A for and against review of Trump’s whirlwind visit to Ireland

23:25Absolutely, I will grant you that. And they thought cheaper goods, but they didn't look down at the bigger picture. Trump has brought back almost no manufacturing jobs because I'm a bit of a nerd. I go through these figures on a daily basis. Manufacturing jobs have dropped in real numbers since Trump became president. And it would have dropped more without him. And this is the important thing. Well, they went up during Biden. They went up during Biden, like, 335 ,000 jobs.

23:48Karl Deeter:The Biden stuff, a lot of that has to do with COVID drop-off. So look, there's a lot of weirdness around those states. That's not a good example, but continue. I'm just reporting what the US Bureau of Labor Relations says. Okay, Marion, can I get in there now? Yeah, that was a pretty good response to Carl. I just want to maybe finish up that by going. Marion's view there was that Trump tore up the JCPOA. There were regular inspections. They were keeping an eye on them. He tore it up. It was out of vanity because it was Obama. the same way he would like to tear up Obamacare because it's like Obama.

24:22That seems to be reasonable from Marion. And also, you didn't really, or at least it hasn't been answered that all the intelligence agencies said there was not any proof that Iran were two days, two weeks, or two months away from a nuclear weapon. Are you talking about last year or this time? I'm talking about this time. And also that they weren't two weeks away from a nuclear weapon. In 1989, 1995, 2003, 2011, when Netanyahu goes on television religiously and says, two weeks, they are two weeks away from... You can see what's happening here. It looks very dodgy, doesn't it, Carl?

25:01Karl Deeter:Yeah, well, look, I can concede that mistakes get made. And if you say, oh, well, a mistake like a war, I can concede that there can be mistaken wars. In fact, I actually think the majority war is quite often mistaken, and they're done for bad reasons and bad actors on all sides. I just have to go back to saying, though, when you're talking about Iran, beautiful country, wonderful people, you know, the heart of so much civilization, so much to offer the world and overseen by a horrific regime that killed upwards by some estimates of 30 ,000 of their own people earlier in the year. You're not going to find anybody arguing against that.

25:36Karl Deeter:But this is what I'm trying to say. So, but somehow that we also simultaneously hold the belief that they are honorable counterparts in any deal. Don't think so. That's the... Well, I'm glad we're clarifying that. So we're not, we're not. But they somehow, but they stick to their side. They are not honourable to deal with. And they don't stick to their side of the bargain. They do not stick to their side of the bargain. That's why they have to be held. To use a chess, to use a chess analogy, they have to be held in check the whole time. Yeah. So look, and then that's not to say that information doesn't get misread or that people look at something and say, look, if there's even a 5 % chance that they have, that they can obtain something that will destroy countless lives.

26:19Karl Deeter:You know, what is the risk? What is the calculus there? Now, no one's ever going to get that right. And if you look back through the history of international relations, even some of the best international relations presidents in the USA, Nixon, for instance, up there with the best of them, although he's remembered quite horrifically in popular terms, you know, he still wasn't getting everything right. and that's a difficulty. And then you say like Trump, he's trying to get favour with Xi Jinping. Well, the top two most powerful nations in the world, I'm not sure that's a good thing for them to be at loggerheads.

26:57Karl Deeter:I actually do think there's a way forward between the USA and China and I think if I had to choose an overarching way that I would prefer to live under the US version of the world at large rather than say the Chinese version. Nobody's disputing that. Again, so when he's trying to curry favour, like that's part of diplomacy. But importantly though when you get down to things like wars you know Trump also has done a very good job of mobilising Europe to start looking after itself. You know NATO wasn't being funded now everyone's doing the right thing. So Trump when you say he found on his foreign diplomacy is trash he actually is incredibly good on so many things.

27:32Karl Deeter:Only in a kind of a landlord kind of way. But you see the accidental thing is like he sees NATO as a delinquent tenant. But he was correct. It's correct. But that is correct. And he just says it. He admitted it's correct. But he says it in ways that infuriates people. No, no, no. No, and people agree. I think everyone agrees that NATO had a wake-up call coming. The EU had a wake-up call coming. You know, they were sleeping on the border. And, you know, when Putin invaded Ukraine, they were caught napping. But explain to me, and we didn't even get to Canada, for God's sake. We didn't, like, you know, the tearing up of that relationship.

28:07Go to Canada. I mean, Trump has basically been kicking around the EU, Canada, the UK, all of the American traditional allies and the Canadian thing. And, you know, I think it has, it may be to our, it's the reverse of collateral damage, isn't it? Trump is trying to trample on his allies, but it's actually helping them in a weird way because I think that Carney's speech, I think Mark Carney is a very brilliant leader. He was a very brilliant banker. He's just a very smart guy who can run rings around Trump. Another thing that probably enrages Trump and his fragile ego. But I do think that when he made that speech at Davos and he talked about the mid-sized nations and the mid-sized groups coming together and presenting their own competition and having their own global deals.

28:51And the way that Trump, you see, I also find that America has lost credibility because everyone knows the Iranians lie. Everyone knows they can't be trusted. But you could believe America on the global stage. Trump lies constantly, incessantly and for no good reason. He lied about the reason they walked out of the Canadian deal. He and Vance and that idiot, sorry, I nutlick, yes, I nearly said it and I did. You know, the fact is, as Carney said, they wanted sovereignty over Canada's power to make deals with other people. They were asking for impossible things. They wanted all kinds of nonsense.

29:24Karl Deeter:It was really about Canada's relationship with China and how a lot of the core ingredients for things that are damaging to the USA are coming through Canada. has its own right to manage that relationship. They do. And equally, the US has a right to manage theirs with Canada. That's the quid pro quo. Trump, back in 2018, claimed that he negotiated this brilliant new deal with Canada. The US... Yep. And then suddenly, it's the worst deal in the world. The Canadians are ripping us off. They're the worst trading partners. It's his deal. It's his deal. What do you say to that, Carl? But that's Trump all over.

29:57Karl Deeter:Trump is the kind of guy, if he says, look, let's strike a deal. Like, he loves the idea of deals. In fact, if you ever wanted to, If you ever wanted to say, like, here's, you know, what we're going to do, if you frame it as a deal, I'm sure you'll probably get further with the guy than if you didn't. Then you can look at how it's working and say, OK, it's a trash deal. And people say, but you made that deal. Ha ha, gotcha. And he's like, OK, I did. And now I'm changing it. But international treaties have to be honored. There has to be. Yeah. What about what about norms? And what about norms and understanding each other?

30:26Karl Deeter:His his thing is he puts America first and foremost in his mind. Now, you don't have to like that. America's doing terribly. Yeah. America's doing terribly. I spend a lot of time in America. It's great. I don't know. I spent years there, Carl. I'm sure you did. And I say it as somebody who really loves America and the American people. And it kind of guts me. The DC chatterbox machine is not America. You see, America's everything across the place. I was way outside that. So, you know, I'm just saying that the USA has outpaced Europe over the last 20 years. The USA is at the forefront of every cutting edge technology.

30:59Karl Deeter:The USA is doing a lot of wonderful things. you know, amazing advancements on every single facet. Now, you look at, say, things going with Canada, things going with the EU. Trump had looked at tariffs before and said, like, so when an EU car comes here, it's a 3 % tariff. When our cars go there, it's 12%. So I'm just going to, you know, regularize that. So it's 12 % for us too. And then the EU is like, you can't do that. He's talking to Canada. You know, he didn't like the deal. And I'm not saying it's right. I'm just saying the way he thinks is he'll say, okay, we're going to restructure that.

31:29Karl Deeter:And then Carney starts saying stuff like, today, we want to be like some kind of EU light partner. I'm like, you're actually mental. That is actually a really mental thing to do. If you can't trust your biggest trading partner to take the deal, why is it mental? Well, look, if your great plan for Canada is to go one direction to China and the other direction to Europe with massive oceans between them, logistically, I'm just telling you, you can like that because it's easy to say, but you've got to get the raw materials from one place to another and the actual trade. and the services doesn't work like that.

32:01It seems to be counterproductive to burn your very best friend over the last 100 years and it just seems counterintuitive. To what end? I don't understand what Trump was trying to achieve there other than he has a better deal for America. But you know, America... Doesn't mean they'll get it. What's going to happen now? 40 % of American lumber, American houses, 40 % of wood in every American house comes from Canada. Oil, energy, electricity, America. Maine, Michigan, parts of New York are relying on Canada to keep their lights on. So how is it a better deal what Trump has done? Here's the thing.

32:38Canada relies on the USA to keep their lights on. Can I just finish? If you negotiate a deal in good faith with a trading partner, I don't care if it's Canada, Ireland, England, China, there has to be a belief that you are going to adhere to that deal. Otherwise, what's the point? What is the point?

32:53Karl Deeter:The main pipeline from Canada that supplies Canadian oil to Toronto, Montreal, where the majority of the Canadian population lives, runs through the USA. So all I'm saying, if you want to talk about how people can mess each other up, I'll show you the pipeline. Why do it in the first place? Here's my point. I guess in a way, the Trump way of doing things isn't really about doing it as friends. He's a boisterous businessman who goes in to play for keeps. He's a president. He's the president of the United States. A duly elected president. I'm glad you acknowledge it. He's a duly elected president of the USA.

33:32So he's not a more thug, you know, commercial property developer anymore.

33:35Karl Deeter:Actually, I think you will find that loads of presidents were thugs. Roosevelt was a thug. Wilson, the biggest thug of them all. They didn't damage America and they didn't trash America's reputation to the degree that Trump has. Federal law 6102 introduced by FDR basically took the USA off the gold standard at$20 an ounce and revalued it to$35 and stole every drop of wealth from Europe in one fell swoop. That was a profoundly, profoundly criminal move. I actually don't know if it's executive order 6102. I'll have to look that up, but it was in the 6000s. That was a profoundly scumbag move. So I think you're just...

34:19Karl Deeter:You're going back a long way there. Well, no, I'm just saying, you're just not familiar with dirty tricks. You know, there's a strong history of American dirty tricks. I think I am. Well, then why can't you name them? How can you make it out that he's the only bad guy we've ever had? Nobody said that. I said that he goes around with this swaggering persona of the thug New York property developer. He is now the president of the United States. He seems to fail to understand that treaties are negotiated in good faith. It's in America's interest. It's in its reputational interest. it's in its business interest it's in its national security interest to adhere to fairly negotiated deals he does none of that Okay, that's good Marion and Carl I want to just change it slightly just to cultural Carl, you brought it up cultural restoration and it was just the aspect of it your outward projection into the outer world and we're just in the kind of the wake of the 9-11 commemoration and the anniversary, you know, the 25th anniversary.

35:22And, Carl, if you could come back on this after Marion, but I thought that his, as president, as you've both said, of the United States, his attitude, his demeanor, his statements, his public statements regarding that, particularly kind of inevitably making it about himself. were disappointing. Marion? Yeah, you know, I was there on 9-11. I was living in New York at the time I had to go down and cover it as part of my job. I was like every journalist. I thought when the first plane hit that it was a terrible accident. We all thought it was probably a biplane. By the time I got down there, the second plane it hit, we all knew it was no accident.

36:06And it was horrendous. And, you know, there's not a lot with Marion how George Bush prosecuted the war in Iraq afterwards are indeed a lot of what happened with Afghanistan. But I do think in the days that followed that he did his best to bring the country together. And Trump, despite his lies, and they are lies, in the interim was nowhere at the races around then. I remember all the businessmen who were down there and they were helping and they were doing things like the big restauranteurs, Daniel Ballou and all those. They had buffets laid out for the firemen. They had everybody was doing, from people giving blood to, there was such a pulling together of the city.

36:44And it was very moving and traumatic. It was a traumatic time for everyone who lived there. And I think Trump, you know, his boast that his tower was now the biggest tower in New York, which was his first thought when he went on some radio show in New Jersey afterwards. His subsequent claims that he was down there when he wasn't. His claims he sent men to work down there to clear the rubble when he didn't. You know, all of this stuff. I just think. But on the day, you know what? All he had to do was to show up in New York. He was a New Yorker and shared the stage with the other former presidents.

37:15You know, George W. Bush, Republican president. OK, Clinton, Obama, Biden, all Democratic presidents. So what? Barack Obama went over. I beg your pardon. Zoran Mandami went over and shook hands with Giuliani, who said he had no right to even be there. You know, there's a time for unity and there's a time to put aside pessimists. And I think the 25th anniversary was that time. Now, I don't know if it's true or not. I haven't been able to confirm it independently that he wouldn't go there because he wasn't allowed to make a speech. I thought the speeches at the Pentagon, and particularly Pete Heggs, were disgraceful.

37:50They were nothing short of the exploitation of what happened in 9-11, the exploitation and the attempt to weaponise the bravery and the unity of the country around that for his crass bungling of the war in Iran so far, to me, was just the most disgusting. and sadly in character displayed by a pretty, I think, disgusting human being. Carl, would you like to come back about Trump 9-11?

38:14Karl Deeter:Yeah, so look, I guess the whole thing is, like, does he make tons of faux pas? Yeah, I mean, I'll concede that point with anyone all day long. Which point? If you could, any time he's doing things... No, no, we're talking about 9-11. Around, and like saying that he had the tallest building there after 9-11? I was saying he was there. Pardon? Saying he was there and saying he was lifted out of the rubble by two firemen. Yeah, look, that's a total lie. But it's the same way that Biden lied about being in the civil rights marches when he wasn't... I don't think that's the same thing. ...invented his whole speech in his first presidential...

38:44Karl Deeter:No, what I'm saying is disgraceful lie. It's wrong. You're not going to find me endorsing that. Do presidents... But where does the lie come from? I don't know. How can somebody in that position lie so... One of the great cognitive dissonances in psychology is mind reading. and I can't even know why I think things certain times or why you think, I'm never going to know why you think. You'd accept it's a disgraceful, abhorrent lie. Oh, yeah. If that didn't happen and he said it did, then that's a disgraceful and abhorrent thing. You know, and then when you look at even the coverage of that anniversary, everyone could have taken a step to try and make it classy.

39:25Karl Deeter:You know, what did the left-leaning news outlets do? They went after Trump. What did the right-leaning outlets do? They went after Mamdami and AOC because they were laughing together. Now they were doing it maybe while people were crying and talking about families and stuff. Maybe not the best of timing, but you can't stop being human. You know, you can see someone and smile. You can actually be at a funeral and be happy. They greased each other. But you see the way that we see the way that there's a better way to do that. There's a better way for everyone. And the USA. Can I take an even a lot of partisan?

39:52Thanks. I've covered both on that. And thanks very much. Somebody was on the radio the other day saying something in common with a lot of people. and they said the last time they reckoned the United States was unified was 9-11. And since then, they've been rather divided, getting more divided all the time. So I want to finish this point. Of course. And that was that I actually have a kind of a little caveat about that. And that was, and this is probably Irk Carl particularly, but I don't particularly believe the behavior around 9-11, around 9-11, around 9-11 signified particular unity. I'll tell you what I mean.

40:31From the very moment that George Bush set foot on the rubble, all right, he took that loud hailer, he stood up on the rubble and he said, they will hear us, you're hearing me today, can you hear me, he said. And they all said, yeah. Well, you will hear me now and the rest of the world will hear us. Right? That was, we're going to war. And after that, it was USA, USA. Like the worst Ryder Cup chant you've ever heard. And I'm going, this is just chest thumping, War, more war again. So when you say unified, I didn't, this might be more provocative of me, but I didn't particularly see it as unified.

41:06I saw it as warmongering. I saw it as warmongering. And I saw George Bush's warmongering standing up there, doing what he did best, which was listening to Cheney and warmongering. I don't think another president, and I won't name them, there's no point in naming them, I think another president wouldn't have stood on the rubble, wouldn't have taken the light hailer, would have done something different and would have brought people together.

41:25Karl Deeter:A lot of presidents actually, like Bill Clinton day after he gets impeached goes in and starts bombing Serbia like sometimes it's actually used I believe as a political distraction it's really wrong I'm a fan of Bill Clinton for the most part minus maybe Epstein implications now but back in the day I thought he was he was decent despite being impeached etc I think that you know that urge towards war that's something Americans in particular are sick of especially so many Americans who have been in wars like my dad was in Korea he was there for four years he got out and he was on his way home and then Truman and gave him another two years.

41:57Karl Deeter:Everyone who was an act of service, get back into the war. And so back he goes to Korea. How horrific is that? Americans don't actually like war, even though the American machine seems to love it. And what did Bush do? He not only put the USA into a war that was unwinnable because there was no clear definition of what victory looked like, but the Afghan war was actually the longest running war in US history. From the very start of the USA, from the very first night of Paul Revere until today, that's the longest, the most expensive, one of the most pointless of all the wars there's ever been. And what has it done?

42:28Karl Deeter:You've created a nation that has been heavily radicalized and run by the worst people. And folks say, well, you know, the USA created the Talbot. I'm not even interested in any of that. I'm just saying that war never should have taken place. That was a pointless war. It was so, so misguided. And there, Mary? Yeah, you know, I'm going to refer to, actually, a weird anecdote has come into my mind. I was friends with a FBI agent, very, very super, super smart woman. and her partner was one of the people who was sent out to Tora Bora early on in the war to go and find Bin Laden. They knew he was there.

43:03And bizarrely, we used to hang out in Elaine's on the Upper East Side and we'd be hanging out there and her phone would go and it would be your man out in Tora Bora going, who are you with? Who are you drinking with? I've got to find out and I come back, you bitch. And one time, another friend of mine took the phone and said, hey, listen, asshole, our tax dollars are paying 400 cents, 400 dollars a second for this phone. go and find Bin Laden and F off and put the phone down. But that was one of the more bizarre moments. But Ron Suskin wrote a terrific book, and I'm sure you've read it, about how that Trump knew, I beg your pardon, Bush knew very, very soon after 9-11 that Bin Laden had fled to Tora Bora and some of the Afghan warlords and the Pakistanis said, we can go in and get him and we can deliver him to you.

43:48You don't have to start bombing. We can deliver him to you. and they wouldn't trust them and they wouldn't let them do it and they said, no, no, it's war. And I do remember when I was reporting that it was about three weeks after 9-11 and the CIA was getting hammered by everyone and I phoned up to get a comment from the CIA about something, the latest, how they had dropped the ball and this agent, and her name was Anya Giesler and she said, you can use my name. And she said, we warned them and this was before the memo was reported, Bin Laden determined to strike US. And he said, we warned them.

44:22He said, one of our guys went to Crawford and told him that this threat was real and Dick Clark, the country's terrorist in Sir Andrew Clinton, was apparently pulling his hair out and saying you're not taking this seriously for the whole eight months. So they knew and they managed to cover that up very, very quickly that the negligence of Bush from the time he came in to that threat and I think the best way for them to cover that was then to get into the war as quickly as possible and pound the bejesus out of Afghanistan. So I think that that was one of those things. And I think Karl's absolutely right in that.

44:52There was no need for that war. There was certainly no need for the war in Iraq either. And the lives, the 5 million lives, 4 million directly, 1 million directly that were lost because of this, it's really awful. I want to pivot to one more thing, right? And that is, Leo Varadkar was in the news there recently for comments he made about Trump, which just became, because he's a former prime minister, so that became interesting. And so he described Trump as being, you know, quite intelligent, quite manipulative, but extremely incurious and extremely unknowledgeable. From my perspective, looking around at this for the last 10 years, that makes sense.

45:29He is cunning. He has a primordial kind of back against the wall, kind of prehistoric kind of cunning, looking out for him, making sure that he's OK and kind of that kind of instinct you need. but he does demonstrate serious lack of knowledge on all areas maybe barring things like NFL which he seems to watch religiously and basketball MMA

45:52Karl Deeter:he watches a lot of basketball he doesn't really know much about MMA either basketball he seems to know a good bit about NFL he watches seems to watch it on Sunday and Monday nights religiously so he doesn't have any knowledge about anything maybe marble and granite or types of marble and granite I think he's extremely questioned about knowledge or ability to play golf. But my question to Carl was this. So based on Varadkar's comments about incuriosity and lack of knowledge, it seems that one of the things he lacks a fundamental grasp of is economics. Not only macroeconomics, but public finances, things like deficits, balance of trade, trading with other nations.

46:37in heading into the midterms he's offered Americans$5 ,000 for each adult citizen if they vote for the Republicans and if the Republicans win the Congress and Senate. This is to suggest that if the Congress is not won by the Republicans he will not give them the$5 ,000. The$5 ,000 is predicated on them winning. What do you think of the idea of offering as a bribe which is apparently illegal in the American Constitution? It's illegal to offer a voter a bribe to vote for you.

47:05Karl Deeter:It's a bigger, badder version of what Fianna Fáil and Fianna Gael broadly do here with our corporation tax surplus. Short answer. I don't want a short answer, Carl. You're going to have to sue me. You bitch. Get in there, Carl. Wade around in the 5K shite. Yeah, so I like, look, politicians buy votes and they do it everywhere. That is an outlandish idea. The USA has a, the US debt is now 40 trillion. That to me is a worrisome thing. the levels of misspending in the USA are monster. Like there has been scandal after scandal recently in Los Angeles of palliative home cares that don't exist in Minnesota of child mining facilities where there's no kids.

47:53Karl Deeter:There has been scandals around, you know, welfare, prison service, education, you name it. There is massive expenditure scandals. and some people even believe that you know that if they just got rid of the bad spending that is being sequestered by you know the people behind these various schemes some of who are now facing federal charges that you know that that would nearly balance the books i don't think that's true i think basically the u.s being such a massive place and third biggest population in the world they need to get the economy which is still performing well versus say europe and many other economies to work better for people so that the American dream is achievable and that the government doesn't try to fill the gap every time the full American dream doesn't get achieved and get back to what I think the USA did great which was to allow people to advance far beyond the station that they would have advanced to had they remained say where they started off in life.

48:52Thanks Marion. Marion, 5k will it work? Will the Republicans win the Congress and or sorry will the Republicans lose the Congress and the Senate, do you think? I think they will certainly lose the Congress. I think the Democrats are being a bit bloody careless with these Senate races. There's one in New Hampshire that they're holding the seat at the moment and if they don't get their act together, they could lose that seat to the Republicans. The one in Michigan as well, Pete Buttigieg, I've said it before, should run for that seat. Now, I abhor the attacks on Abdel al-Sayed. I think he's a terrific public servant.

49:26He's a really smart guy and I think the way they've gone after him is disgusting because he is an American Muslim that is the basis of the attacks on him by and large. But I think that was a mess by the Democrats. If you just want to win, Pete Buttigieg running for president again in 2028, which he will, is a nonsense. He's never going to get the nomination and if he did he wouldn't win. Because he's gay? Because he's gay. I mean this is America, we have to live in the real world. And a woman wouldn't either. A lot of people still feel that they're not ready for a woman president. Honestly I despair.

49:56I really do because I think that there is such resistance to that but I think Buttigieg would have picked up that seat in Michigan it would have been his for the taking and he's so articulate and he's so smart he would have been a formidable voice in the Senate he was kind of useless

50:08Karl Deeter:as a transport I don't think he was useless but I think it was I think he was given the wrong folio to shine I think so and this is now I'm just saying I am obviously as partisan towards Republicans as mine would be towards Democrats I don't think I'm partisan towards Democrats I have a lot of I think Democrats are going to a lot of stuff I will say objectively I've never heard you say anything good about Republicans. She used to be on with Cal Thomas and he took the Republican side, you took the Democrat side. Cal and I agree on a lot of stuff. I missed a miss. You know what? I think that by and large, I by and large probably would be more liberal than conservative.

50:41I'll give you that. But I think that there have been some terrific Republican politicians who I personally got on really well with and really admired. I don't see them at the moment.

50:49Karl Deeter:I don't see them at the moment. But Buttigieg wasn't given an opportunity to shine. But I will say, you know, the thing I see with the Democrats is they seem to be a party that is fixated on kind of the things that aren't important to most Americans. I think they've gone too far to the left. I think America is by and large a traditionally centrist country with strong conservation roots of the society that they've built. And that feeds in towards a strong kind of Republican leaning grassroots foundation. The other thing is, you know, people have voted against candidates based on their religion many times.

51:22Karl Deeter:Like if you look, Catholics didn't get a clear run in the USA for a long time. You couldn't get into an Ivy League school if you were a Catholic. But not only that, they did a poll during the Obama-Romney race and it actually showed that over 70 % of voters would not vote for Mitt Romney because he was a Mormon. So, you know, it's not just the Muslim thing. 70 % to Democratic voters? It was a poll and it was like around 7 and 10 said that they were uncomfortable voting for Romney. Where the Republicans are. I don't remember if it broke it down, if it was based on who you support. Like, I bring comprehensive notes, but I don't have that one.

51:55Karl Deeter:But it was an astounding number. I was like, wow, why would someone care about being a Mormon? Mormons are great people, you know, and, but yeah, it worked against them. He still came very close, I think. I mean, he wasn't trounced. I mean, the way it worked out. No, no, it was a good performance. You know, I... He was a very good governor. And I'll tell you, I was actually convinced Obama first time around, man, I was Obama all the way. And by the time that race came around, I was Romney all the way. I think Romney's a decent guy. Oh, the more you see of Romney, the more you like. I think he had principles.

52:22I think he was somebody who could have been a good president. Would have been a decent president.

52:25Karl Deeter:I think America should have chosen him. I think we'd be living in a different world now because one thing I would say, the greatest enabler of the Trump phenomenon or the Trump aesthetic to me was actually the second term of Obama. That's when people started to turn towards that more, you know, hardline side. It was the tan suit. Tea party. Yeah, I blame the tan suit. The tan suit. The moment he put that on, How could he have done it? So listen, I want to finish now and I want to stop and I'm going to say two things, right? One, so I've known you both for a long time, right? And I really admire both of you.

52:54I'm bringing her to lunch sometime. Okay. I'd love to go for lunch. I'm buying. I do, by the way, love

53:02Karl Deeter:being able to debate with someone and not actually fight with them. This is it. This is my favourite thing. This is what I do. And I knew Carl would be the right, I knew Carl and you would go well together because Carl, sorry, wait, Mary, Carl, I've been, you know, friendly with Carl for years right and you know I just I like there's a lot I would kind of disagree with him about but I love talking to him about stuff and also I do agree with a lot of things you said but I say but I love talking to you as well and I just wanted to try the chemistry between you and I love the two of you together It's terrific I've really enjoyed this chat Carl and you know what I think as well it's so great to be able to disagree and it's not personal it's not like you've we've different views But also Carl brings some receipts and like the problem I have with you and Mary I'm talking full of them.

53:44Marion, if I could talk out of school at the moment, the problem I have with you and Cal just sometimes at the moment is you make your point and Cal goes, yeah, but what about Bill Clinton? He... And you're going, hang on now, Cal. You stop it right now. My friend Cal, I'm going to defend. No, but I know Cal. Cal is noble. Cal is decent. He's a terrific human being. But I just feel that he does too much water battery. A lot of Republicans do it in general. it's the Republican disease no matter what you say about Trump they'll go what about Biden that's what I'm saying and it drives me in the nuts but it's not just so anyway I want to thank you both for coming in and the last thing I was going to say is I've got about 11 things here written down that I'd love to talk about and I wonder would you come in some other time to do it again before or after our lunch will we take him for lunch I'll bring him we'll bring him me and I will go to lunch we and him do lunch I bet you do will you do it again sometime I'd love to thank you Thank you, Karl.

54:43Thank you, Marion. OK.

54:47And my thanks to Marion and Carl Dieter for coming in and discussing Trump's visit and all things Trump. I really enjoyed the debate, as I said, and I asked them both at the end if they'd come back in at some stage to do it again. And they both agreed and they both enjoyed talking to each other. My thanks, of course, to you. The most important element of this podcast, the listener. Please get in touch with me, mariorosenstock at gmail.com. and of course my thanks to Hum our great sponsor for making it all possible Folks, I'll see you same time, same place next week The Maria Roselstock Podcast Thanks to Hum Finance made easy when you shop tech, electrical, appliances kitchens and much more Flexify Europe Limited Trading as Hum is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland