587. Will a Weakened Trump Make the World More Dangerous?

In the US midterms, we've seen one of the most dramatic reversals in American politics since the 1970s. And with the defeat of Trump's Republicans, many people are beginning to hope that we've gone back to the pre-Trump world, maybe visions of liberal democracy, of free trade, of a rules-based international order. But the question we're going to be asking today is, how much has really changed? Who are these new Democrats? Is it true, as I suspect, that they may be far more isolationist than American politicians of the past? What difference will this really make to the world? And above all, what's Trump going to do next? Is it possible that rather than becoming safer, he's going to become more dangerous? What will that mean for Cuba, Iran, Taiwan, and the rest of us? This episode is powered by Fuse Energy. Most energy companies are counting on you doing absolutely nothing, not questioning what you're paying, not sweating. Quick change is 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 We seem to all be accepting energy's expensive, the system's outdated, but that complacency is costing us.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. 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 fuseenergy.com slash politics. Use the code politics and you'll get a free Trip Plus subscription, allowing you to hear all the extraordinary members content that Alistair and I are now producing for you. Visit fuseenergy.com for full terms and conditions. Hi, this is Gary Lineker from Goal Hangers. 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So, Rory, we're going to talk about America and the midterms, your final impressions of your very interesting visit and the fallout from those results, which were pretty catastrophic for Trump, that you wouldn't know from the way he's behaving. And then we're going to talk about, in the second half, about New Zealand and Israel, two very important elections under very different proportional representation systems, neither of which have been in effect. They've managed to give us a clear outcome. And we may touch in the first part, too, on Mr. Jensen Wang and his private life. Let's start with America, though. So, we've had a sort of week for things to settle down a little bit since we last did our podcast. Day to day, what's changed in your sense of the shape of it immediately after when we recorded on the morning compared to where you are now? I think day one, a sense that Trump was going to be a little bit more accommodating and a little bit more serious and grown up. And by day two, that had all gone. Alison Cooper makes a joke that he's going through the stages of anger and grief in reverse. You know, most people sort of finish with acceptance. He started with acceptance and is now going the other way. That is a very, very good way of putting it. I mean, I think appointing Stephen Miller as chief of staff was a sign that he is not accepting any of the criticism. Quick explainer on this, just again, for British listeners not concentrating minute by minute. Stephen Miller was the deputy chief. Suzy Wiles, this rather kind of reassuring in some ways, quite quiet woman, was the chief of staff. Miller has really been a radical, very right-wing activist since he was very young, kind of young student activist. Got in trouble years ago with getting very, very close to white nationalist publications and some pretty extraordinary emails backing Calvin Coolidge's immigration policy, which is a very, very good example of what's happening in the United States. And he's the guy that gave the interviews that we talked about about a year ago now on the back of Greenland, where he was, you know, his wife was saying Greenland's part of the U.S. And then he was saying, we live in a world of power. We live in a world of violence. And really interesting as the chief of staff choice, because I think as we've said before, one of the interesting things about people like Miller and Hegseth and bits of Vance and Trump and certainly Musk is they believe the natural state. State of the world is war and violence. And as they make the world more violent and dangerous, they think that's how it should be. And that peace is an illusion. Stephen Miller's fantasy seems to be an idea of a kind of countries as Sparta in a natural state of war. He clearly seems to see, I think, Netanyahu's Israel maybe as an example of a state that is absolutely set up for war, fighting on seven fronts. And it is that sense that he is almost encouraging. The creation of these armed nationalist groups, you know, rearming Europe, handing over Germany, the FD, etc. Because this is all part of the general narrative of the natural state of war. And yet one of the reasons, I'd say the big reason why the elections went so badly for Trump and the Republican Party is Iran and the domestic impact of an international adventure and the effect on oil prices. And yet once he'd done the accommodation, they'd flipped. I don't know if you saw. Trump was doing some sort of talking thing somewhere and Stephen Miller was there. And he said to him, I'd like Stephen Miller to come up and say a few words. And you've really got to see it because it just underlines the madness of the whole thing. So they've just had this election where they've been pretty well routed. Okay. And Trump has been fundamentally weakened. And Miller spoke almost as though it was a win. And he said things like, without this man, without President Donald Trump, there wouldn't be a world war. There would be no United States of America. This man has saved the United States of America. And we are stronger than we have ever been. And he said the Republican Party is strong. And you just think this is a kind of level of denialism. But actually, it reminded me of the election denialism. Now, this time, Trump did. We said on the podcast we did on the morning of the results, he did surprisingly accept the outcome. But in terms of accepting the politics of the outcome and what the outcome ought to mean. In a normal democracy, I don't think he's accepting it at all. No. And just on that, to develop it, I've been attacked by a lot of friends who are more right-leaning for our coverage of this from the states. Yeah. And it was quite interesting what they want to read this election as being because they want to say. And this was sort of something that I heard from certain sort of instinctively conservative voters on the American trip. So they want to say. Look, we don't like everything Trump's done. You know, we don't approve of the excesses of ice. We think the Iran war maybe was a mistake. But, and then they say, we needed to be saved from the far left of the Democratic Party. That these people were, I was trying to get some of the quotes right. They were trying to start class and racial war. They were upending our constitution. They were presenting our history. There's racist and capitalist. And so they keep talking about centrism. And when they talk about centrism, what they're really talking about is trying to return to a kind of moderate republicanism allied to your Stephen Miller saving America thing. And I guess one of the fights with the Republican Party as they go into the election may be exactly around that. How much are they going to keep leaning into the Democratic Party's too woke? There are these. dangerous democratic socialists, and how little, certainly that factor, this kind of more right-wing faction, is taking on cost of living. They really still want to make it culture war. I mean, the problem is that both of the parties, I keep saying the main parties, the only parties effectively, both of the parties have these really quite fundamental, more than factions in a way, they're almost like parties within a party. So if you look at the way that the various reactions across the Republican family, there are some who, and Miller would be an absolute example of this, and I don't think he's just doing it because it's his new job. I think he's doing it because he really believes it. Who is absolutely out there as far as you want to go. I would argue Christian nationalist verging on white supremacist. There was a wonderful joke. Somebody said that the reason he's bald is he used to have black hair and he doesn't like having anything black near him. So he's right out there. Then you have the kind of the Steve Bannon's and the Tucker Carlson's who's kind of linked to that, who think that Trump is basically sold out. Trump is not truly MAGA. Because he's not gone far enough, which to you and me sounds ridiculous. But to them, you know, the war alone, given they won on no forever wars, given they haven't delivered on the cost of living and they think haven't pushed hard enough on immigration enforcement. So that's a more extreme America first. I mean, fundamentally for Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon, they're big, big isolationists. Yeah. So I think for them, they like the culture war stuff. They like the anti-immigration stuff. I mean, one of the, you know, Tucker Carlson's become a sort of strange sort of meme for, not meme, but a kind of somebody who appears on. You're the only meme around here. Exactly. Progressive people liking him because he's critical of Trump and he's critical of Israel. But if you saw that interview with Jacob Rees-Mogg in which he attempted to say, why did Britain fight Hitler? Yeah. You get a pretty good clue on what kind of world Tucker Carlson's got. I mean, that's a very dark world. If you need Jacob Rees-Mogg to explain to you why Hitler's a bad thing. When Jacob Rees-Mogg in any debate is coming over as the reasonable, well-informed, intelligent, historically conscious person, then you've got to worry about Tucker Carlson. So number one, that one, Hitler. Number two, you know, Russia's got a much bigger economy. I mean, it's a really weird world that he comes from. So yes, back to you, sorry. Then you've got the kind of Mitt Romney, Mike Pence, who again, back in the Trump first term, the fact that Mike Pence supported all that Trump did, you and I would probably, I thought this guy's off the scale. And yet he now comes over as being reasonable, moderate, wants the Republican Party to go back to something closer to what it was. And they are going to have to have a big argument. And I think what's so interesting about where it goes is that although Trump's name, whether we like it or not, is defined in history forever, because he's such a consequential political figure. But I do think this is why it's called lame duck. As he moves towards the end, I think we'll see more and more of him railing to people. I think he's a powerful railing to be important. But actually, the Republican Party is inevitably going to have to look at look beyond. And that leaves, I think that leaves Vance. I said this straight away, I think Vance is toast. I'm not convinced Rubio has really has a route back. But then you look around, you think, well, who else? Who is actually going to emerge to take over? So this is my question for you, because my guess is forget about Romney. I think he's now seen as far too left wing for anyone to be interested. And the idea that Romney's left wing is just, ugh. I think Pence, I don't think probably has much appeal. I mean, there will be some people out there, you know, Richard Fontaine, my friend who's, you know, trying to say we need to get back to being friendly to Canada, reasserting NATO. But he's a guy who was one of John McCain's foreign affairs advice. I think that strand of the Republican Party, my sense is, is marginalised. I think what you might have is people like your friend Mike Pompeo, who retain a very, very nasty. My friend, Mike Pompeo. He's got a very nasty edge to him, doesn't he? I mean, he's got, you know, that, you know, you're being oversensitive, pretty brutal about Europe, brutal about allies. Ted Cruz, maybe? Vivek Ramaswamy is presumably finished having failed to come in as governor of Ohio. I would hope so. I mean, his campaign was one of the worst, wasn't it? So look, it's going to be fascinating to see how this pans out. But I'll tell you the other thing that, you know, I think whether it was day two or day three, the interview that Trump did with 60 Minutes, whether that was anger or, well, it was a sort of weird mix of all of them. Very good, wasn't it? Yeah, it was good-ish. I mean, I think, I still think the American media treats Trump with such kid gloves. I thought he pushed him reasonably hard on the corruption stuff, and Trump just lied. There's a very long thread explaining why Trump's answer. He basically said, "I've got wealth here because I've got stocks." And this guy's done a sort of analysis of where the money's come from. And it's not stocks. It's blatant out-and-out corruption. But the other thing I thought was interesting about the interview, for somebody, as you know, the one thing I will always give Trump is a sense of energy and dynamism. And he just didn't have it. I thought he was really lacking in energy. I thought his eyes looked weird. I thought he, and he was back in that mode of very defensive, very I'm right, not liking the questioning too much. But so I don't know how he's going to play out. Because the one thing he, look, let's go back to what Michael Wolff said. His ambitions will always be to the most powerful person in the world, the most famous person in the world. And the richest person in the world. Well, his power is diminishing. And that's a difficult thing. His wealth, he probably will carry on, but he's now got, this is the other big change from the election results. You now have a Congress that can go after that stuff and they are going to do that. I've been surprised how many of these senior Democrats are saying that's what they're going to do. And the implication of that is that he won't get more money. Because if you were somebody from the Gulf who thought it was a nice idea to give Trump a lot of money because it might help him. It might help you. You're now going to think, whoa, whoa, whoa, if I do that, I'm going to find myself testifying in Congress. So many, many people who in the past would have funneled money into his family companies thinking they'd get favors now are thinking, I don't really want to do that because I don't want to be dragged, have my name dragged through Congress. So I think he'll find a lot of the investments in his funds begin to fall away. And I guess your point about Trump's psychology brings us back to something that you and I have been discussing in live events recently, which is. What's he going to do now? What's he going to do now in foreign policy, particularly, right? What's he going to do on Iran? What's he going to do on China, Taiwan? What's he going to do in Cuba? And what's he going to do with Greenland? And what's he going to do with the rest of the world? And and comes back that I was with a prime minister from a Gulf state three days ago who knows him very, very, very well. And he said to me when I asked the question. We don't know. Nobody knows. And that's such an important bit of wisdom because it's so tempting to think, you know, we talk to Mooch or we talk to Michael Wolff, people who do know him well. And they will say, oh, the thing to know about Trump is X, Y or Z. And on the basis that you can predict, we really don't know, do we? And is it going to be the taco Trump? Is it going to be the bomb them back to the Stone Age Trump? Is it going to be the make money Trump? Is it going to be the sphere of influence Trump? Is it going to be the America first isolationist Trump? And something you've pointed out, which is often after midterms, when presidents lose control of Congress, they're much more driven to do foreign affairs stuff. So actually, the world may end up in a more dangerous stage, which is why watch Cuba, watch Greenland, watch Taiwan more over the next two years than we have for the last two. If you do an analysis of all the travel of presidents through the years, they do tend to travel more in the second half of the second term, partly for a sort of farewell laugh. But I don't think he thinks in those terms in the way that other presidents might have done, where they tour the world to say goodbye. But I think it's because he won't enjoy the domestic politics because he doesn't have the power that he had. There will be congresspeople going after him on the corruption front and some of the policy failures as well. So I agree with you. I think he'll be much, much more dangerous and other world leaders are going to have to do whatever they can to keep tabs on everything he says and does because he's going to be very, very unpredictable. Listen, you were there for quite a while. You and Bella, our producer, between you wrote a really interesting newsletter about what you'd seen there. And it was like, it is so interesting how sometimes just being somewhere you can get a much, much better feel. And that sounds obvious, but it's, you know, given that we talk about different parts of the world that we've not been to for years, but we talk about them as though we know what we're talking about. But it's always better when you're there. If I were to say what one or two reflections do you now have having been there for the elections that maybe I didn't have by staying here? I think you would have guessed a lot of it because I think a lot of it is things that if I said to you, you'd say that makes sense. I mean, one of them is foreign policy barely mattered. I mean, Iran mattered only insofar as it affected people's gas bills. Ukraine? But Ukraine barely mattered. And in fact, the polling now suggests that foreign policy mattered for 4% of people compared to, I think, 39% focused on the economy. So I guess that wouldn't have surprised you because that probably would be true in a British election. The only problem is, if you're looking at the largest, most powerful country in the world that is literally screwing up everybody else's security economy, it's terrifying. There's no sense of people caring that that's their image around the world now, that they have a country that's screwing up other countries big time. They're barely aware of it. I mean, there was a lovely moment with this farmer, rest is history listener, 28 years old, very nice guy in Ohio. I went out with his dad on a combine, thousand acre farm, intelligent, thoughtful young man. And And when I said, listen, Greenland, NATO, Canada, he was like, oh, I didn't really know about that. I'm so sorry to hear that. So the general sense across middle America is it doesn't really matter. And Americans still basically feel, and he said this actually, that we were bailing out everybody else, that we were paying for everyone else. I think it's a very isolationist country. I think America First, that would be my first conclusion, America First will stay, even if the Democrats come in. Very few of the Democrats were really talking about the rules-based international order or any of this kind of stuff. That's the first thing I think that was surprising. Second thing I think that did surprise me, given how many of my friends thought that the last election was fought on woke. You remember you often talk about this. You know, she's for they, them, I'm for you, right? That featured surprisingly little. Now, after the election, again, you've got a lot of people from the right saying these bloody Democrats are too obsessed with trans, with climate, with Palestine. I wasn't hearing that. It was very much these buggers were supposed to sort out prices and they didn't. And my healthcare is too expensive. My housing is too expensive. And I'm living paycheck to paycheck. And he failed to deliver. So it was very transactional. I mean, it's interesting your view on this, because it was the most extreme example of it's the economy stupid that I've ever seen in my life. And presumably your experience in elections around the world is it's never quite as simple as that, right? Because what I was struck by, by what you were saying, and writing about the whole thing, was the kind of reactions that we have, regardless of our politics, just the sort of visceral reactions that we have to things that he says and does, don't seem to register. They do with people who are kind of committed activist Democrats. But with most people, including the kind of independents in the middle, it's almost like a given. So on the 60 Minutes interview, he said this thing, Zelensky doesn't show enough respect to Russia. Now, as the words came from his lips, I thought, what are you talking about? This is a guy whose country has been invaded. And you are now helping the invader. And I just, I was trying to think if a European politician said that, a European leader. Now, some European politicians do say that, Le Pen, Vidal, but it's a very hard right position. So that presumably doesn't even trouble the scorers, to use a cricket analogy. No, look, I talked to one of the religious leaders in the United States. I won't go into which state I was in, because he was talking to me off the record. But what struck me is that he said he's an idiot. He wasn't prepared to say that he was immoral. I didn't fully get far enough. This sense of an election, which was almost entirely, it seemed, about cost of living in the economy. What's your experience looking at British elections and other elections? I think your experience is they rarely are just about the economy. If someone said to you in Britain, it's just the economy, stupid, that's all that matters, what would you ask to make people think about other things? Well, I'd maybe go back to the 2005 election, where Charles Kennedy led the Lib Dems to a really strong performance. I mean, we won the election. And that was Tony Blair's third term, but with a significantly reduced majority. And I think that was largely because they'd campaigned very, very heavily on Iraq during the campaign. So yes, they did other things. But Iraq was a big, big part of that campaign. Look at how Europe, you can say, I would like to think Europe was part of our domestic policy agenda. But for a lot of people, that is foreign policy. And Europe has played a big part in a lot of elections down the years. I think that one of the problems, I think, with living in this sort of heavy polling culture, America's even more polling than we are, is this sense that people are always trying to find a definitive, a single definitive reason that has shifted things. You'll never find one. You'll find a whole group of different issues that push people in different directions. But I think what strategy does is get you as close as you can. Yeah. Because it got people as close as you could to that single definitive issue. And for that campaign back in Clinton's day, it was. But no, I think it's always much more complicated. What I've heard from what you've been saying about being there is that anything outside America has very little impact upon the way they're thinking about the campaign. Whereas I think here, we still have a little bit more, a sense of there's a world out there and we've got to be part of it. Here's another thing, though. I think that. It's very difficult to find a path back in America because although Trump is a very extreme figure, something's changed fundamentally in the assumptions about what democratic values are, what economic structure you have, what kind of international order you have. And I don't sense that we've got that anymore. I mean, if we'd been, if this election had happened, obviously, 20 years ago, everybody would take it for granted. That it was about liberal democracy. It was about free trade. It was about America helping to keep peace around the world. All that's been blown up. I think that people can't decide whether they want tariffs or not. A lot of people are blaming tariffs for rising prices, but that's very fundamental because that means that the Democrats don't really know whether their story is. Number one problem is China, China shock to keep the tariffs up, reindustrialize or whether their number one story is let's keep prices down for consumers. Open up free trade on the international rules based order. I think the Democrats don't really know. Are they America first? We don't want to pay for everything. Are they? We're going to prioritize China. Are they? We're going to resurrect the NATO Western alliance. So I think Trump has revealed something really fundamental, which lasts long after he goes, which is America doesn't. No, what it's political, economic and international philosophy is anymore. And I guess the Democrats presumably are honest enough to say, notwithstanding, they have some extraordinary, powerful candidates in some of these big races and fair play. They really went out and got good candidates, but they won largely because of Trump and because of rejection of the Republicans. You know, the Democrats are now two to five on to get the White House after the next election. Is this this in the polls? In betting. Betting's interesting. I don't know. You follow this much more than me, but. The New York Times claimed that actually the polls were more accurate than the betting this time. Interesting. Because the betting were underplaying. Yeah. And even the polls underplayed by about three points consistently across the board. What the betting often reflects, as well as predictive markers, is where the money's going. Who do you think is favorite to be president, next president at seven to two? Your friend Ossoff? It's Mr. Ossoff. Second is Vance, six to one. Oh, goodness. That's just conventional wisdom, I think. Right. I mean, he might end up as. So the idea is that he's most likely to be the Republican candidate, so you might as well put him second if the Republicans win. AOC is 13 to two. I would have thought AOC seems very weird. That seems like an unlikely presidential run, isn't it? You don't think you should do it? I think that would be very dangerous to run AOC as your candidate. I mean, that's. What about as a running mate to somebody more mainstream? Ossoff, AOC? Possibly. I mean, you know, maybe that I've become brainwashed by spending too much time in Middle America, but I would have thought Ossoff. Well, I was worried about that. I was worried about what a mesmerizing, wonderful public speaker Trump was. I didn't worry about that. The sort of thoughts that we explored as we were running into Kamala Harris is go for a governor in one of these main states. Go for, you know, the governor of Kentucky, Andy Beshear. Go for the governor of Illinois, maybe. Beshear's 33 to one. Yeah. Rubio, seven to one. Newsom, seven to one. Rhonda Sanders, who you mentioned, 12 to one. Shapiro, 16. Tallarico, 18 to one. Shapiro's another one of the governors these big seven states. Yeah. Harris, 22. 22 to one. Now, I think Kamala Harris, I just think that's absurd. That's mad. And Gavin Newsom has said that if she runs, he won't, which I think is equally mad. Buttigieg, 22 to one. Carlson, 30 to one. Beshear, 33. Scott Besant, 40 to one. I think he'd be a truly appalling candidate for the Republican Party to go for. So, bring it on, Scott. So, but what that all says to me is that both the parties, we're in this extraordinary position where none of us know who's going to win. We're going to be the candidate in such a significant election in under two years' time. My final one. We did a slightly geeky analysis months ago now of some of these little congressional districts. And one of the ones we looked at was New York 17, the Hudson Valley, which is sort of wealthy, commuter belt, moderate Republicans. I think if you're coming from a British analogy, it's maybe David Gauke's seat in Hertfordshire. It's kind of suburbs around. They lost it. Kate Connolly, who's the Democrat candidate, won against the Republican there. Again, Fort Bragg, North Carolina 9, I was really interested in. That's a kind of veteran town. Again, the Democrats took that. We talked about San Antonio because we're great reporting from Izzy about the Hispanic vote, which was interesting. But my final one was Alabama 2, Montgomery, Alabama, where there was incredible Republicans attempts at gerrymandering and where the African American vote came through for the Democrats. So, those were three things, or maybe four. Hispanics, African Americans, veterans. Veterans and moderate Republicans in the Hudson Valley vote, including a very large Jewish community voting Democrat, despite all the narratives that some people are selling, AIPAC and others, that Jewish Americans won't vote Democrat. seem to be the true in a lot of these electoral results. In fact, I think in Michigan, the suggestion is that Abdul Saeed still got the majority of the Jewish vote in Michigan. And also, a lot was made of Vance in his statement about the results talking about the Iran war, but he also, I thought really interestingly, mentioned Israel and America's relationship with Israel. Remind us the Vance comments, because there was an amazing tweet straight after the election, where he basically said, we've got the message. The message is Iran, Israel costs a living, right? Do you think that was the message? I think he probably was right about the message, was he or not? But that goes against what you said about they don't really care about abroad. Israel, they definitely weren't talking about. I heard very, very little on Israel. So why is J.D. Vance, knowing how close, well, maybe Trump has distanced himself from Netanyahu. We're going to talk in a bit about what's happened in Israel. But I thought it was fascinating that J.D. Vance, of all the things to allow, he comes out and says, our relationship with Israel was one of the reasons we lost. And this incredible announcement by Trump, which is that the U.S. will stop all financial assistance for Israel. Now, I mean, any time in the last 60 years, it would have been the biggest headline of four months, right? That American 4.2 billion a year. Many people in the Middle East have seen this as the key leverage for the entire Middle East peace process. People have said, if America stopped its financial support for Israel, the two state solution would be possible, et cetera. Trump suddenly announces he's going to stop it. But of course, it wouldn't happen for another two years. And the question is, was he just saying it before the election because he thought it might swing Michigan in his favor? And is he going to hold to it? And what do Israelis think about this? I mean, do they believe that the U.S. is going to stop financial assistance to Israel? And how much difference would it make? I mean, symbolic, financial. Let's do Israel and the Israeli election and the New Zealand elections after a break. Before we do that, a couple of things where you. Let's go to your beloved AI. There was this sort of little blip. Was it a blip or was it a mini crash? There was a kind of crash in the stocks the day after because the issue of AI and data centers did seem to play quite a big part. And a lot of Democrat winners had been very strongly arguing against the AI bubble and the AI explosion. Now, it settled a bit. But do you think, first question, do you think that does portend a different approach or does it just go all guns blazing as per? And the second thing is this extraordinary story about Jensen Huang, the boss of NVIDIA, being caught up in what looks like a Chinese espionage honey trap. Amazing. So Jensen, of course, $4 trillion company, largest company in the world, NVIDIA, the manufacturer of the chips. 90% of the AI chips are coming out of NVIDIA. Leather jacket wearing. He was at Dumfries' house with me. Oh, what? Your thing? The king. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Very, very. I find this very embarrassing for his majesty, the king. This philanderer should be there at Dumfries' house. And yes, seems to have been having an affair with a Chinese national who runs a big Chinese company who the CIA says has direct links to the Ministry of State Security, so Chinese intelligence. And apparently, the White House was briefed on this eight, nine months ago. So now there's an NVIDIA investigation going on. I'm not very surprised the Chinese are doing this. I'm slightly surprised that Jensen Huang will get himself trapped in such an obvious position. Do you know anything about the chronology? One person told me that he had the relationship and then the Chinese recruited the woman. And as part of that pattern, Jensen Huang, now maybe he would have done this anyway, but he had been lobbying the White House very, very strongly about the stepping up relations with China on the whole. AI development and getting stuff from them and getting stuff to them. And somebody else told me that actually she'd always been an intelligence operator and had targeted him. This is the big question on the Chinese. My father's one insight into this is that he said it was much, much better being a spy in China than in Russia. Because in Russia, they took KGB officers and trained them to be your cook. Whereas in China, they took your cook and recruited them to be an intelligence agent later and you got much better food for when you were in China. So on that model, she would have been his girlfriend first before we recruited her. Well, it's great to have your father on the podcast. By the way, our friends and colleagues, David McCluskey and Gordon Carrera have done a big thing for the rest is classified on this very subject. So maybe they will answer the question that I'm struggling to answer. Well, it's definitely true that if you can do it, it's much more efficient to recruit people after they've got the access rather than recruiting endless people hoping they can get the access. And also it means that let's assume, I don't know, you do know Jensen Huang, I don't, but let's assume that. And of course, his family is very important in the company. His kids are on the board. His son, his daughter have direct positions. Yeah, he owns 3.6% of it. Yeah. And you're right. There's an interesting question, because if you are Dario Amode from Anthropic, he was very against selling advanced chips to China. Jensen Huang ended up in a situation where he agreed with Trump that the most advanced chips are not going to China, but the second most advanced are. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, that's been very controversial, because a lot of the American AI companies would have liked much tighter restrictions on chips to China than Jensen Huang was offering. So Jensen Huang is discovering, as many have before, that as the Beatles are always right, money can't buy you love, can it? Money can't buy you love. Richest man in the world, but he's off doing what he does. And he's now in real. I think this is going to. Will it define him or does he get through this? Trump came straight out and said, "I'm sure he's got a good reason." He said, "I'm sure he's got a good reason." I'm sure he's got a good explanation, and he's a good guy, and he's done great for America. No, I think these. I'm afraid. Look, we've had almost every major tech boss come through extramarital affairs. I mean, clearly, the money and the power seems to drive them to cheat on their wives. Of course, there have been divorces at Microsoft, you know, et cetera. Yeah. And let's finish with that one, because that reminded me, because you were talking about data centers, and I was saying that watching Fox News, both sides would be attacking each other on data centers. So Sherrod Brown, who won in Ohio, ran a big ad against Huxley, who was the Republican senator, saying that he'd been closest to Epstein because he'd taken $100,000 from Wexner. Then it turned out that Sherrod Brown himself, the Democratic candidate, had taken money from Wexner's wife. One of the defining features of all these ads is they're largely accusing each other of the same thing, and that must contribute to the sense that Americans think they're all the same. That's why the Democrats have got to change. Change politics. Get money out of politics, as Abdul keeps saying. Right. Well, let's take a break and then talk about Israel and New Zealand. Very good. Looking forward to it. Shaq here. What's it like to buy a car from Carvana 100% online and get it delivered to your door? Let me tell you. Your car is here, Mr. Shaq. Thank you, Mr. Carvana guy. Can't wait to take it for a spin. Only the best for you, Mr. Shaq. Hey, have you always been so big, tall, and handsome? Not always. I was 6'10" once. Seven days to love it or return it, Mr. Shaq. Not that I would. You never do. No, I never do. So, buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply. See our seven-day return policy at Carvana.com. Welcome back to The Rest Is Politics. Me, Rory Stewart. And me, Alastair Campbell. So, now we're going to get into the subject of two of the most interesting recent elections. We're going to talk about Israel, and we're going to talk about New Zealand. A little controversy. We're going to begin with New Zealand before going to Israel. But I think what we'll find is that there are very, very similar themes of the way in which electoral systems are now delivering increasingly uncertain results. So, let's start with New Zealand. So, electoral systems, Rory, they're bloody complicated, and it's going to take weeks to sort out. Chris Hipkins, the former prime minister, leader of the Labour Party in New Zealand, who we had on Leading a while back, he said that thing, you know, the people of New Zealand have spoken. We've just got to work out what they've said. And it's going to take some time, I think. It isn't. It's going to take some time. A decisive rejection of the incumbent. So, what in British terms would be the Conservative Party have come out of this almost neck and neck, it seems, with their equivalent to the Labour Party. And they were the incumbent government. That's unusual in New Zealand politics. Usually people do two terms and may not be able to pull off two terms. There's a little bit of a sense of some of the stuff we talked about in Britain of a two-party system. In New Zealand, it's more complicated than that from the beginning, but increasingly small, small parties rising and doing better and better. Centrist parties, a couple of right-wing parties, a left-wing party as well. A lot of stories, again, about cost of living. And, you know, maybe if I was going to produce a big, grand theme for us around the world. We love those. Yeah. Big, grand theme. Yeah. Which is that really every election we've covered almost everywhere, and we could tell the story about South Africa, we could tell the story about the whole of Europe, really since Covid, have been a big, grand theme for us around the world. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there have been cost of living elections, which raises the question, what the hell is going on across the entire global economy? All these advanced economies, from the US to New Zealand, from France to, you know, wherever, you're looking at people saying, "My housing costs are too high. My groceries are too high." And what does this mean? This means Covid, Ukraine, now Iran, but it also means pretty anemic growth. And people having no confidence, really, that their government's going to sort it out. And usually, I suppose that means anti-incumbent. Usually means you kick Trump or you kick Rishi Sunak or whoever happens to be in power when the election comes along. But in New Zealand, it's led to a bit of a muddle. It's not a decisive rejection of an incumbent at all. It's just kind of disappointment and underwhelming. No, it is a muddle. And they do have a voting system very different to us, mixed member proportional MMP system. You have two votes. You can vote for your constituency MP and you can vote for a party. Now, you'd think, would you not, that people would vote for the constituency MP and then they would vote for the party who's represented by the MP, the candidate they voted for. But a lot of them do not do that. Well, I'd agree with that because you don't think in Britain, certainly as MPs, we flatter ourselves that maybe we have local support which is independent from our party. They do this in part tactically to – it's quite complicated, this. But you get elected as an MP and then you have a list system. Yeah. It fills the parliament and you can end up and this election will end up with having more seats than were originally planned. So, for example, the main Maori party, they instructed people. They said to people, vote for us in constituencies but vote for one of the more left – Labour or the Greens or one of the left parties when you get to the party because that will then help us to get into that block and maybe have a better chance of being part of a government. And the idea – and one of the reasons we often talk up the New Zealand system. Is it keeps a constituency link as well as having a bit of PR, which we kind of think could be a good system for Britain, right? And one of the nice things about it is that it – at least in the way that it was explained to us by New Zealand politicians – is that it meant that the – instead of the Tory party having to try to hold its far right or Labour having to hold its far left, they were able to get more natural blocks emerging. You've also got this – the other thing that's complicated in their system, you have different ways of voting. You have advanced voting. Okay. You can vote weeks – two weeks ahead of the election. Okay. You then have the election day. Yeah. And then you have these what's called special votes. And special votes are votes cast by people who are not in their own area at the time. So people living abroad, people living in different parts of the country, mainly in Australia and the UK. Okay. So this election, my hunch is that even though they're behind at the moment, is that the Labour guy may end up – because generally… Generally, these special votes of people living outside New Zealand tend to go left rather than right. Yeah. Okay. And this is the argument, I guess, against – You're going a bit sceptical. No, I know. This was our preferred electoral system. We like this one. We're trying to sell it to Andy Burnham. I'm just saying the argument against is the lack of clarity. So there's a very strong argument against Labour getting a massive three-figure landslide in the UK on a third of the vote. So an obvious argument against that. But likewise, on this one, to have such a model – Out of a system that's – Are you happy with it? I think it's pretty good. Yeah, I think it's pretty good. Look, I think if we're going to – we're about to move on to the Israeli system, which I think is too far over on the PR extremes. I mean, famously, they had three years of crisis where they could barely form a government. We may be about to enter that again. No, this is more interesting. There's been no new parties emerging in New Zealand since 1996. And they've got a new party here. Suddenly, for the first time in 30 years. Opportunity. Exactly. Which is really interesting with 5.9% of the vote. Absolutely. You know, for centrist dads, Opportunity is a pretty appealing party. It's a Fijian, I think an Asian Fijian New Zealander who's coming. Q. Le Wong. So I think that's a good system because it's one where you can get new parties coming, but it doesn't happen very often. And where you get this nice balance between some constituency route, some PR. And if the genuine reality is in New Zealand, that the country now consists of – People with five or six different views, then why not have a parliament that reflects up and doesn't do it in the Israeli way? Where literally every – I mean, the madness, as you must have discovered when you try to chart changes in Israeli elections, is that the parties and alliances are changing so much. It's not a continuous line at all. But this in New Zealand reminds me a little bit of the Nick Clegg coalition election, where you have the results and, okay, the Tories get the most seats, Labour is second, Nick Clegg's then in the sort of kingmaker position and he decides to go with them. But the Tories – in this one, you have Opportunity, who will have a – you know, it could be the balance of power. You have the leader, the Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, who insists on calling himself Christopher, by the way, not Chris, because the Labour guy is called Chris. And so Christopher Luxon has ruled out working with Opportunity because they have some quite radical tax plans that you wouldn't like, by the way. Okay. You wouldn't like their tax plans. So here's a question for you. If you've gone through an election in this system. Ruling out something – and this will apply when we get on to Israel – is it permissible then actually to do a deal with the party that you said you'd rule out having anything to do with them? This is why I think Labour might be in a stronger position. I think it's something you must have seen a lot in places like Germany. I mean, it's countries with more PR systems, which are more inclined towards coalition governments, they must have this problem all the time. They go into elections ruling out stuff. And then the electoral mathematics falls. It forces them to contemplate a deal. But does that mean that the public doesn't really trust them when they rule things out in advance? You presumably can't do it two or three times in a row. Well, but I'm always amazed when we're out doing, you know, my beloved show of hands with big audiences. I'm always amazed when you say to people, if the Labour government broke the manifesto promise on not putting up income tax, would you think worse of them? And hardly anybody says yes. Because I think it's part of this thing. They think, well, parties break promises all the time. I also think we think. Which they try not to. I also, to, I mean, given that in order to prevent Andy Burnham going mad and introducing a wealth tax, I think he'd be better putting up income tax if he's going to be putting up taxes. I think the defence would be the world changed a lot. Trump changed the world a lot. Putin changed the world a lot. And he's the second prime minister in. Yeah. So, yeah, I think you can change. And I think maybe, maybe the test, let me try this one on you. Maybe the test for New Zealand and Israel is do the public get the impression you tried really, really hard to make it work on the terms in which you went into the election and that you've only finally made that compromise when every other option has run out? I think, you see, I don't quite buy your line that this wasn't quite a comprehensive defeat for the National Party. I think it was a bit of a rejection. Now, it wasn't overwhelming for Labour either. So this is. But Labour didn't get more votes. No, exactly. So they, I mean, I think on the share of the vote, Labour were 0.2% ahead as things stand. So I think they will go ahead, further ahead when these special votes, 400,000 votes are counted. But they're all going to have to do deals. And the deal making becomes, I think the deal making, I think it's interesting, exciting for people like us who really follow this stuff. But I think for a lot of people, the deal making is what puts them off politics. Well, let's come, let's move on to Israel where the deal making is actually essential. And by the way, can I apologise to any New Zealander if I didn't explain the overhang? Because it's bloody complicated in a country that doesn't have it. And maybe we should get Darren Hughes. You're about to go to Australia. Are you going to New Zealand? Why are you not going to New Zealand? I'm getting so many complaints from Perth and New Zealand. Yeah. I can see why. Yeah, I know, I know. But it's just, look, Rory, I've not planned it well. I've not planned it well. I promise I will go to New Zealand. Not this time. Very good. And I will go to Perth. Because we've got a lot of listeners in New Zealand. We do. And so. But you know the guy who runs the Electoral Reform Society here in the UK is a New Zealander, Darren Hughes. And I hope he's back in New Zealand's system because I've always been very pro-New Zealand. And also Christopher Luxon needs to come on the podcast because I am, you know, really sad about this. I was in touch with his office. We've got a lot of listeners in New Zealand. Maybe that 0.2% of centrist people that he's fallen behind in the election, Hipkins, could have come over to him if he'd come on the podcast as I'd invited him to. So if you're. We're listening to this. Or maybe he's been rejected because people don't like listening to him. Well, and actually, Alistair, you know, people reading the newsletter this week will see that we are writing about electoral systems. So. When you say we, do you mean you? Do you mean me? Do you mean somebody else? No, no. Actually, somebody else. Our newsletter team is bringing together some amazing experts on electoral systems, which is going to feed into where we are now. Sign up for that and the many other wonderful things that we have in our newsletter on therestorspolitics.com forward slash newsletter. So Israel. Israel. Israel. Israel. Israel. Israel. To remind people on Israel. PR system from hell. PR system from hell and key two big figures that people will have been focusing on. Of course, Netanyahu himself, the great survivor, prime minister repeatedly since the 1990s, incumbent prime minister, and against him, Gadi Eisenkot, who was the head of the military, whose son was killed fighting in Gaza and who is leading the anti-Netanyahu faction. Neither of them managed, obviously. Neither of them managed, obviously, to get a clear majority. And the swing essentially rests with whether you're prepared to work with the Arab parties or whether you've got about 19 seats or the ultra-Orthodox who have about 13 seats. To remind people about the ultra-Orthodox, ultra-Orthodox parties in Israel are increasingly growing because ultra-Orthodox families who frequently dress in very, very traditional, I think, sort of 18th century Central Europe. European dress, famously do not serve in the military, which is very controversial because that means a lot of young men are serving the military and are feeling it's unfair that ultra-Orthodox young men are not doing it. And the question for the Eisenkot group is Avigar Lieberman in particular, who leads a pretty secular, often Soviet Union origin group of Israelis as a secular man, not really prepared to work with the ultra-Orthodox, but as somebody who's very pro-settler because many of his voters are settlers, and of course, Bennett is also a settler, anti-Arab. Okay, over to you. I mean, the president, Herzog, has decided, and I'm sure would have come under a lot of pressure not to have decided this from the Netanyahu camp, decided to ask Eisenkot to have the first go at forming a government. And I guess the question is, do you try to get some kind of arrangement with the Arab-Pacific? Do you try to get some kind of arrangement with the Arab-Pacific? When part of your coalition has been adamant, it's a little bit like Luxon with the Opportunity Party in saying, having nothing to do with them. And you now have this situation where I think Netanyahu will be hoping that somehow they get forced into a place where the only option is a sort of national unity government of which he remains a part. And so you think that there's Eisenkot who, entire campaign, I mean, left the government because he was a part of the Communist Party, believed that Netanyahu was doing fundamental damage to Israel. And yet Netanyahu will be thinking that one of his pathways back is actually to do some kind of deal with him. Just again, it's difficult, I think, for many listeners to understand why doing a deal with the Arab parties is considered so impossible. Netanyahu's described it as national suicide to do a deal with the Arab parties. These are Muslims. Christian Arabs in Israel, Israeli citizens who turned out in very large numbers. In the case of one of the Arab parties, they've been in government before they were in government actually with Naftali Bennett, and they were not particularly radical on Palestinian issues when they were in. They were largely focusing on improving conditions for Palestinians in Israel around crime and other issues like that. But it relates to this very weird sense that the gap between the way in which Europeans wants to view Israel as a country, which is genuinely open to accommodation with Palestinians towards the two-state solution and the reality, which is I think now well over 80% of Israelis are now openly against or non-supportive of a two-state solution, maybe only 20% in favor, and where Netanyahu is running elections with posters saying vote for the right or get Palestine as though Palestine is the worst possible thing in the world, suggests kind of what a deep problem Israeli politics is going to be. And for those who, like us, think that long-term peace means some kind of reconciliation with Palestinians and Arabs, because if you think it's national suicide, what is this national suicide? If you think it's national suicide, you're going to have to work with a large chunk of your own population just because they don't happen to be Jewish Israelis. But also it's saying we're a country, we have an election, everybody has a vote, but a substantial section of the population, in my view, this is Netanyahu, your vote does not count. And you cannot be allowed into government. And there's no way that you can be allowed into government. But it's a little bit like Trump did with Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan. He's a jihadist. Yeah. He's a terrorist. You know, he's a terrorist. It's like the way that a lot of Israelis, particularly on the hard right, see Gaza. I mean, who's the guy, one of the guys who's now, I think, part of the new parliament, a guy, I can't remember his name, but he, during the campaign was saying there is no such thing as an innocent Gazan. They are all our enemy, children included. Oh, Avigol Lieberman has been saying that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. With this system, where does it go with this system? If you disenfranchise so many people, there's a price to pay for that down the track. So I don't know where this is going to end. I know Herzog a little bit, because when he was leader of the Labour Party, I went out there and was advising him for a bit. And I never thought he was going to win. It doesn't surprise me he's ended up as president because he has got the sorts of political skills you need for that. But I think this one's going to be, I don't know how this plays out. And thrown into the mix, the point you made in the earlier discussion about the United States, the fact that there is a, there does appear to be a changing of the kind of cross party consensus that an absolute fundamental pillar of American foreign policy is total support for Israel. What's the impact within Israel if that changes? These are two elections we've talked about here, where the lack of clarity is, what does it tell us? What does it tell us? It tells us that there are fundamental divisions in there that are not being repaired. Meanwhile, Israel's foreign policy position is no peace in Gaza. It turns out that what was achieved in Gaza wasn't a peace deal. More than a thousand people have been killed since it was a hostage exchange deal. Israeli troops continue to occupy most of Gaza. Nobody's talking about Lebanon, where effectively Israel now occupies South Lebanon. They haven't followed through on their agreement to allow the Lebanese army back into South Lebanon. They continue to hold a chunk of Syria. And the West Bank, we've talked about a great deal. So this is a country which over the last three years has launched conflicts with a very large number of people. I mean, if you add to those, setting up bases in Iraq to conduct strikes against Iran, if you add strikes against Qatar, if you're trying to think about peace in the region, and regional security architecture, you're not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. The real challenge, and maybe this is something to talk about when we get onto question time and talk about a new UN Secretary General, is how do you think about peace in the Middle East? How do you think about Israel, Iran, Gulf? What is the structure that over 10 or 20 years means less conflict, not more? Well, right now, it doesn't appear to be there. Well, as you said, in question time, we will talk about the race to become the next General Secretary of the United Nations. We're also going to talk about all these other issues. We're also going to talk about the cyber stuff, fridges being hacked across Europe, and Andy Burnham warning us to go out and get some more cash and buy some wind-up torches and all this stuff. So we'll talk about that. And also, you mentioned earlier, we'll talk about the elections in South Africa, all that and more. Thank you. Bye-bye. We are getting a statement from number 10 on that flight with 350 passengers on board. The Great Gain, a strategic struggle between Britain and Russia. We assess, Prime Minister, with high confidence it was Russian. Holding the Russians accountable is World War Three. They took down a British passenger jet containing 350 people. The man in the Kremlin is playing, Alex. Hold the Russians accountable is World War Three. You've got to ask yourself, do you want to play or not? You're the Prime Minister. You've done nothing! You've done nothing! You've done nothing! We would need to understand the policy context. All the relevant context will be structured as a framework today and disseminated into an operation order, or FRAGO. A FRAGO that says to kill the president of Russia. Yes. New from Goldhanger. Who is going to be able to pull this off? You're my soldier, are you? Sergeant Tom McDuff, Duffy! An audio drama journey like no other. Men like Duffy, they are our most valuable weapons. Devised as a technically rigorous geopolitical action thriller where Britain plays its strongest hand against its strongest foe. Bear Hunt. Available now wherever you get your podcasts.