republican vote i think is never going to consider going towards the democrats because they also have invested so much time in their life and so i think it's going to be very difficult for the democrats to be able to do what they want to do it's going to be very difficult for them to do what they want to do it's going to be very difficult for them to do what they want to do it's going to be very difficult for them to do what they want to do it's going to be very difficult for them to do what they want to do it's going to be very difficult for them to do what they want to do it's going to be very difficult for them to do what they want to do it's going to be very difficult for them to do what they want to do okay i'll i'll work on that the um so he was bill clinton strategist and they won the state in 1992 louisiana in 1992 and he's the one that came up with the phrase it's the economy stupid um and i only spoke to him briefly but he essentially we were talking about why the democrats are doing so well when they don't have sort of a national leader and he was saying you know at the minute they don't need one everyone is voting against trump they're not voting for the democrats so i think that's um sort of an interesting uh you know sort of obvious but also interesting because it's like people won't necessarily vote they won't view it as voting for the democrats which they may be more opposed to doing they might just view it as voting against trump which is someone that they're really angry at that's why the midterms are always a little bit different because and it is such a strange system there's let me ask you both you've both been there for a while now the question that rory asked me earlier which of the the more high profile democrat politicians do you look at and think one they might have their mind on running for the top job or two that they might have what it takes to get the top job is there anybody that's really impressed you because you're obviously seeing much more of them we do here well let me let me start i mean of the of these seven or eight key senate races many of them have kept a pretty low profile there's been a big difference between those that are out there on social media and on the podcasts and getting the likes so the ones that you know we've heard of talarico ossof abdullah sayed are the key three examples of people who are really pushing social media profile there's another whole lot of them sherrod brown cooper and others who have kept it very low-key very local and i guess we can assume those are not the people who are going to be running for the presidential races so of those three new figures well i i guess the big fight within the democratic party is between the progressive left and the kind of mainstream we need someone who can retake middle america and and that's where i think people like ossoff and talarico come ahead and ossoff is the obvious one i mean he's so far ahead now it's very very weird and what was supposed to be a a marginal race um as as you said alistair ossoff is so far ahead that people are barely bothering to cover it anymore yeah and i guess um his height notwithstanding although talarico appeals to me much more in the way that mayor pete appeals it may be for the the red-blooded american voter they may seem a little little geeky and not not central casting enough is he so the um guy that's running for senator here jamie davis for the democrats he has had i think zero funding from the um national party he's running against people who that in the republican ad space um they have been running a ai generated video of him sort of ominously walking towards the camera um he's a black man and people are saying you know that's trying to discourage white voters by making him seem ominous um but yeah so i think i think there's a lot of people who haven't necessarily even been on the national radar uh who might be white voters who are trying to discourage i'm going to be like you said writing more about this in the newsletter um which will be out on thursday uh yeah so to remind people you can sign up to that at the rest is politics.com forward slash newsletter well you'll be pleased to know izzy i was in the um because of my friend martin briley who hates me talking about swimming in the lido because he says it brings more people to the lido when we we actually want nice peace and calm but somebody in the lido this morning just randomly as i'm swimming swam by and said i am enjoying izzy's contribution to the lido contributions from the united states midterm so there you are uh you're you're you're you're being you're being noticed i can i just maybe before we we go to break i've been fascinated on just how nasty some of the republican campaigning has been and i wonder if that's the same everywhere or is it just because we see i mean the level of racism against abdul al-sayed has been extraordinary trump actually said in a rally he hopes they the people of florida back to where he came from he was born in uh michigan and it's mike rogers who lives in in florida his opponent they've done this huge thing about talarico being gay being vegan um neither of which they know to be true um and also this this idea that because he had a couple of days off for a cough or something he was all these sort of conspiracies these theories going and i just wondered if that is the norm you mentioned the ai generated video is are you kind of nasty unpleasant campaigning kind of everywhere the key one is ilhan omar which has been completely disgusting i mean this is the congressman who is of somali origin and again in the trump rally very clearly he said this woman is married to her brother she had her children with her brother uh and she needs to go back to where she came from and somalia is not a real country i mean it's really i mean it's it's denigrating somalis it's denigrating a somalia and it's suggesting she's engaged not just in fraud but in incest i mean you know that that's what i find so difficult about this which is that trump is so horrifying and what i can't quite handle is these religious leaders who seem to be like yeah he's a bit of an idiot but you know politicians are idiots and to be honest you know their way of getting around it is they're like at the last election i thought what kind of country is this and they're like well i don't know we've just got to choose between kamala harris and donald trump's pathetic are these the two best people we can no there is a massive moral difference between kamala harris and donald trump on all these things exactly that there's all these adverts and the thing that people were telling me here this one pastor i spoke to um tony ricard and he was he was born the year before the civil rights act was passed and he remembers what it was like before you know he remembers obviously his parents couldn't vote and he was saying that now children today are not allowed to vote they don't remember what it was like and they have no conception of what people fought against and these adverts things like this that you see on the tv is what's encouraging and freeing people to behave in the way that they're starting to behave in again um so that's the sort of real real world impact on it too well listen izzy look forward to your piece uh on thursday and doubtless more thereafter thank you for everything on the two episodes you've joined us and um just to remind readers rest is politics dot com forward slash newsletter well we're going to go for a quick break now and if you want to hear that mini-series about jd vance or indeed any of our other mini-series go to the rest is politics dot com rory you've triggered me there by mentioning mini-series because i've just had the very very good news that none other than the prime minister of the united kingdom andy burnham the word perseverance has passed his lips or passed his pen it might have been because the guy this guy who's been this guy carl bushby who's been walking 31 000 miles over many many years around the world just got back to hull and i just got a message that in the message that andy 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Welcome back to the Restless Politics Question Time with me, Alastair Campbell. And with me, Rory Stewart. And Rory, next question is brought to us by Evelyn Partners, and none other than the wonderful Steph McGovern from The Rest Is Money is going to be putting this question to us. And it is about a subject we talked about last week, the budget. Steph, over to you. Hey, Rory and Alastair. So quick question for you. If you were putting together this budget, what is the one tough decision you would have made that would have got the economy growing? And how would you have convinced the public it was the right call? Well, I'd be focusing on making things easier for business, getting growth going. But I'm going to be really controversial and wind up most of the Restless Politics listeners by saying, I would have found a way of attracting non-DOMs back to the UK. And I would have found a way of charging them a flat fee, could be £500,000 a year. And in return, people, who'd made their money outside the UK, wanted to come to the UK, invest in the UK, could come in and do that without having to face bills on their inheritance tax and the kind of things that are making wealthy people very reluctant to come to the UK at the moment. Presumably, you think that would have raised money for the exchequer and also got people who style themselves as wealth creators and entrepreneurs back into the UK economy rather than Dubai or Milan or wherever they might have gone to. Exactly. And I guess the question, which is partly for you is, would it be possible if you said to the British public, all these people are going to go to the UK, they're going to go to the UK, people are going to be charged £500,000 a year or a million a year to come here, but we're not going to tax them inheritance tax. Would people accept that as an argument? It'd be a tough one to make. I think it's a very interesting idea. I actually wonder if it's an idea that might have worked at the time of Labour getting into office, but would be more difficult now. The two things I was thinking of, one was Europe, it won't be surprising to know, I would have announced, this wouldn't be for immediate growth, but it would have signalled an intent and a confidence in the debate. I would have announced the upcoming publication of a white paper on the economic and geopolitical and strategic costs of Brexit. And I think that would have framed the debate better than, well, we might just have a look at it sometime soon, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But I think I would have gone for something, this relates to what you've said, I would have found something which helped the economy, which helped the public finances, and which went in a different direction to Rachel Reeves' budget. So I would have found. I would have found a way to mitigate what is businesses' probably biggest complaint, or one of the biggest complaints they have about the Labour government, which is the national insurance rise and the reasons that were given for it. And maybe somehow related that to the whole debate about welfare reform and needs. In other words, reframe the argument about tax on jobs, as it were, as part of a bigger campaign to say the big goal of this government over the next two, three years before the next election is to start getting the welfare bill down by getting more and more young people into jobs, and that we're therefore going to make it a lot easier for employers to hire them in the first place. How about getting back to the old chestnut of putting up the top rate of income tax and justifying it in terms of funding defence, for example? I'm a big believer that the way to raise money is to put up income tax, not wealth taxes. I think wealth taxes are going to terrify wealth creators, but you justify it by saying we face a new threat from Russia. It would also, however, be a breach of a manifesto promise that Andy Burnham has said he is not going to break. I also think that these questions are about growth. And I think that one of the arguments the government is having to take on is the extent to which the budget was seen as a fairly modest tax and spend budget, as opposed to what people maybe wanted more, which was something that said this is going for growth. And I think you and I both talked about areas where maybe the growth was a little bit clearer. I think he's been too clear about the fact that he's not going to break those tax promises, which is one of the reasons, I guess, why people keep saying that even though he keeps ruling it out, maybe there will be an election earlier than we think. As it happens, I think that would be a mistake. And I don't think he's going to make that mistake, but we shall see. I mean, these budgets are so important. And I think this steady as you go budget is one way to play it. But this is the real way to define the long term impacts. I mean, people's finances are affected by these things. And I think that's the real way to define the long term impacts. I mean, people's not just in a year, but over 5-10 years. And of course, there are changes that have been announced in previous budgets that are only now coming into force. So the political argument will move on constantly, but the consequences don't. And that matters, I guess, to anyone thinking about their finances, which is where Evelyn Partners, our sponsors, have experts which help clients understand what the changes could mean for their financial plans, for their long term goals, and for preparing for what's next. So if you want to go beyond the headlines and understand what the budget means for you and your finances, visit Evelyn, E-V-E-L-Y-N dot com forward slash budget 2026. So Alistair, you've very, very kindly been asking us a lot of questions about the US. So we're going to turn the spotlight on to you. Because we're going to bring some questions back to Europe now where some extraordinary things have been happening. And actually, one of the weird things watching Fox News in my hotel room is that they're covering France all the time. In fact, Trump talks about it a lot. A lot of the Republicans talk about it. They're trying to use the demonstrations and violence in Europe as an example of what might happen if you voted for the Democrats in the US. So here's a question for you from Hayley. Having watched the youth protests spread into Germany over the weekend, is there any chance they could spread to the UK? And James, no student loan reform in the budget, 2 million people have a 9% tax on their work life. Surely this isn't sustainable. Maybe start if you could bear on what's happening in France, Spain, Ireland, Albania, Portugal, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Netherlands, etc. Yeah, there's definitely something going on. That's for sure. But we talked a lot about the protests in France. But I think that of all those countries you listed, the one that really took me aback at the weekend was Germany. France, we're kind of used to big demonstrations. And okay, Germany have demonstrations, but there was a level of violence and looting and theft that you don't normally associate with. Modern Germany. So you're seeing something Europe-wide. And I think it, look, there'll be lots and lots of different reasons for it. Some of it is people who just want to have a bundle with the police. That's always been the case in some places. People like fighting with the police. Often the place to do that has been big football matches. And there was an element of that. And I think one of the mistakes the French made in their handling of this, they tried to make it very much just as Trump, any heckler he gets at his rallies, he says they're sort of paid, hard left, radical left protesters. I think these protests are too big to be dismissed in that way. I think there's something deeper going on, which I think is incumbent on politicians really to think through. And the question about whether they could come here, we've got quite a record of protests and sometimes violent protests. But it tends to be, if you think about the history of modern political violence, my mind always goes back to the, to the poll tax or the minus strike. It's some time ago. We've had riots over specific incidents, but in terms of something that feels like a sort of real groundswell political, political uprising. And this is, this feels closer to that for me. And I, I just, so I was on question time, the BBC question time, as opposed to this question time last week. And one of the questions was from a young guy who, and his question was, I've just graduated. He was a history and graduate. I've just graduated. Was my degree worth it? Um, now a lot of people are asking that question. A lot of young people are finding that they are applying for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of jobs and rarely getting a reply. And when they do reply, they can tell that it's been written by AI and their CV was probably written by read by AI. If at all, can't get on the housing ladder unless they've got wealthy parents. All this stuff is real. And I mentioned on the program part of a campaign that's starting on November the 9th with Richard Layard who you will know who's sort of big happiness guru Gus O'Donnell former cabinet secretary and the campaign is going to be called back young people now because you know we talked about the budget I think if there was one thing I really really would have liked to have heard it was something and I know student loans is difficult because of the financing but I would like to hear something that was going specifically to try to help young people I think they think helping young people is increasing the minimum wage well it does help but actually we're talking now about a lot of young people who are not necessarily from poor or underprivileged backgrounds they're people who have played the game done well at school gone to university so I don't know that the violence like this would come here but I think that unless the politicians address some of these issues which I think is so important Alan Milburn's report is going to say and how the government responds to it. One of the things that strikes me when I read out that list of all the countries where it's happening is what it does to me is remind me of the Arab Spring I mean it's very very weird sense that countries that are very different with different cultures different constitutions different political structures in the case the Arab Spring somebody sets himself alight in Tunisia and almost immediately you have revolution in Tunisia and then Libya then Egypt Syria Lebanon Yemen Bahrain and here too something very odd I mean it's not it may be driven by socioeconomic fundamentals but I wonder whether there isn't also a social media element that allows the same phenomenon because it can't it's not if you looked at the data Portugal Netherlands Germany France I mean they've got different growth rates they've got different unemployment rates they've got different welfare systems they you know the you know as Alan Milburn will point out when he puts his report there is about a third the support for needs in Britain that there is for Germany yeah and you know you could triple you know you could spend another 40 billion pounds a year to provide the kind of support for needs in Britain that they already have in Germany and yet you would still have the rights you've got in Germany so what's is what do you think's allowing it to spill across borders so quickly I think social media does play a part and social media the fact that you know we instantly see and there is so much coverage of anything that involves violence and I also I don't underestimate the extent to which the Russians do pump this stuff out they are all across our social media networks there is a thing in the manosphere about you know big you were talking about Trump and liking big strong men and the whole manliness thing and that's about fighting and then throw in you've got the Russians on one side you've got Maga on the other side and what you described in Ohio felt to me like way worse than the sort of standard of living that we see in you know challenging parts of Europe but you've got that messaging going out as well but I do think it's it's a sense of a generation feeling that they're not being they're not being heard they're not being listened to um I'm amazed when I go when I'm talking to students in particular this thing about just not getting replied to the whole time not never applying for jobs taking the effort to to do a cv and then they don't even get a rejection never mind any reply whatsoever and that I think AI is exacerbating that um it was very interesting at question time because they they were quite a lot you know not a lot it's pretty much a kind of middle-aged older audience but the young people there were young people there they were really fired up they were really fired up and I thought the other thing was interesting particularly in Germany and France that was the coverage was dominated by the protests there and that was the coverage was dominated by the protests there is how many of the young people actually was saying they didn't want it to be overtaken by all this violence because they felt the points that they were trying to make were just being completely lost and you know the best coverage I saw of the whole thing in France was a very I can't remember the name of the program it was a long uh report on Al Jazeera and it analyzed the the scale of coverage across all the French networks and all the French talk shows it was all about the violence there was a there was a minuscule amount of debate about any of the issues it was all about the violence it was the right wing saying we need more police the police need to be tougher and it was the left wing saying we have to listen to the young people but the guy pointed out that nobody could actually quite articulate across the media what it was they wanted themselves to articulate it was class sizes it was housing it was joblessness it was all these different things but I think it is a warning to us and that's why I think that look Andy Burnham's got a real job on his hands this niche report I've talked to Alan Milburn a little bit about what's coming if it's going to be fully fully funded yes the long-term thing is to get the welfare bills down but there's going to have to be some pretty heavy inward flow of investment to help people who are no longer in education employment or training to find it it's not going to come out of a clear blue sky and the heartbreaking thing for me is that um so many of the policy prescriptions we look for already exist in places like Germany and France I mean you know we we often talk about how can we get the cost of building infrastructure or energy down to French levels we talk about how we can provide neat support comparable to Germany and the depressing thing about these demonstrations that even if by some miracle and it would take five ten years and cost hundreds of billions of pounds we were able to reach continental levels of uh progress on those issues you still would have a lot of very very angry young people because some of this is about the whole I'm afraid the whole structure of a modern economy and that's where AI comes in I mean you know what are the jobs available for somebody in Rotherham well there's just not much of it it's low-paid warehouse jobs it's care jobs it's equivalents of zero-hour contracts and that's true here in the U.S. I'm now in Roanoke Virginia you can see that around us here it's true across Europe and it's not that clear that any politician from any party has the real solution to that because often even if they did all the things they dreamt of they would just become a little bit closer to a country which is also facing rights and demonstrations on which Alastair I'm going to finish with a cheerier note and a question to you to try because it's been a great question time but it's been quite serious um I mean and this of course is sad too but maybe a chance for some options but I'm going to finish with a cheerier note and a question to you to try some optimism along with sadness which is a question from Jake I was saddened to hear about the passing of Patrick Stewart who was such an outspoken voice on political issues particularly Brexit so this is a chance for a Campbell to pay tribute to a Stewart oh very good Alastair how do you feel about his passing and do you have any stories or memories of the great man well I do I did feel very sad I was aware he was ill I wasn't aware he was so ill um and I thought it was interesting he has a huge coverage of his death and around the world I mean it was it was around the world he we we sometimes underestimate I think when we have these British stars just how big I mean it was a huge story in Germany and France in Italy and Australia I mean I was sort of scouring the place and but I thought I have to say this is the rest and Alastair just on that very very very quickly my my only anecdote on that is Shoshana who's obviously an American the only time I've seen her literally tongue-tied is when I introduced her to Patrick Stewart it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen I know she worshipped Patrick Stewart so I had this opportunity I took her over to meet him and she literally couldn't get a word out she kept just sort of staring at him and goggling she was so in awe of this man that was um the story that comes into my head when you say that is when I introduced Fiona to Roger Bannister famously the first man to run a mile in under four minutes and I said this is Roger Bannister the athlete as I could see this Fiona not computing at all the athlete to which she said oh what was your distance and he very nicely very politely said no no my Shoshana story she knew exactly who Patrick was because she'd watched Star Trek repeatedly and and worshipped him I mean I think for her it was like meeting I don't know be like Elvis or something I mean it was really or Maradona or maybe me meeting Maradona yeah I did that I did that once I've never talked about that um no but he he was in a the the one thing I thought missing from from this sort of scale of the obituaries was actually his politics he was you know we had a list of um celebrity supporters call them what you want and some of them came and went and some of them could be a bit flaky at times he was absolutely solid and you know we should put in the in the newsletter he did a brilliant broadcast about the benefits of the European convention of human rights we used to use him because of the voice we used to use him as a voiceover for so some of our best political broadcasts were voiced over by by Patrick Stewart added to which we also had him introducing speakers at rallies and and what have you he was just a wonderful man he was he was also was a he was a Yorkshireman I think he once said that the proudest moment of his life was when he was made chancellor of Huddersfield university he was a lifelong supporter of Huddersfield town and we you know we obviously like football northern football clubs that don't always do very well um so no he was a great great great guy and and and i think we some we underestimate just how many amazing british actors we have and uh so yeah very very very very sad and uh i'm glad that shoshana got to meet him rory well done for introducing her we should all i don't believe this thing about never meet your heroes i think you should always meet your heroes i would have loved to have met all this i would loved it well alice thank you very much it's been an amazing question time and we'll see you on wednesday morning when we'll be talking about the results there you go looking looking forward to it very much thanks again are you looking for support in your weight management journey zetbound.com may be able to help zetbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity or some adults with overweight who also have 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