356. Liberator of Latin America: Descent Into Tyranny (Part 3)

8:49William:This is a place which has caught the imagination of the world. someone like William Blake sitting in South London is absolutely electrified by the news of the successful slave run republic, which has not been reconquered, which is now more or less independent, and which is making a sort of success of it.

9:08Anita:Well, Bolivar doesn't meet Toussaint Lovitcho, but he does meet Alexandre Pétion, who's the president of this newly independent Republic of Haiti. And he is electrified by him. Because what he sees, finally, and what he hears, finally is that you know what the black population of South America has been ignored it has been trampled on and they deserve something a lot better than this and more importantly you know he's got this charismatic character like Petillon to talk to him and Petillon is warm and he welcomes him you know this is a man who's been on the run and is in a bad way because you know he's been sort of hammered by the Spanish he says I'm going to show you what Haiti is all about and I'm going to more crucially than anything else, I'm going to give you soldiers and I'm going to give you weapons.

9:53Anita:And Bolivar, you can see responding, opening up like a flower, suddenly thinking, oh, Haiti, he writes, is not only a refuge for the oppressed, it is a lighthouse of freedom. So finally, there is this, where it was all kind of around the Creole cause, it is something bigger than this.

10:13William:And you really sense in this letter, his imagination being lit up and possibilities opening up before him. This is a very important moment.

10:21Anita:Yeah, I mean, basically Haiti is this beacon of hope for all those fighting against colonial oppression in the Americas, he writes. And race and equality definitely come into this now. In a letter to Pétion, he starts talking about his desire, which was missing in the Jamaica letters, an actual plan to eradicate racial discrimination, saying, we must march forward together, free men of all colours to build a new America. So you've got this transition from slavery is really bad.

10:52William:This is a very important moment.

10:54Anita:To actually they are brothers in arms, they are equals. And that vision of unity among diverse people, that becomes a central ideology for Bolivar at this point, I would argue, because he sees it in Haiti. And he hears them saying the same things, you know, freedom, justice, universal rights, no more colonialism. And he sees brothers in arms. So I think it's at this point in Haiti, actually, that abolitionism becomes part of his Republican project. It may not have been before, but it is now.

11:26William:But we will see in the remaining episodes to come whether he actually follows this up, whether this actually means anything and what his record is.

11:35Anita:He is a roller coaster. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So look, he's sort of had a chance to regroup and rethink. Let's go to 1817, where now an educated Bolivar decides he's going to try a new strategy. So instead of attacking coastal cities where the Spanish forces are particularly strong, he's like, okay, hang on. Louverture, guerrilla warfare, going into interiors. Okay, could learn something from this.

12:01William:I wonder whether he'd heard about things in Haiti which inspired him.

12:05Anita:How could he not? Because it was the Louverture playbook, right?

12:08William:He used the mountains.

12:09Anita:Yeah, he used the mountains and the rivers. So he goes to a place called Angostura.

12:14William:Where the bitters come from.

12:15Anita:Exactly, yeah. In the remote Venezuelan interior. And, you know, this changes everything, William, because these interiors, as Libertur found, you know, they're isolated from the main Spanish forces. So, you know, he can rebuild his army. He can get out his intelligence without interference. But what he really needs, even now, is soldiers.

12:36William:And they turn up.

12:38Anita:Well, from a really surprising quarter, because it's when the British arrive. Now, I find this also completely fascinating. about this episode in South American history. Tell us about the Brits at this time, because 1815, when he's writing his Jamaica letter, pretty pivotal moment for the Brits as well.

12:56William:So 1815 is, of course, the year of Waterloo and the defeat of Napoleon. And what you find suddenly in Europe is these vast armies, these unprecedented armies that have been rolling around the continent of Europe all the way to Moscow and down to the Penicillian War in Portugal and round and round Flanders and Belgium and so on. All these guys are now, well, not all of them, but quite a number of them are laid off. And so you find unemployed soldiers looking for jobs as mercenaries around the world. And we've again come across some of this sort of story in our episodes of All People on Ranjit Singh, when we saw all the French generals and Italian generals who'd been fighting for Napoleon, looking for their fortunes, wanting to use their expertise in warfare and ending up in the Punjab, facing onto the British.

13:47William:So you have people like Avatabili and Kour and all these extraordinary Napoleonic generals ending up being married to Sikh wives and Allah and living with the Sikhs. But these are the British soldiers, their counterparts, who are heading not eastwards, but heading westwards. And they turn up in large numbers. Tell us about the kind of people they are, Anita, because they are a rum bunch.

14:08Anita:But they're fighters and they're around. I mean, it's not an inconsequential number, about 4 ,000 of them.

14:13William:That's a decent force, yeah.

14:15Anita:Well, it swells the army. After they arrive, Bolivar now has 9 ,000 men. So it's almost doubles his forces. They're still far smaller than the Spanish forces. But these guys are battle-hardened and they are hungry for a fight.

14:30William:And presumably the latest weaponry fresh from the fields of Waterloo and all this sort of stuff.

14:36Anita:And they are also, you know, fuelled on victory. They've just beaten Napoleon. They're looking for somebody else to beat. And the Spanish, never been very friendly to the Spanish. Some of the notable soldiers to join this side include a man called James Rook, whose battalion is this hodgepodge of British and Irish veterans from the Napoleonic Wars and the North American Wars. Remember, these are troops that were sent all around the British Empire to deal with problems wherever they occurred.

15:01William:So I see that Rook is spelt with an E, which is an Irish spelling.

15:06Anita:Nothing gets past you. Yes, he's Dublin born. So he turns up with his men. And in time, they're joined by Germans. And I know you'll love this, a scattering of Bengalis.

15:19William:Are these sort of rogue East India Company troops?

15:21Anita:Are they again? They're mercenaries. They're up for hire. So you have sort of, you know, Bengalis, smattering of West Indians, smattering of Americans who are also, you know, they've just fought. They've got, you know, time on their hands, money to be made.

15:34William:I'm baffled by these Bengalis because even in India, there aren't many Bengali troops. They're all from Bihar in the south. The Bengalis famously are not, the British say they're not a martial race and make sort of Kipling-y comments about Bengali babus. But here they are.

15:47Anita:They were here. I sort of did a deep dive. I was trying to find some names for you, but I couldn't. But they are very much recorded as Bengali troops and Bengali regiment even. Love it. You have Wellington himself encouraging soldiers to join the fight, you know, because we talked about Wellesley meeting him in London, Wellington's brother, and being really taken with this idea that, oh, we could sort of nip the Spanish nose and we can do it through South America. So you've got sort of volunteer units in Venezuela, collectively known as the British Legions. Some 1 ,700 Irishmen turn up then recruited by John Devereaux, this Irish adventurer, and they form the Irish Legion.

16:27Anita:So you've got Brits, you've got Irish Legions, you've got Ghaulies. Brilliant. It is this coming together of everybody who wants to poke the Spanish in the eye.

16:35William:So this is the world of Barry Lyndon. Have you ever seen Barry Lyndon?

16:39Anita:I have not. What is Barry Lyndon?

16:41William:So Barry Lyndon is originally a novel by Thackeray about a ne 'er-do-well Irish sort of chancer selling himself as a mercenary in Europe. But it becomes, I think, Stanley Kubrick's best film. And it is this world of Irishmen on the make in the continent in this period in tricorn hats and breeches. And it's wonderful.

17:01Anita:Okay. If anyone's got four hours to spend, you know what you're meant to do. I want to mention one other British Army veteran who will prove to be very, very important in a very difficult war for Bolivar. And that's the veteran William Miller, who is a man who rises to command Bolivar's cavalry, which is going to be so important in the Peruvian War of Independence. And he is so beloved by Peruvians afterwards. An independent Peruvian government will promote military grand marshal, which is his highest rank, military rank. So, that will happen later. So, what you've got is a situation of all these people, you know, Horatio Hornblower types who are popping up all over the place and the Spanish are basically playing whack-a-mole.

17:40Anita:So, they're trying to stamp out little fires now all over South America. And at this time where they're somewhat distracted and, you know, trying to just keep some kind of semblance of order, it feels like overnight everything's gone bonkers in Latin America, Bolivar decides he's going to do something that, quite frankly, on paper, sounds insane.

18:00William:I couldn't believe this when I first read this. He wants to cross the Andes.

18:06Anita:Dun, dun, dun. Yeah. So this is May 1819, we're talking about. This will rank him in the annals of history among the company of Hannibal and Napoleon as far as military history and bravery.

18:21William:Except that the Andes are kind of considerably bigger than the Alps, aren't they? Even if he hasn't got elephants.

18:28Anita:They are the most treacherous or among the most treacherous mountain systems on Earth. There's 7 ,000 kilometres along South America's western edge.

18:36William:Crossing with a military force is no small feat.

18:39Anita:There is terrible weather. There is rugged terrain. There are altitudes of some 6 ,000 metres. So thin air, sickness, a sudden snowstorm can blow you off a rock face Temperatures swinging wildly It is a geologically unstable place And it is dangerous ravines around every blind corner

19:00William:Explain to me the point of this though, Anita Why is he bothering to cross the Andes?

19:04Anita:He has decided that he wants to attack Bogota The capital of New Grenada or modern Colombia And he wants to do it from a direction that the Spanish could never imagine he could come. It's the same idea of coming up the Orinoco. You come up in a place they will never see you. Okay, so that is what his aim is. It's all about surprise. You don't have the numbers still, even if you've got a swollen army with all these merceries coming to join you. So what you need is surprise. Conditions are hellish. Okay, so by the time they reach this icy pass, some 13 ,000 feet called Paramo de Pizba, Bolivar's men were barely alive.

19:43Anita:You know, they were scarcely clothed. They were flogging themselves just to get their circulation running.

19:48William:Do people really do that?

19:50Anita:Yeah, you sort of beat yourself to get the blood moving. So, you know, men on horseback are hardly better off than those on the ground because you've got hooves either sinking into the bog or they're freezing. It is awful. Horses falling into deep water never to rise again. They lost a third of their men to frost and starvation. Most of their weapons had rusted in the rain. Every single horse is pretty much a diet of hypothermia. And when they made it, finally, the Spanish forces at Boyaca, they see these wild-eyed, barefoot revolutionaries swarming down the Andes.

20:22William:Can you imagine?

20:23Anita:And they panic. They panic. So this battle of Boyaca, fought on August 7th, 1819, was a decisive victory. You've got the Spanish Viceroy fleeing Bogota, dressed as an Indian, in a poncho, in a dirty hat. The date is still a momentous day in the South American calendar, August the 7th. You know, it is a national holiday in Colombia itself.

20:47William:And these guys are still in sort of fighting form. They've come down through the snows and with their sort of soggy hooves and what have you.

20:53Anita:I mean, they're basically, they've done this much. They're not going back with a key ring after that kind of trip. They are there to win. And the news of the defeat spreads like wildfire and it reaches the heart of Spain. Bolívar has liberated what has been known as New Granada. You know, this sets him up. If we can do this, if we can do this, then just think of all the territories that we can grab, all of the territories, and merge them into this one new united nation.

21:25William:He's trying to create a liberated Gran Colombia. And that means, in modern terms, Venezuela and the territory of New Granada, which corresponds to modern-day Colombia and Panama. So it's Venezuela, Panama, and Colombia, that whole top chunk of the Latin American continent. And it will grow in the next few years to include also Ecuador, which is just south of Colombia, as well as parts of Peru and Brazil. Brazil presumably trespassing on Portuguese territory now. He's now got rid of the Spanish, and he's now moving in to get rid of the Portuguese, if he's going into Brazil. And it's a huge chunk of land.

22:06Anita:Over half the size of the whole of Europe, Willie. And you can look at this map and you will see that it is, you know, the territories in the north of South America closest to the isthmus of Panama. And that's important as well because it is the Panama Strip. There's this thin strip of land linking the two American continents so strategically. He is getting dangerously close with his ambition to even be able to cut off Western Europe from its own interests.

22:33William:So he's created his dream. He's created the Grand Columbia, the liberated territory. It's a great chunk of territory. It's been achieved by extraordinary effort crossing the Andes in this remarkable way. And this seems a good moment to take a break.

23:00William:welcome back now what we have to find out is if everyone shares his grandiose vision of an independent grand columbia or is he going to be rubbing up against opposition tell me what happens

23:12Anita:it's an appealing thought and it's an increasingly appealing thought um to those people living in South America that maybe just maybe we could make something that's big and powerful. But the way in which it is going to run, not everyone shares Bolivar's vision. I'm going to introduce you to another character because he has a really turbulent relationship with Bolivar and it will determine the fate of Gran Colombia. His name is Francisco de Paula Santander. So Santander is again one of all of these men are sort of portrayed as these shiny epaulettes, dignified. He looks a bit like young Prince Albert to me.

23:49William:Very much mustachioed according to this early Victorian style, absolutely, and full of military swagger.

23:57Anita:Yeah, he is. But he's not just a military man, because he is actually known as the man of laws. And how does he get that moniker? Well, he's considered the architect of modern Colombia. He serves as vice president to Bolívar. And while Bolívar is conquering land, Santander is trying to work out how you run a country. So he is working very hard to establish a legal constitutional foundation for this new territory that is in Bolivar's head. And he's methodical. He's detail obsessed. He's the kind of person, exactly the kind of person you want to create a system of laws for a new nation.

24:34William:And this is very different from, as we've seen from Bolivar, who just likes to be crossing the Andes on a horse and sweeping down and ambushing people by the state. is he's showing less and less interest in sort of constitutions and law codes.

24:48Anita:Which is unusual and weird because he knew it was important when he wrote the Jamaica letters in 1815. He knew it was important. Now, four or five years later, he's not really thinking about it at all. Santander starts to bug him. So Santander is sort of bunkered down, trying to create his constitutional federalist state. That's what he is trying to do. But Bolivar, no, he's off. He's liberating. That's what he's doing. He's now built a up ahead of steam. So that's the only thing he's thinking of. And this rift of Santander saying, what do you think about this? And Bolivar more or less swatting him off saying, I'm really, this is not interesting to me.

25:23Anita:It is also not important.

25:25William:I'm going to raid Peru now.

25:27Anita:Yeah, exactly. What we're going to do is we're going to take more territory. And he's now looking southwards for his ambition.

25:35William:You would have thought there was room for both.

25:37Anita:In retrospect, yes. In retrospect, there should have been. Do you know what? I'm going to talk about the wars because we're going to go very battle heavy in a minute. Do you mind if I talk about women for a bit? A lot of these military campaigns really do owe a lot to the women who fought. Half of the population was female. They worked as spies, informers. Aristocratic women sold their jewellery, emerald, silver, everything to finance this revolution. Working class women followed the camps as, you know, selling supplies, cooking, caring for the wounded. And there are some really notable ones. I mean, I just want to tell you a little bit about Joanna Azurdu de Padilla.

26:14Anita:And I hope I've said that right, because she's amazing. She's this mother of five who rides into battle alongside her husband in now what is Bolivia. She's wounded in combat. She sees her husband killed. After, you know, she picks herself up from his death, she carries on fighting and she forms a bodyguard of these 25 women she calls Los Amazonas, the Amazons.

26:37William:Fabulous. Why haven't we seen a movie of this?

26:39Anita:These women are actually honoured. Half of the women in Argentina or Chile, they establish the Order of the Sun to recognise prominent activists in the independence movement. So they are honoured in South America, but not so much do we hear about them elsewhere. Anyway, that's my little aside. So let's go back now to Bolivar, the success after his trip across the Andy. He begins his campaign in Ecuador in 1820. And he's starting to learn, you know, this is a man who is adapting because local leaders and revolutionaries, you need them on your side. So stop sort of coming and lecturing people, try and understand what they want, and try and take on their needs and try and get them on side.

27:19Anita:So what he has now in Ecuador is, you know, he's got the strategy that involves, yes, military action, but diplomatic efforts to get their supports. And he successfully captures Quito in 1822. He starts acknowledging others. You know, the work of liberty is a work for all. So meaning, you know, we have to war, war, yes, but jaw, jaw, yes. Following the liberation of Ecuador, he turns his attention to Peru. Now, do you remember we said Peru was basically the richest place, the cash bank, and that had always been his aim. Well, Peru is one of the wealthiest colonies in South America. Isn't that interesting?

27:54Anita:Yeah.

27:54William:Is that because it has gold or?

27:56Anita:Silver primarily, more than gold. And agriculture. The world then and the world now, you wouldn't think of it. But Peru is this kind of money box in South America. And remember, he's got this patchwork of troops now from Venezuela. Colombia's picked up some Ecuadorians.

28:10William:Who are now practiced at climbing mountains.

28:13Anita:Exactly that. I mean, they are hardened. The survivors, they are the hardest of the hard. But if you've got this kind of ragtag army and following, These are people who aren't used to working together. They haven't before. So you have this spike in Bolivar stirring speeches and letters talking about unity, the whole of South America.

28:35William:Implying they're all squabbling?

28:36Anita:Well, they don't naturally work together. They just don't. They haven't formed revolutionary forces in tandem. And he manages to do that.

28:46William:And this is pulling together a diverse and geographically very strung out area. Got it.

28:51Anita:He does it so well that he manages to maintain momentum. Remember, this man has been fighting for years now and is still going. That is surprising to his enemy, to the Spanish. The thing that he has actually in his favor is that he is a really good planner. He's meticulous at planning. He's also very good at gathering intelligence. Do you remember I told you the network of women spies who are feeding back information on enemy positions? Also, he knows if you want to keep this force together you make sure they're well supplied so supply lines are incredibly important to him he's learned and again maybe this is the Louverture thing as well do you remember supply lines were so so problematic back in Louverture's day so he's heading to the richest

29:37William:area of Latin America now he's getting his hands on all the gold and silver controlled via Lima and this is this going to be a good thing for him or is he going to find that it's going to go to his head all this power and money.

29:49Anita:It will turn out to be a very, very good thing for him. Now, Lima is hard to get to. So, the place that he hits is a place called Ayacucho. It's a city in the central highlands of Peru. So, right up there as part of the Andes range. It lies about 550 kilometers or 342 miles if you're doing English money, southeast of Lima. But it's high. You know, it's one of those high altitude places, 3 ,000 meters above sea level. And it's going to be hard going again. And so, you know, you have this battle commencing with a very motivated force, but it's hard. The terrain, as we've described up there, high up, is difficult.

30:27Anita:You've got well-prepared Spanish defences. And this is really extraordinary. The revolutionary forces organise into battalions. They advance under heavy fire because they are very good soldiers. They have insane discipline and determination because they are outnumbered. But what they managed to do is they managed to make little breaks in the Spanish defence and they break it. They break through. It's like, you know, sort of dotted paper where you have these weaknesses and he does it. And so you have the enemy upping sticks and running. They are retreating in disarray and many simply surrender.

31:04Anita:Tinder. The battle only lasts four hours, but it is decisive because Spanish power in Peru collapses and arguably the biggest prize has been won. But you know, that's not the end of any story, is it, Willie?

31:19William:No. And how does he behave once he assumes power in Peru?

31:23Anita:Well, winning a territory is one thing, holding it is quite another. And it gets dark really quickly because you start seeing him you know there is royalist opposition in Peru because they've done really well they've been you know the rich Gringotts bank of this whole situation for a long time they don't like this guy coming in so what happens is he convinces the Peruvian Congress to name him dictator of Peru now although this is offered to him offered to him It outrages the Colombians who, you know, he's left behind the Colombians. And do you remember Santander?

32:01William:Half a continent away now. Yeah.

32:03Anita:Yeah. He's writing out, you know, Santander's still working on how, you know, we're going to set up a civil society after winning these battles. An autocrat? That's not in the script. That's not what he had agreed to. Santander is challenging him. He doesn't like that. Peru is also challenging somewhat his vision because although they give him dictatorial powers or he assumes these dictatorial powers over Peru.

32:28William:He's just arrived with an army, so they're not going to be in a bit of a state resistant.

32:32Anita:And the Spanish have pegged it and given up. So, you know, they don't have much say on the matter. But Ecuador does become a part of Gran Colombia. Peru does not. And I maybe should sort of remind people what we mean by Gran Colombia, this great vision of his, of this new united South America. because if he'd had his way, you know, all these liberated territories would become this federation of the Andes, this great, huge territory. But, you know, when some say we don't want to, what can you do? They've got the money and he wants them and he's the dictator, so it's fine by him. But the ones that are involved, Colombia is at the heart of Gran Colombia.

33:07Anita:Bogota is the capital. Venezuela, Bolivar's birthplace, crucial part of Gran Colombia. Ecuador joins Gran Colombia after its independence from Spain. Panama, initially part of Colombia, gets sort of folded into Gran Colombia until it later will get its own independence. But Peru, no, not so much.

33:28William:And is this a problem? It's been separately administered. It's a different part of the continent. Is that a big issue for everyone?

33:34Anita:Well, Santander is working hard on it not being a problem. Bolivar is making it quite difficult, especially when he comes back up to Colombia because what he sees is that these places, despite his vision that once conquered, they should just do it. Why aren't they doing it? But the relationship when he comes back to Colombia, the relationship between Colombia and Venezuela is not good. Santander is not happy and he's sitting in Colombia going, this is not in my name, mate. This is not what I want. And he's falling out with a Venezuelan leader.

34:07William:What's his beef? I don't understand. Is it because he's enlarged it too much and he's gone off without official sanction to conquer Peru? Or is it that he's a dictator? What's the...

34:16Anita:It's the dictator part of it, which is a problem. And also, he's not making allowances for these national characteristics, pride in the fact that a Peruvian feels Peruvian, or an Ecuadorian feels Ecuadorian, or indeed, right on his backyard, a Colombian may not want to feel like a Venezuelan. So you've got a revolt that ensues. with this leader, the Venezuelan leader, future president, in fact, José Antonio Paez, who revolts against Santander because Santander is sitting there in the capital trying to hold it all together. And he's planning to secede from Gran Colombia. So Bolívar goes to Paez and instead of sort of overthrowing him and killing him for having an opinion, he says, you know, I'll leave you, but you submit to my authority.

35:05Anita:You just do it. I don't care what you think. You just do it. temporarily this resolves the issue but there is now this this problem where you know people are saying yes okay for now and Santander who already is trying to fight for a vision that he thought he shared completely with Bolivar but what Bolivar is doing with these sort of autocratic setups particularly in Peru particularly sort of saying you know I am the dictator of Peru but Peru can stay outside. This is nothing that Santander has stayed in this for. So there is a rift between these two. Santander is really opposed to Bolivar's attempts to reform something called the 1821 Constitution of Cucuta.

35:51Anita:So what that was going to do was mandate a 10-year period of this imposition of a Bolivian constitution, which would feature something which Santander couldn't stand a lifelong president. How can you have that? That doesn't seem democratic.

36:06William:And that's the red line for Santander, is it? He thinks this guy's lost it. He's becoming completely autocratic.

36:12Anita:Yeah, exactly. Santander opposes Bolivar's attempts to reform the 1821 constitution before this legally mandated 10-year period that Bolivar wants of a constitution that will give you a lifelong president, right? This Bolivian constitution that Bolivar is in favour of. And Santander says, no, why? Why would you have a lifelong president? That's anti-democratic. And then in 1828, you have another convention called the Ocania Convention. And at this one, Santander's supporters say, no, we're with him. We're with that guy, not with you. Your reforms are not okay. Then you've got others calling for Bolivar to assume absolute power.

36:54Anita:And that's what he does. He becomes president liberator. He abolishes the office of vice president. Santander was his vice president. He sidelines Santander.

37:03William:It's like a coup d 'etat?

37:05Anita:No, it's not violent. He just sends him off. He sends him to a diplomatic posting in Washington and says, get out. I can't be arguing with you anymore. Go away. And so, you know, all of these visions of Santander go with him pretty much. He sidelines him. And everyone who believed like Santander did, this is going to be a federation. This is going to be, you know, this is not a place of tyranny, that's not what happens. That isn't what happens. And it becomes, and we'll go into this in the next episode, the 1820s will read like a timeline of tyranny from this man who had vowed that no tyrant would ever rule South America.

37:44Anita:He assumes dictatorial powers over Gran Colombia. He suspends the constitution. He centralizes authority. He governs by decree. And while he keeps saying this is just temporary, we need to do this right now to save the Republic, it is exactly the kind of tyranny that he had once fought against. And it feels a lot like what the Spanish did before him. So people think, what did we fight for? What did we spend for? What did we bleed for? And Bolivar, after Santander is gone, and it's kind of this breaking mechanism on the things that he does, it becomes increasingly intolerant of opposition. So you find that he starts chucking his political enemies in prison and press freedoms are curtailed.

38:28Anita:It is not a good look for the Liberator.

38:31William:It sounds a familiar story. Power corrupting.

38:35Anita:We'll leave it there and we'll pick up on how the autocrat manages in the next few years and how well this federation holds together. Until the next time we meet, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnon.

38:48William:And goodbye from me, William Durrumpel.

38:58William:It is out of control in the White House right now. Welcome to The Rest is Politics U.S.

39:05Anita:I'm Katty Kay.

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39:11Anita:They don't know how to manage Donald Trump.

39:14William:I talked to the people that organized the abduction. I'm telling you why they did it.

39:18Anita:The White House is in a bind, Anthony. Here's what I would say to you about FAFA. The chaos is the strategy. It should not have happened, and it is a violation of international law. Is he losing control of the party?

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39:43William:The big issue for the United States is going to be we were once seen as a benevolent superpower, and now we're seen as an aggressor.

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