227. Trump’s Flailing: Is the GOP Finally Losing Faith?

Trump is distracted. He's out of touch. He's surrounded himself with yes men and it is showing. The Democrats are making deep gains into Republican strongholds and the president is now having to fight on home turf, and Donald Trump is doing more harm than good for many of those candidates. "I know more about everything than anybody in this room, anybody anywhere in the world. That's what he said, Caddy K. He's a PR nightmare for his own party." Meanwhile, an unexpected triumph for Brazil's far right has thrown up some uncomfortable questions. Did the US have a hand in the election outcome? Are we watching the "Magification" of Latin America? This episode is brought to you by E. Toro. A tariff of spending plan, a regulatory change, it can all start just as the first line of a speech. But it sets in motion things that can reach far beyond Washington and unfold for years to come. That's right, Caddy. Markets move on expectations, not just events, investors are constantly weighing what a decision could mean for companies, sectors, and the wider economy. So E. Toro is an investing platform where you can access a wide range of markets and explore how political and economic developments could affect them. You could also learn from the global community of investors and see how people around the world are interpreting the same news. As with all investing, your capital is at risk, see E. Toro.com/tripus for full terms. Welcome to the rest is politics. US, I'm Catty Kaye. And I'm Anthony Scaramucci. We're in the beautiful city of Boston, some place I spent seven years of my life here, the sports, great sports capitals of the United States. Yeah. You feel a republic, you feel democracy, you feel America's glorious history all over the city, Anthony. It's a different place than Washington. I feel the short finger, vulgarians hand, just suppressing and repressing Washington. Don't feel there's a lot of humility, but there's a lot of humility coming out of Donald Trump right now. Who knows? He says, I know better about everything than anybody, anywhere in the world. Good to know that he's not feeling humbled by the state. He has a very big brain, his uncle went to MIT and he was a professor there. And he has his uncle's IQ and he could have been a Nobel Prize, Laureate in physics and astrophysics, but he's chosen politics. So we are now just under 30 days away from the midterm elections. And Donald Trump is out on the campaign trail. He started at the end of last week. He's been in Texas. He's been in Alabama. He is heading to Nebraska today, as we speak on Monday. He is heading to red districts in red states trying to increase the Republicans fortunes. There are a set of devastating polls that came out over the course of the weekend. I guess the question for our satan is whether having Trump out on the campaign trail is actually going to help the Republican Party come November or whether it is going to hurt them because it's interesting to see where he's going. In these red states, he is going to red districts and red cities. They are keeping him as far away from swing districts as they possibly can in all of those districts where you have more moderate voters who don't like what is happening in the country. Don't like the cost of living angry at the president. They realize that having Donald Trump there could actually swing things the Democrats way. Even if they are districts that Trump won, so they have to keep him away from those districts. So last night we had the great honor and opportunity to be in Toronto and we did trip U.S. roleplay. We asked about a thousand Canadians in a beautiful auditorium, the Queen, the Queen of Elizabeth Theatre. It was great. And what was the question? Would it be a Maga candidate and we want you to not be a Canadian, but I want you to think like someone that's warned the Make America great again at and I want you to sit there and tell us would you want Trump to campaign with you or not? And what was the results of that informal poll, Caddy? Well, these were Canadians pretending they were Republicans and they did not want Donald Trump to come. So it was 80/20, right? It was about 80/20. Yeah. They realized that he was not going to be an asset to them and actually. If you were a Maga candidate, I think there are a few Maga candidates where he helps because he could energize the base. Backpacksen? Probably Paxton is one of them. Even though Paxton is saying that that convention didn't help his numbers, Paxton how has no other choice, right? Paxton is at the bottom of the barrel. He has to try anything. He's got a hell, he needs a hell Mary pass to get him out from the bottom of the ladder. So maybe Paxton, but so take me into the room. You're in the Paxton campaign. Take me into the room of what they're saying to each other. Well, I suspect what Paxton is saying to Donald Trump is that recording was a hoax. The convention was fantastic. Even though I was caught on tapes saying that the convention hurt my numbers, Mr. President, you know, I love you. Please spend some of your money on me. That is what he is saying. Please spend your money on me. Okay. So even though they know Trump is hurting them, probably they want the money. Let's go to Tom Cotton if you don't mind. The Senator from Arkansas was outed over the weekend. At least his cell phone was outed by Donald Trump over the weekend. Donald Trump's mad at him that he's blocking this daylight savings law, which Trump would like to get put into place. Do you believe that or do you believe that Tom Cotton is trying to figure out a way to separate himself from Donald Trump on the campaign trail? I know it's a little conspiratorial, but do you believe that that was a setup? That he asked Donald Trump to put out his phone number so that I can show that I'm having beef with you. We got to get in a little bit of a row here. So I can show people in Arkansas that I'm differentiated from you. And by the way, we're not going to get in a row. I'm big things like the war or energy prices or affordability. But let's pick a stupid thing like daylight savings because man, I am not doing well. And you know, I'm with you, but I'm not doing well linked to you. I got to be able to go into the state and tell people that I'm my own guy and I'm fighting with the president over this daylight savings issue, which you and I both know as a minor issue, which is not too much. Himalayan. Is that too conspiratorial? It's possible. And also Donald Trump has done this before. He's given out people's phone numbers and he gave out Lindsey Graham's cell phone number and then they made up again. I don't think it constitutes a huge big. You say row. I say row. Is that what we're talking about? Okay. Okay. Row row row. All right. Potato. Potato. Yep. I mean, it's possible that he needed some kind of differentiation. I'm not going to give out your cell phone number, by the way. It's a weird issue to pick as your source of your row and nobody cares about that. But it's dirty to do that, though, right? Yeah. You have out the cell phone number. Yeah. I mean, it's now Tom Cotton has to go and change his phone. It's a pain in the neck for him. Okay. Or did he actually give out his cell phone number? Well, you think it was a, I haven't tried calling it. Have you tried calling it? I don't know. We should try calling it. Yes. We need a telephone. We should try calling it and seeing if Senna got not. He might answer us. Come on the program. It goodbye. Crane is definitely not coming on the program. But go ahead. So this tour, I mean, I think it's worth focusing on the tour that he's doing a little bit at the moment. These trips that he's doing to Oklahoma to Texas. He's going to go back to Texas now to Nebraska. JD Vance is going to night to Alaska because there is a surprisingly tight Senate race up in Alaska. So he's going to go into a 10 p.m. rally up in Alaska. But one of the things that the reporting shows, first of all, interesting that there are not television cameras from some of these events because still CNN is not allowed on the pool. And so they're not actually broadcasting these events live because there isn't pool footage of them because no one else wants to do the pool footage or gave the 14 day stay the president. They canceled CNN. CNN was meant to go on Thursday on the pool to one of the rallies and they canceled it. And so no one else would pick that up. But what the reporters who are in the room is saying is that the numbers are much smaller than they were in 2015. I mean, you did a ton of those rallies. I went to a lot of those rallies in the first election period in exactly same cities where Trump was having stadiums filled with 30,000 people. He is now in venues of 10,000 people and there are empty decks up in the top rows. So I think this feels to me, this tour of his feels more like a farewell tour about Donald Trump than it does about these midterm elections. It was interesting that Karl Rovo the weekend, the legendary Republican guru came out and said, Trump is effectively said Trump is unfocused and distracted. He needs to stop talking about arches. He needs to stop talking about the Kennedy Center in the ballroom and they need to get really focused. This is going to, I know you've got another Republican strategist saying this is a blood bath. I reached out to somebody this morning who's a GOP pollster who said to me, here's the problem for Trump. Go out there as much as he wants, but the way he talks about the economy, it's like he shoots himself in one foot to stop you looking at the other foot. He cannot bring himself to talk about the fact that people are hurting because that would reflect badly on him and that is making him look disconnected and this guy said to me, this is devastating for other GOP candidates at the moment because he is belittling the problems of people. Right. So opposed to affordability crisis. That's still a hoax, but more than that, he just looks like he is out of touch with where people are. And the great thing about Trump, right? In 2016, his whole thing was that he understood what people were going through. Now he's He doesn't understand. He's not listening. He is isolated. We know that he's surrounded himself in the White House with yes men and loyalists. So he's not getting the real picture. And that is coming through in these rallies on these campaign stops. I think there's an argument that these rallies actually are going to hurt the Republicans. Well, John Kennedy, the senator from Louisiana, used the A-hole word this past week described Donald Trump. Tom Tillis has said that was about giving out Senator Cotton's number, by the way, he said he can go from zero to A-hole in just a few seconds. In a few seconds. Yeah. Okay. And then he had Tom Tillis say, "I don't think it's helpful for him to be campaigning in the state of North Carolina." And those are two guys that have been with Trump. I mean, obviously, Tillis famously voted for Hexeth if they're suggesting that he wasn't. He's now admitting that the Hexeth and the Cash Betel votes for their nomination approval were the dumbest things that he's done so far. How do you think history is going to judge Tom Tillis positively or negatively? No, negatively. Don't you think? I mean, I think he took this vote to nominate Pete Hexeth, having all but said he would never do that in Hexeth was a terrible candidate. I think Tom Tillis will be held up as the example of, you know, a good guy who turned out to be spineless in the face of the Magarons Lord. So what do you think he'll be judged? Well, I know that you have a soft spot for my legum as a person. I don't think it'll be judged well on this. I think this is in the Jacob Weisberg profiles and cowardice. He needed to put his foot down. By the way, he was getting torched and scorched by Trump anyway. And he said he's not going to run for re-election for that reason. And he probably should have won more fall-throated. But the reason I'm bringing this up is that there's a threshold question about breaking from Donald Trump. There's 29 days to go before the election. Do you break from Donald Trump? Do you scrub him from the website? Which some people are doing. Right. What do you do? I think you try to encourage him not to come to your district. And actually, the other thing that I think is not working that this Republican strategy has pointed out to me is you don't fall for the trap of just focusing on culture issues. And saying we are running against a bunch of communists, Kamala Harris is not on the ballot this time around. You can't seek refuge in these Democrats are crazy. They're all going to have transgender sports for everybody. Because I don't think that's resonating this time around. People are not voting on culture wars, they're voting on prices. Republicans need to not fall into that trap that in a way Trump reverts to at every stop on the campaign trail. But I don't know about you, it sounds hollow this time around. Yeah. And you said something last night that there's going to be at least 30, possibly 32 rallies by the president over the next 30 days, which is a tribute to his physical stamina, by the way, because he's 80 years old. He's actually going to be able to pull that off. But if you're an advisor to one of these candidates, you do not want him in the district. So then, what are they all telling him? Are they lying to him? Is anybody going to the president saying, hey, even in the red states, your approval numbers are in the 40s, which is staggering. And your overall approval is in the low to mid 30s. Your economic approval is at 27. And by the way, 87% of the people think you're corrupt. So they're telling them that? I doubt they're telling him that. I don't know. There's two things I want to put to you that happened over the course of the weekend. One was that Trump went out and said, I have a PR problem. The other thing he did was he made a little video that he released saying, vote anyway you can. Vote early, vote by mail. This is the guy who has just tried to force the post office, not to allow voting by mail and has railed against voting by mail. Those two things made me think, he knows this is not going great. He has got some of that message. He is seeing those polls. He went out and he said the polls are fake. He says, I am the best person to do this. I am the person who knows better about everything than anybody anywhere in the world. So he's acting tough and acting braggadocious. But he's also saying things like, why would he now put out a video less than a month before the election, encouraging people to vote by mail when he has spent the last year and half trying to attack because his people have told him that, hey, Republicans roll by mail as much as Democrats. And if you don't get that message out there, we're going to lose the election. And they've told him things aren't going that well. Right. I guess I'm getting at something broader and I'm just going to stipulate it and get your reaction to it. He is in his own echo chamber. Yes. They are not telling him the stuff. He's not, if he reads it in the New York Times or he reads it in the Washington Post, which he does and just to point out the people, he sits there in his study with his orange framed bifocals and he reads every one of these papers, the broad sheet of the paper. If it's in the New York Times or the Washington Post, he doesn't believe it. He mumbles to himself fake news. And so he's looking at things through this sort of prism, you know, where it looks rosier and better to him than it actually is. And so I'm asking this very big broad question, well, that crack between now and the election. And if it doesn't crack between now and the election, how much damage is it going to do to these candidates? Because you see, if it does crack, then I'll tell you what I'm worried about. I'm worried about him trying to figure out a way to engage the military, even though Kena said he wouldn't do it, figure out a way to engage ICE, engage police officers that are friendly, which he would like to do. Yeah. We know that he would like to do that, but I'm wondering if he's in this bubble where he actually thinks he's going to win, like Mike Goodwin put out a, or does he not care? I mean, going back to something you and I have said on the program in the past, does he not care? It could be, but it could be a combination of he doesn't care and he's being sheltered from the information, like the articles that he likes, like Mike Goodwin put out something in the New York post over the weekend saying this polling is totally misunderstood and there's a way where the president's going to end up maintaining his-- Yes. And his-- I have seen some people suggesting that particularly in some of these red states where Democrats are doing better than might be expected, Alaska, Ohio, Kansas, Iowa, actually, there could be an over-sampling of Kamala Harris voters. People who voted for Kamala Harris in those states, and we may not be getting the right picture in some of those. And that's just a few-- And that's just a few red states. And I think that's the kind of stuff he likes. Yeah. And that's just a few, believe it. But he was out in Ohio, I mean, this gets back to your point. He was out in Ohio doing a rally there for the Senate candidate. And there was a moment, according to the reporters who were in the room where he and data centers have turned out to be a huge issue in Ohio because people think that they are driving up their energy costs, their electricity costs in their homes. So there is a point in their room where Trump says, yes, and we want to bring down energy costs, but we love data centers. We want them. And apparently, according to the reporters in the room, the whole place went quiet. So he is going into these races and not staying on message for the candidates who are already in tight races in somewhere like Ohio. I mean, you could have Joe Brown, who is a popular candidate, who could win Ohio, the Democratic candidate. And Trump comes in and it's like he deliberately says things that don't help them because he has put himself in the position, whether it's because of deals or whatever, that he likes data centers. A little digression. You have to bear with me. So I'm with him. It's early May 2016 and we're showing him Hispanic voters and how they feel about him. And I say to him in a PowerPoint presentation, you got to you got to up the ante with the Hispanic voters. He says, okay, I hear you. And then he orders himself a taco ball from the Trump grill. Do you remember this? I do remember. And he then puts that on Cinco de Mayo. I love the Trump Taco Bell. And I love Hispanic. So he was marketing his own like Taco ball from the Trump grill over the weekend. He's addressing a group of his family. Is that exactly what you had been planning for him to you thinking this was exactly this strategy? As a chemical director. Let's make it authentic really, by the way, I wasn't comms registered at that time. I was just a fundraiser, but it actually weirdly worked because he had much better than expected numbers with the Hispanics. And he then he had much better than expected numbers in 2024 with Hispanics, but he's dropping with Hispanics right now dramatically. And so now he's at a Hispanic heritage month event that he's honoring people and he's inviting attendees to look at the construction and he flippantly says about somebody falling over the edge. Go ahead. What does he say? Only a Hispanic could survive that fall over the edge. So late night television just loved that one. So he's talking about taco balls and he's talking about, I guess, Hispanics, I guess is stereotypically they have more physical affordability. That's what all the late night shows were saying is this is this a thing that Hispanics are meant to survive falls at a higher rate than other people or is he just invented some kind of new stereotype because actually he's so racist that he just comes up with stereotypes about people that don't even exist. Okay. Okay. But I guess the reason I'm bringing it out. Is it hurting just know what the fuck okay, but is it hurting them? Or is it helping them? No idea No, I can't figure it out either okay, but I actually think weirdly I think it weirdly helps. It's weirdly helping I don't think it's okay. Here's why I think it's why it doesn't help because I actually think because Go ahead tell me why they've heard the funny quips before I think it's got old That's okay in 2016 this was new. It was the trump taco bowl Well, that's kind of wacky, but you know, it's original It's kind of a laugh now You're paying seven dollars for diesel your house prices have gone up your food bill is up your Healthcare bills are friends your friends have been thrown out of the country thrown into prison or thrown out of the country Your kids are coming back from school saying please or by the way, please could we have the phone number of somebody else? You could come and pick up your kids in case you get thrown out of the country yourself I don't think trump standing there and making a quip about oh while Hispanics could survive a fall into a pit Is actually going to help him very much. He's got to address those other issues This is I think the other thing that's super interesting about the polling that has come out over the weekend And I think this is why Trump is going to these place and was why they're wheeling him now They just they need something to help them if you look at the Democrats and you've had another crop of polls showing Democrats doing well in some of these Red states in places like Iowa and Ohio and Texas and Alaska It's actually because There's been so much attention on these you know, socialist aligned candidates like Mamdani and the people Mamdani championed and L side up in Michigan, but in all of those states actually the democratic machine managed to nominate Normal centrist moderate candidates You've got in Kansas. You've got this guy who is the pastor of the biggest Methodist united congregation in the country. He is perfect for a Kansas electorate and so it's hard to run against them and and it's also the case Yeah, Trump is unpopular, but the Democrats have done a really good job this cycle and they you know That's Chuck Schumer. We rail against Chuck Schumer and he's old and he's out of touch But actually in the states where he prevailed unlike in Maine unlike in Michigan where they got more wacky candidates in those states He's produced the right candidates for the right states and they're doing a good job So help me out because I may have an analytical block and I may need your help on this because I Embarrassed myself alongside of Alistair and Rory on election night I said that Harris was gonna win. I was looking at the data Never leave Harris is gonna win and Trump resoundingly won. I'm now looking at the data It looks like Trump is gonna resoundingly lose It looks like you're gonna lose the house and the Senate But I'm reluctant to call it that way of course because we've all been scarred right, which is which is normal And I think we should always bear 2024 and 2016 in mind. Okay, I understand that the polls don't show us the whole picture. They aren't perfect and yes We're seeing so is there a reverse Bradley effect? Okay, and so let me just explain that the viewers and listeners so Thomas Bradley the first African American mayor of A urban city the city of Los Angeles was up for reelection and people called and said we re we you can Reconsider voting for Thomas Bradley and he was up nine points in the polls and then when it actually happened He lost the election and when they did the exit polling people admitted Well, I didn't want to be perceived as being racist by telling the pollster that I wasn't gonna vote for him Like the hidden Trump effect. Right, so I so I think he has a reverse Bradley effect doesn't he? You think he has the hidden Reverse yeah, reverse There are hidden Trump voters out there who don't want to admit. I think that was true in 2016 It was true to some I don't think it's true anymore I think if the Democrats lose in those states It will be because they are in an uphill battle in states that are solidly red states Which means they're not solidly Trump states at the moment necessarily. They are solidly conservative states 2029 days to go his numbers are worse than anybody in modern history So therefore you think he's gonna lose the house in the Senate I don't love making these kind of predictions because they're sort of meaningless Because we you have to look at every single state You'll have to see who turns out on the night. How good the Democratic machinery is how good the Republican machinery is Where are gas prices on polling day the people make up their minds at the last minute to people actually bother to come and turn out These are midterm elections not presidential So there's a whole load of factors we can't tell you today So I'm I'm more circumspect about that, but I would say I'm looking at the numbers plus six in Texas plus seven in Alaska Plus three another very good Democratic candidate by the way Plus three in Ohio tied in Kansas Republicans were just a one-point lead Noah in Iowa. I think they're looking at enough seats where they could if things Are accurate in these polls. They could flip the Senate. No, I'm I remember you know he could Figure out a way to bridge the impasse with the Iranians and get a gas price Shocked to the downside. It has to happen soon. Right, but you could go from 645 to 5 bucks pretty quickly But he could also cut a deal of more corny. Yep, which would help those bordering Senate's races Although everyone up in the border stays out of us the Canadians will not accept a deal in which they have to make compromises With the Americans they are pretty clear that that was very clear. Okay There is somewhere however where the right is doing very well and that is Latin America and we're gonna come back and talk about that From now the ten of that flight The great gay Strategic struggle between Britain and Russia We assess a premissed up With high confidence it was Russian Holding the Russians accountable is world war. They took down a British passenger jerk contained 350 people Man in the Kremlin is playing Alex got to ask yourself you want to play or not you're the prime minister We would need to understand the policy context all the relevant context will be structured as a framework today disseminated into an operation order or Frago And a Frago that says to kill the president of Russia. Yes New from Goldhanger who is going to be able to pull this off An audio drama journey like no other men like Duffy. They are our most valuable weapons Devised as a technically rigorous geopolitical action forever We're Britain plays its strongest on he's the best against its strongest foe Bear hunt Available now wherever you get your podcasts Welcome back to the rest is politics US. We're actually gonna go down to South America at the moment because Donald Trump is claiming and need a big victory in South America He says we're doing very well and I have got a lot of people elected down there and what he is referring to in particular is the situation in Brazil Where right-wing candidate Flavio Bolsonaro who is the son of Jair Bolsonaro the former president who's actually sitting in jail at the moment Has won the first round of Brazil's presidential election. He defied the polling. We've just talked about polling We should perhaps be looking at Brazil because the polling suggested that The sitting left-wing president Lula da Silva was going to win fairly comfortably Flavio has shocked everybody by having a very good first round the expectation now is that he goes to a second round He wins that he becomes the next president He is campaigning on a platform of getting his dad out of jail His dad is serving a 20-70-year prison sentence for masterminding a failed coup after losing the 22 election Does this sound familiar by the way he did go so far as to actually you know why trouble supporting these guys? This is my kind of people I I feel you I feel you I understand you were on the same wavelength although Jair Bolsonaro There was a plot to try and kill Lula da Silva the plot didn't materialize But he took it one step further even then Donald So Lula Lula came out of jail to become the president again Bolsonaro is in jail if his son wins ill likely come out of jail Lula will probably go back into jail Okay, so this is sort of a bizarre thing, but why is this important to? People in the West and people in the northern hemisphere. Okay, so in the last 18 months. You've had seven right wing and far right wing candidates win leadership elections presidential elections Across Latin America Columbia, Brazil, Argentina. Obviously Peru Chile you've got a kind of slew of right wing candidates who are doing very well and Donald Trump Who is very focused on the Western hemisphere wanted to make the Western hemisphere more mega-friendly? Right has actually succeeded in doing that now whether he is responsible for that he has tried to insert himself in those and elections in the election in Colombia, he called the left wing, the previous left wing president and illegal drug runner. He sanctioned him personally. He imposed a series of sanctions on Brazil during the course of this election campaign to try and influence the election campaign to try and keep Lula De Silva. He announced in July of 2025. He announced a 50% tariff on Brazilian goods, citing the persecution of giant Bolsonaro over that failed coup in July of this year. He imposed another 25% tariff on another range of Brazilian goods. So he has tried to impact the election. I've been in touch with economists down there who've said to me, this is not Trump's doing. Trump will try him, he didn't try to claim credit. He said, we're doing very well. I've got lots of people elected down there. It's like victory, victory has a thousand five. I have those ones and defeat is in order. I like this. And I'm going to say that it was mine. This guy down there, this economist down there, this international economist down there said, it's not to do a Trump. This is cyclical. You had a whole load of left wing governments. You've had a spike in drug related gang related crime. Security is the overriding issue for people in those countries. It's really got itself into communities. The insecurity and people are rejecting the incumbents because they don't feel safe. The incumbent's happened to have been left wing. Now we're heading into a right wing cycle. We'll probably head back into another left wing cycle. All of that is true, but I think it's important because you have lapen. You have the party in Germany and you have lots of different right leaning movements that are taking place around the world. And if you think about the news cycle, when you get right wing victories in certain places, it sends almost like a earthquake. It sounds like a shock wave through the democracies. Am I wrong in thinking that? No, I think we are in this populist moment. I mean, what Bolsonaro did was staggering in terms of trying to overturn an election. It made Trump look like I understand it. So this is again, this is the reason why Trump loves this. It's a replay of Trump. Yes. And it's even called the orange wave. That's what it's being called around Latin America. This trumpification of Latin America. But I just don't think it is. It's something in my life. It's something in my life is ever called the orange wave. You'll retire. You'll call better. You'll call better. You'll call better help me get me my premium better help account. But this is just hear me out for a second. This is the stuff that I'm worried about. It creates movements. You know, the fascist movement in Italy made it easier for the fascist movement in Germany to exist. And by the way, Hitler looked up to Mussolini in the beginning. I mean, I think Trump is a personification of this movement in both Germany, France, let's see what happens in France, but possibly France, Latin America. I don't want to end the win. Of course, but I don't think it is because of Trump. This is happening. It is because existing incumbent governments have failed to alleviate people's stress in their countries. Yeah, but maybe they are looking at Trump and think, okay, well, America tried Trump. They tried the Democrats. They tried the Republicans. And then they rolled the dice. But I think you could also make the argument that those countries may now be looking at Trump and saying, well, hold on a second. They tried Trump and it didn't work out so well. I'm saying something a little bit different. They just hear me out for a second. But I'm saying is knowing Trump as well as I know him and knowing his political instincts, he wants to knock over all of these dominoes before he leaves because it would be pursuant to him smashing into everything that the West has stood for. All of the prior protocols would get wiped out. Like if he can leave office with a right wing populist wave in the southern hemisphere and in Europe, he'll feel very smug about that. He'll feel like all of the people, Katty, that never took him seriously. All the people that have created the divot, the chip in his shoulder, they would have had their come up and says a result of him and these movements. And you're right. I'm not saying he's caused the movement. But he will enjoy it. And that's why I've been told this by somebody who's spent time with him recently. He is planning to spend the next two years of his presidency focused on the Western hemisphere. It starts out by him focusing on the Western hemisphere and wanting to change the governments. And then once those governments have changed, he wants to focus on the Western hemisphere because they're his pals. Now he's got his people. The people he's sympathico with, who are sympathico with him in power. So it's a cyclical thing for him. And I think that's why we're going to see him spending more time on those countries and more attention on those countries. You think he's doing anything in country? So you suggesting is he doing something covert as opposed to something overt? We know he's been doing things that are overt. Yeah. In terms of tariffs and sanctions, we know he did a big covert operation in Venezuela to remove Nicholas Maduro. Was he doing covert things in Colombia? Was he doing covert things in Brazil to feed misinformation into the system? So to me, I don't know. It's not going to say that it's happening. But to me, you'd have to at least expand your mind to thinking that there is a probability that also could be happening. There's one other way in which this also I think comes back to the states. When you look at who the Bolsonaro family and who won had good nights over the weekend in Brazil, it wasn't just Flavio Bolsonaro. It was his stepmother and two of his brothers who got elected to offices in the Senate and the House in the lower chamber. That feels to me again like the kind of trumpification. Or maybe it's the inverse. America has become like Latin America, where you have this feudal system of families having access to power. You saw it in Argentina, of course, for years with the Perons. You're seeing it in Brazil at the moment. And the anomaly is that we are now seeing that in the United States. I remember having a conversation with Bob Rubin, who was Treasury Secretary for Bill Clinton. I know as a friend of yours, Anthony, who said to me, we shouldn't all be focusing on Hungary. We should be focusing on Latin America. If this was before the election in 2024. And he said, if Trump gets elected, watched to see his family and his cronies and his posse benefit from this. And it's the Latin American model. The lessons that Trump is taking may not be the right lessons, but something is happening in Latin America and America. They're learning from each other. In style and in policy. Listen, I'm, I'm worried a number of different fronts, but I'm worried about the sort of ripple effect of what's going on in Latin America and other parts of the world. He's going to sell a lot of arms into Latin America. Let me just put it to that way. It's not just going to be arm sales to Europe or arm sales to the Middle East. He's going to end up arming these people over the two years. And that will have its own, in my opinion, negative consequence for the region. So, so he is a destabilizing again. We've took all of this for granted in the Western hemisphere, but you generally had a benevolent US that was using USAID and other soft power mechanisms to help keep the peace since South America and to sort of prosecute this Monroe doctrine. And now you have a president that wants to foment upheaval and will probably be selling arms to these people, which will create more potential short-term and long-term destabilization. I want to put a counter argument to you. I have one question for you. We know that China had been moving into, first into Africa, obviously, but more recently into Latin America, quite aggressively, particularly with building deals and infrastructure deals and commodity deals, money for infrastructure like airports, all that stuff. All of that ports all around the Caribbean, that kind of stuff. If we now have a crop of leaders in Latin America who are more sympathetic to Donald Trump, could we see those countries doing deals with American conglomerates as opposed to with the Chinese government? Would that actually end up being a good thing for American foreign policy? That would be a good thing. So that's the other side of the coin, right? So that would be Venezuela. We're getting some oil from Venezuela. We have a better relationship there. Ex-pats are able to return. There's going to be more freedom and potentially more capitalism in Venezuela. And could that be the turn that happens in South America? So that could be a positive thing. But I think the problem with all this, and I think I told you this, you know, last time I was reading a book called 1956, which addresses the Suez crisis. And the problem with all this, you got to be very, very careful when you have an empire where your America and have a super power that you're overly projecting your power outside of your financial or frankly your military capability. And that's what happened to the United Kingdom in 1956. And there's a lot of parallels to today in terms of what's going on with the US. It's the don row doctrine, Anthony. Yeah. The man who knows everything about. I'm still I'm still upset that I was in the airport yesterday. And it said, you know, it's a DJT, the Donald J Trump. That was the destination. Of course, that's what the West Palm Beach Airport now. So I'm probably going to have to fly to Miami. when we were on the shores of Lake America? - Yeah, exactly. On the shores of Lake America, flying back and forth to the DJT, I mean, that's cool. - And while we're prosecuting the down road doctrine, about to build our arc to Trump. I mean, it is hard to take, okay? You have to, you know, it's put a lot of stress on people. You know, I mean, you know, before we go, it's put a lot of stress on people. You know, before we go, I mean. - Guys, we're feeling a little stressed. - How much? - It's a lot at the moment. It's a lot. - How much fun and how communal was it with all those Toronto, you know? I mean, they're all like looking at us. - We like them a lot. - Obviously, you're not bad people. We're not bad people, but we do have bad people that are trying to separate good people at it. - It's a lot. - It's a lot of stress. - We're gonna leave it there, guys. Thank you very much for listening. We'll be back later this week. And of course, you can listen to our members only episode. We're gonna talk about the death penalty often awful gruesome, botched lethal injection down in Tennessee. So we'll be talking about that too. Okay. - Thanks, guys. - Have a great week. (upbeat music)