Q&A: Trump's tantrum, the Midterms and Lewis getting the sh*t kicked out of him

14:51Lewis Goodall:Well, that's quite a long geographic expanse.

14:53Jon Sopel:Anyway, I'm going to just, if you hear me sort of smacking my lips as I ask this question, you'll understand why. Lewis, I've noticed some of the criticism of your Keir Starmer documentary on Channel 4 last week. Really? Do you think this criticism has been fair or an overreaction? And before you come to this, Lewis, I just thought I'd kind of add a couple of comments that have been made about it. When is Lewis going to do the same hatchet job on Farage? Has Lewis finished slating Starmer? Lewis, good old Channel 4 hit job, is part of a nasty media pylon just to get clicks. Disgusted to learn about your involvement in the Channel 4 programme.

15:33Jon Sopel:Shall I continue? Please. I think I will. Yeah. Why not attack Farage? Very disappointed. Lewis Goodall is toughing it out, but has blown all his credibility. I'm really relishing this. Shush, Lewis. I think you'll find you should be calling him Sir Keir or the Prime Minister, not Starmer. No respect.

15:51Lewis Goodall:That's my favourite one.

15:52Jon Sopel:I'm listening to today's newsagents in the hope of an apology from Lewis Goodall for his biased Channel 4 documentary and still waiting.

16:01Lewis Goodall:You missed one of the best ones yesterday, which was, Lewis, why are you punching down? He's the Prime Minister. Is it possible to punch down at the Prime Minister? And also the accusations that I'm... Also, it's news to me as well, but apparently this is the start of my arc from news agents to GB News to Daily Mail to Nigel Farage's reformed spokesperson, which frankly, hey, it's an arc I'm looking forward to watching.

16:25Jon Sopel:So, OK, so I watched the documentary and I thought, it's a documentary. And there are people who are saying that Keir Starmer does good things and there are people saying that Keir Starmer does... That's some live feedback, brilliant. Bad things. were you surprised at the reaction it provoked and what does it tell us i think it's really interesting what does it tell us about our media landscape our kind of the way we've become polarized unable to accept criticism of those people that we think you know are our heroes

16:54Lewis Goodall:look i mean i should preface all this by saying you know what i mean um and in this job you get used to it you know criticism of journalists completely fair enough and anyone is completely entitled to criticise the programme, the conclusions, the premise of it. Totally fair enough. I think, nonetheless, I do think some of the criticism was, or some of the sort of activity around it was very interesting. I both found it surprising and not surprising. The way I found it surprising is, is that I always thought, because Keir Starmer, you know, for all of his many virtues, you know, that he does have, because he's a bit of a vibeless kind of politician, I didn't think that he had a big sort of, especially large, online following, the sort of like that you see with Farage or with Boris Johnson or certainly Trump or anyone like that.

17:39Lewis Goodall:But I discovered that there was a huge number of kind of Keir Starmer stans out there who all refer to him as SKS, sort of like notorious Ruth Bader Ginsburg or something like that, or AOC, sort of setting him up in that vein, which I suppose is quite sort of gratifying for him. But it didn't surprise me in the sense that we also on this show get a version of this criticism, which is I think that quite a lot of the criticism that there was were people who were basically saying and annoyed with me, who they perceive as basically being a kind of liberal journalist who would broadly be aligned with them.

18:17Lewis Goodall:they seem far more annoyed and irritated by my doing it than say if it had been another journalist that they would have sort of less time for it's almost like you're sort of it's almost like you're betraying them people were using that language you're betraying them and they're doing it because and they say that partly because and by the way most of those people they were open I'm not watching this documentary I'm not watching it I don't want to watch it but I'm going to judge it anyway which is something that's very common in our online discourse today but one of the reasons I think they felt that way and they articulated it in these terms is to say Lewis don't you understand what the stakes are here you know if you criticize Keir Starmer you who we believe to be on our side by criticizing him by engaging in this don't you realize what you're doing you're opening the door for the far right or you're opening the door for Nigel Farage how could you possibly be so stupid and then they think and then they take it a step further which is to say which I think is deeply obviously conspiratorial and wrong.

19:14Lewis Goodall:Ah, the only reason he must be doing this is because, and people use these terms, his palm is being graced with silver, that he is being bribed or he's being paid off in some way. Whereas, of course, all of this is sort of nonsense because actually what you are doing, all you're doing is you're committing an act and that act is called journalism, which requires critical scrutiny on every side and especially on those in power. It made me laugh. So many people were saying, well, you just read some of that about John. where's your program about Farage? Where's your program about Liz Truss? Where's your program about Boris Johnson?

19:48Lewis Goodall:Well, A, I seem to recall doing plenty of programs about Liz Truss and Boris Johnson in a highly critical way. And B, they are not currently the prime minister. And just to add in just quickly, I mean, there seemed to be something that really surprised me about it. And I think what it speaks to is just that, you know, and again, I say again, like perfectly fine to criticize, but it just reminded me that, you know, look, online life, online life, what it does is it does create these quite hermetically sealed bubbles. And what surprised me about it, it reminded me a bit of, you know, the sort of thing you would get when Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader and people would sort of attack you for doing pieces about him.

20:27Lewis Goodall:But actually, I think a lot of this online reaction went one step further because it was so vitriolic. They basically, because when you used to sort of, Corbyn people used to attack you, they wouldn't deny that Corbyn was unpopular. They would just say, well, it's a media ecosystem, capitalist ecosystem which he's seeking to destroy and which has made him unpopular, perfectly legitimate arguments to make. But a lot of these people online reminded me, quite frankly, a little bit of the kind of Magalot and things like that because they weren't just saying you're attacking him they were denying the idea that Keir Starmer is unpopular in the first place.

20:56Lewis Goodall:Now this is just mad, right? And they're attacking people like Luke Trill and pollsters, sort of faking and massaging the figures. What it reminded me of is that online life even these people who I think would consider themselves sort of liberal educated progressive voters who sort of mock people MAGA people and and and mock the kind of reformed people as being kind of radicalized and cultish and so on frankly I think online life does that to politicize people of all stripes so I I mean it's such a

21:27Jon Sopel:interesting and slightly worrying phenomenon that you know what we're doing is journalism you are not a party hack I am not a party hack I am not a member of a political party I haven't been a member of a political party since i was a student when i went into journalism i thought it was incompatible with being party pre i remember when i was in america and i you know covered the first trump administration and i was you know very critical of an awful lot that trump did biden becomes the president there is then that fiasco over the withdrawal of american troops from afghanistan i wrote these unbelievably trenchant pieces about what an absolute catastrophe yes failure this is by biden no planning no organization his you know impetuous decision to do this and i suddenly get all the trump supporters well you see you don't think he's what's happening you know see you we've changed your view now i haven't changed my view i'm holding those in power to account that is our job and just to take it one step further the the phenomenon that you found of people saying well hang on it's an act of treachery or it's disloyal because you're a liberal journalist so what should we do lewis and i say we leave the studio today we come across or we're made aware of this appalling scandal of corruption at the heart of this government no i'm not i'm just saying this purely hypothetically by the way and there's no conspiracy going on here at all should we just kind of cross the street and not examine it should we not do the kind of oh hang on what's going on here let's try and find out about this.

23:02Jon Sopel:We're driven by what is a good story and what kind of and if people in power are behaving in a way that is not commensurate with their position as the prime minister it's our job to talk about that. If they're not popular it's our job to talk about why they might not be popular. That is not an act of treachery that is reporting the truth and we'll do it whether it's a conservative government, a Labour government, a Republican president, a Democrat president or even God help us a reformed prime minister.

23:31Lewis Goodall:It reminded me of a little bit of the experience, I think, that Jake Tapper had, the American journalist, when he wrote his book about Joe Biden. Yeah. And, you know, the main reaction to that from the again, it was fury from sort of progressive liberal sort of saying, well, you know, again, anyone talking about Biden's health, it's the same thing. You're opening the door to Trump. But this is part of my sort of overall theory, right, which is that, you know, I think the space for journalism has got smaller and smaller and smaller because what journalism requires, it requires basically some sort of kind of neutral ground where there is an expectation that essentially those involved in it are not aligned and where people are willing to have their own beliefs, at least to some extent, challenged and not instantly believe that the journalists involved must either be themselves aligned or somehow on the take, right?

24:26Lewis Goodall:Because as soon as you believe that, it reminds me a bit on the other way, it's like when everywhere I do on the Sunday show for LBC and I sort of give a Labour cabinet minister a really tough time and we put the clip out and I get all these sort of hard right accounts or sort of sometimes like, you know, radical right accounts going God, even Goodall's having a go at them today. God, what's he had for breakfast? Like, no, you're so close to getting it, aren't you? You're so close to getting it. It's called journalism and it's just that thing where, you know, it is something that would once have been obvious I would say even 20 years ago but now seems to challenge people's fundamental assumptions I mean I think one of the reasons I think people seem so irritated by that documentary is that for example we didn't I think people feel and I think there's some legitimacy to this Keir Starmer has had a really tough press I think that's true you know the press has been probably even for a Labour Prime Minister unusually hostile and so all of these people convinced themselves that his only problem is about his press, something we did put in the documentary.

25:23Lewis Goodall:But ultimately, you know, twas ever thus, right? Twas ever thus, particularly with Labour Prime Minister. It's a great story, just briefed a great story of Harold Wilson when he was Prime Minister, who actually dealt with the press reasonably well. But when he was one night looking over the House of Commons Terrace, looking over the Thames, and one of his MPs was complaining to him about some coverage he'd got in the Daily Mail, and he just sort of looked over and he said, you know, if I just walked over there right now, I'm just looking over the Thames. I'm looking over the Thames, and if I just walked over the water right now, you know what the Daily Mail would write that up next day?

25:55Lewis Goodall:Prime Minister can't swim.

25:57Jon Sopel:You know, like, so it's like... OK, I think your sourcing on that story is incorrect. Really? Go on. I think it's LBJ. If I walked across the Potomac River one morning, the headline would be President can't swim. Well, well, how well...

26:11Lewis Goodall:Someone copied who, didn't they? Harold or LBJ.

26:14Jon Sopel:We need to get to the bottom of this. Someone in the live comments can say.

26:19Lewis Goodall:it's just a roundabout way of saying is that you know what, the press is always hostile to Prime Ministers, it's always especially hostile to Labour Prime Ministers, you have to invent a way to get around it something that Keir Starmer has actually got a great opportunity to do because the press on paper should be less powerful than it's ever been because there's a podcast and there's a whole ecosystem around it, for example wink wink, so there's a great opportunity to do it he hasn't been very good at doing it so far I didn't hear the word sorry

26:42Jon Sopel:sorry? sorry for what? I felt there was good news and bad news in that documentary as far as I was concerned it was great news to see Lewis you know getting the shit kicked out of him, that was the really good bit the shit kicked out of me, there's today's title the bad news was it just didn't feel justified, anyway we'll move on

27:05Jon Sopel:from a range of trusted voices and award winning journalists good morning I'm Nick Ferrari, it's time to get to your calls find out the latest news and hear every side of the story. But we're dealing with some people that I find to be very reasonable, very solid. We have a very serious chance of making a deal. The day on which almost all of the world recognized that Donald Trump is a deranged liar. So what on earth happens next? The fallout of the Iran war. Follow it live on LBC. Listen on our free global player app or the LBC app. Who doesn't love warm, carby comfort? satisfying sandwiches, loaded bagels, rich mac and cheese.

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28:13Lewis Goodall:The News Agents.

28:15Jon Sopel:Rachel Stamp has a question. Love the podcast. Thank you. If the Republicans lose control of Congress in the midterms, what difference will it make, given that Trump seems to be operating with complete disregard for Congress at the moment? Will there be any more checks and balances? Just trying to assess how much longer the world has to wait for sanity to be restored.

28:37Lewis Goodall:um look i think i mean for a start this it looks like an increasingly credible prospect right i mean it's always a very good chance uh assuming the elections went ahead in even a vaguely fair way that the democrats would take the house the republicans have basically already lost their majority as a result of special elections and so on the senate looked tougher but if you look at the polling right now the sort of generic ballot polling i mean trump is polling appallingly and is there any surprise i mean last night he in his sort of you know latest rambling press conference He basically went on air and said, look, you know, if you think you want your Medicaid and your Medicare paid for and your child daycare paid for, well, good luck because we've got a lot of wars to fight.

29:14Lewis Goodall:You know, this from the peace president, you know, like he just sounds increasingly deranged. Americans from the very start of the year have been concerned that he's too interested in foreign adventurism and not on prices. So what was Donald Trump's response? Well, it was to kidnap the leader of Venezuela and to launch the biggest military incursion in the Middle East for 20 years. So no surprise that he's polling terribly badly and looks increasingly deranged. I think that assuming the Dems take one or both houses that we saw this play out before. Right. We had exactly the same pattern in the first Trump administration.

29:44Lewis Goodall:The House will bog him down in investigations. Domestically speaking, his presidency will be over. But then again, to be honest, domestically speaking, his presidency is already sort of over. I mean, you know, we're used to American presidents, particularly in the second term, particularly in the second half of their second term, usually when they've lost control of Congress, getting more and more involved and interested in foreign policy adventure. That has come early to Washington. And I suspect that the net result of it will be that he becomes even more interested in leaving his mark, God help us, on the rest of the world.

30:15Jon Sopel:I think, Rachel, it's such an interesting question, because I think that what happens is it's not just that the president loses the House or loses the Senate. It's that you lose authority simultaneously. And people will, if this happens in November, that Trump loses the House and the Senate, then what will happen is that there'll be a seeping away of authority. People will already be looking to the 2028 presidential election. Who's going to be the front runner? Is it going to be Rubio? Is it going to be Vance? Is it going to be someone different altogether? And I think that's the moment when you might discover that senators and congressmen and women have found their backbone and will be saying, no, hang on.

30:59Jon Sopel:Well, we can't do this because at the moment you look at what's happening in America today, where, you know, the price of gas is now on average over four dollars a gallon across the country. That was always seen as a kind of Rubicon that mustn't be crossed as far as Donald Trump was concerned. Well, it's gone up and the price will go higher still, given what is still unfolding in Iran. There is an affordability crisis. It's going to affect growth. So you might suddenly see pushback on tariffs and other policies which have been nodded through by Republicans until now. If that all changes, I think that Donald Trump's domestic policies and even his desire for foreign adventurism, given the chaos that has been wrought with this Iran adventure where he says, you know, OK, we've we've obliterated them.

31:49Jon Sopel:I know I know the Strait of Hormuzzi is shut and I know that's a bit of a problem. It's a bloody huge problem for the whole world, but everyone else can sort that out. I just don't think people will tolerate that. And I think that Donald Trump will find that his wings are clipped and that, you know, having been surrounded by people who just say, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever you want, Mr. President, whatever you want you want me to jump high how high i think that will change if the if the midterm

32:14Lewis Goodall:elections go the other way it's certainly true that congress has been um possibly in its most supine points in its modern political history i mean it's been easy to forget that under the american constitution the three branches of government are supposed to be co-equal indeed congress is the first branch of government because it's in article one of the constitution so you know and that's exactly how the founders anticipated it would be that congress probably day-to-day in reality should be and ought to be the most powerful branch. It has felt anything but that. It's essentially been more or less a rubber stamp in the second Trump term.

32:45Lewis Goodall:I suppose the only thing, though, John, I'd say is that in terms of the Republican Party is that even though Trump's authority, I think you're right, I think it's going to be crippled by this war. I think Iran is Trump's Katrina. I think it is going to permanently lessen his authority over the American political system because it will be, I think it's proving as with each passing day to show just a profound lack of judgment. And not just judgment. I use Katrina rather than Iraq specifically. Well, I was going to use another comparison. Go on. Suez.

33:16Jon Sopel:Yes. Is this America's Suez? Well, that would be even bigger, yes. Of imperial overreach, where you think you're still a major power and you're a fading power and you're undermined permanently as Britain and France were after Suez.

33:28Lewis Goodall:Well, I think it could be both, right? So it could be America's Suez, but Trump's Katrina in the sense that... Katrina specifically, because it's not just that it's kind of, it's not just it sort of exposes his weakness, but also because Katrina, one of the problems with it was how Bush was seen to respond to it. And although obviously, unlike Katrina, this is something Trump has elected to do, he has seemed almost like a Bourbon king, you know, in Versailles, you know, as his ballroom is sort of put up and they're not put up anymore. And that seems to be what he's most concerned with day to day.

34:01Lewis Goodall:Trump has always, one of the sort of, you know, I think for those of us who don't like Trump, one of the things that we've always found difficult to understand is how it can be that this guy who is a plutocrat and how he is, you know, completely removed from the sort of day-to-day life of ordinary people, nonetheless, absolutely, has often struck the sort of deepest chord with working class Americans who really feel like the guy understands them. And to some extent, I think particularly culturally, he does understand them. But I think this is showing, I think that he's showing, I think it's that the longer that he's been in power, all of those instincts and reflexes have sort of ossified and he's becoming almost a truer version of himself.

34:39Lewis Goodall:And he does. He looks like Louis XVI sat on his throne, not giving a damn about prices, not giving a damn about sort of how this is affecting ordinary Americans. What does he say? What does he say when people ask him about, you know, the petrol at the pump or the prices in the shop? He says, it's worth it. It's worth it. It ain't worth it if you're living on the bread line and you're living on food stamps. And that is what their president is saying to them.

34:57Jon Sopel:I looked at Truth Social last Sunday and there were two posts that had been posted simultaneously by Trump. One about the war and justification of the war in Iran and what he was doing and he was going to obliterate and all the rest of it. And there was one directly congratulating some guy who'd won a regional golf tournament and he's played really well. He doesn't care anymore. He doesn't care. Which is occupying more of his brain space at the moment? Iran or probably having sat and watched golf for two and a half hours and who won the tournament at the end of it?

35:28Lewis Goodall:Callum Wheeler has a question which says polling in the UK increasingly suggests a deep divide in the electorate with reform and Greens polling well do you think the shift away from the census the more extreme ends of the political spectrum is down to British people becoming more ideological or more to do with a deep distrust of politicians I think the distrust

35:46Jon Sopel:of politicians is really profound I mean I think it's probably a mixture of all those things combined but you know you look at the last general election and the combined vote for Labour and Conservative was something like 57%. If you look at the latest polling now of Labour and Conservative, it's what, you know, 35 %?

36:08Lewis Goodall:You don't have to go back to 2017, it's over 80%. Yeah, exactly.

36:11Jon Sopel:And, you know, 1945, it was 86%. 2019, 75%. So the hold that the two main parties have had of our politics has eroded a bit over time, but nothing like what we've seen over the past two years where we have seen the emergence of multi-party politics, where actually the two dominant parties at the moment in polling terms are almost the Greens and Reform, and Labour and Conservatives are languishing kind of in third and fourth place. And that is a very big change in our politics. I kind of hesitate because you look at what happened in the French municipal elections the other week and you saw a bit of a move back.

36:53Jon Sopel:And like France has been ahead of the curve on us, on extremist politics, where you've seen the far left grouping and you've seen the Rassemblement National, Marine Le Pen's party. And yet, in the most recent elections, you saw a slight move back towards centre-left and centre-right. And it's perfectly possible that the same could happen here. I think we're still a long way away from an election, but the current trajectory seems to be, and good luck to anyone doing an exit poll in the next general election, when you've got in some constituencies, six parties, seven parties, and trying to figure out how that shakes down is going to be impossibly difficult.

37:32Lewis Goodall:The truth is, is that right now all the parties in British politics are deeply unpopular, or at least none of them have anything close, even to a strong plurality of the percentage of the vote. And this is why, actually, contrary to this one for all the SKS fans out there, I still think that Labour's prospects in the next election are underpriced for reasons I'll get on to. I think just in terms of answering the question directly, I don't think the electorate has become more ideological I think that the electorate has become more and more exasperated with the perceived mainstream centre parties for failing to deliver what they keep trying to affect which is change you know you can tell a story of at least the last 10 years of British politics arguably longer which is the electorate keep doing more and more radical things they keep pulling the change lever and not quite getting what they wanted and asked for.

38:22Lewis Goodall:And they're burning through their options. So, you know, let's just go back to 2010. You know, you get a Conservative minority government that ends up as a coalition. That ends up as a Conservative, briefly as a majority government, pledging to get an EU referendum. Then we get the Brexit referendum, watching change there. 2017, Jeremy Corbyn. Jeremy Corbyn gets 40 % of the vote. 2019, Boris Johnson gets a large, large percentage of the vote. Boris Johnson, of all people, pledging to get Brexit done. On 2024, we get Labour with a big, albeit rather shallow, majority. It feels like each time that the electorate, as I say, are pulling the change lever and not quite getting what they want.

38:59Lewis Goodall:And what do they want by that? I think what they want. And I think a lot of there's a lot of analysis about this and a lot of sort of political discourse, which actually overcomplicates it. I think the electorates are desperate for material improvement to their lives. We have gone through a 20 year period, pretty much now, unprecedented since the Napoleonic Wars, where living standards have stagnated. I actually think it's astonishing how much support for the main parties there still remains, given that they have both in their own ways overseen this stagnation and decline, which is, as I say, unprecedented.

39:30Jon Sopel:Going back to Callum's question, I would add one other factor into this about why. And I think that's social media. I think that we live in an age now where people want instant gratification and kind of can't understand why you can't have, you know, a simple solution to a really complex problem. Why can't we have growth? Why can't we have it? And I think that people's patience levels for letting things take their course. And Lewis, I know you'd sympathise with me hugely about the plight of Tottenham Hotspur right now. The fact that we're on our third manager this season.

40:02Lewis Goodall:Bloody hell, man. God. God. It's a game of two halves, isn't it? Thank you.

40:07Jon Sopel:There's absolutely nothing about football. But I mean, there you have it. You know, one of the big clubs facing relegation. And we're just burning through managers because, no, he's not doing it right. Let's get another one. Well, let's get another one. And I think it's in every walk of life in a funny kind of way that people feel dissatisfaction. They want instant solutions. They get very angry very quickly. And there is just no hang on, guys. You can't just do this overnight.

40:32Lewis Goodall:I do agree with that. And I do think that, you know, the pace of politics is now basically on dog years and and and everything is much faster. And I think the electorates, it is a sort of weird tension with the electorate, which is that they're once more cynical about politics and the democratic system that they've ever been. but probably their expectations of it are also probably higher than they've ever been. And their patience, as you say, John, is probably lower than it's ever been. But I would just say that you could tell a slightly different story, which, as I say, could argue that the patient, the electorate has been extremely patient because they've basically been waiting for the system to deliver them economic improvements in their lives, which they basically haven't had since 2008, which is a very, very long time ago.

41:08Lewis Goodall:But I think that, you know, to go back to your point about, you know, the exit poll and what the next election will look like. I mean you know basically it feels like actually what we're heading towards never mind the French we're heading to like Scandinavian style kind of election where you basically have a red block and you've got a blue block or sort of you know left block and a right block and and basically everybody kind of knows that going into the election and everybody holds their nose in each in particular seat and vote for the best chance within that block of keeping the other lot out it's going to be as if we have an election right now it would basically be do you want Farage as prime minister or not which is why labour i think it's probably slightly better place than it feels right now because inevitably they would be the leader of that left non-farage coalition let's

41:48Jon Sopel:take this question uh from joe um after the knesset passed their palestinian death penalty law and they're seemingly going uncriticized by most western governments uh maloney and italy aside do you think there is a red line that israel could actually cross to lose the support of their western

42:06Lewis Goodall:allies. I'll just answer one sentence. I think in European terms, Israel has already lost a great, great deal of support. If you think about what's happened with Palestine and the recognition of the Palestinian state, then I think the reputation of Israel certainly in Europe, but also increasingly in the United States, astonishingly, is much lesser than it was. I think that long term, you alluded to this the other day, John, Benjamin Netanyahu may be scoring a series of short-term military victories but long-term i think his premiership and his actions over the past few years will be strategically and diplomatically catastrophic for israel because there is a whole generation of people now rightly or wrongly well i think in this case they've got justification who see israel um as a dangerous actor in the world so joe i i i think that i think

42:55Jon Sopel:there is an awful lot of criticism from western governments and i think that if you just go back under a decade to the support that israel had and what it has today there has been such a fundamental shift and it is still shifting um that i think you know the kind of there was that the great zionist conspiracy is that you know the the control the media and control every bit of communication if there is a zionist conspiracy they've been doing it bloody badly because i think the press that Israel has got and received over what's happened since October the 7th, which was a horrendous and terrible day, the PR has been pretty awful.

43:34Jon Sopel:And I think the passing of this death sentence for death penalty law for Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis just adds to that. And I think that Western support, if you're an Israeli, feels pretty thin on the ground right now.

43:50Lewis Goodall:One sentence answer for this, John, from Lexi Millard on YouTube. Do you think tucker carlson will take over the maga base he'd dearly love to i mean i think that i

43:58Jon Sopel:think that you know tucker carlson is the anti-israel anti-war isolationist voice in america that has most credibility now that donald trump has gone in the other direction and has been a kind of become turned out to be a foreign adventurist should just explain tucker carlson was a former fox news host who he was he was a former fox news host but incredibly influential who even though Donald Trump and him have fallen out on a number of occasions over a number of things, Donald Trump still keeps calling Tucker Carlson because he knows how much influence Carlson has in a totally disproportionate way.

44:34Jon Sopel:It's hard to think of any media figure, for example, in the UK who has any kind of hold on our politics. Apart from your good self. Yeah, of course, apart from myself and you. But you've obviously betrayed. Not now. I've burned through that, unfortunately. Yeah. Bye bye. Bye bye influence. Yeah. So I think I think that I think Tucker Carlson is a serious player.

44:52Lewis Goodall:And one last question from Louisa Adams. Tough one this, John, because we have to get it in order to be able to answer it. We've got to be able to get inside one of the most complicated and extraordinary minds of the 21st century. What's going on with the whole it's mateless thing at the start of the podcast now?

45:12Jon Sopel:I thought this was a news podcast, not in the psychiatrist chair. How much time have you got? How much time have you got? I don't know. It came out of the blue, really. We were there sitting... As in many things. We were there sitting quietly, minding our own business. It's John. It's Lewis. And suddenly, it's Maitless. I'm struggling a bit with it, but she has rebadged herself as Maitless. I'm very comfortable with it. Are we going to follow suit?

45:38Lewis Goodall:Maybe we can start using our middle names. It's Alan. What's your middle name, John? Oh, mine is Berris. it's kind of Berris, Beryl

45:47Jon Sopel:Berris, oh ok we will be doing this from now on it's Berris, it's Alan I remember my first day at secondary school and I moved from a different part of London to where I was now living and at age 11 I walked into the classroom all the other kids were sitting there and the teacher said what's your name and I said Jonathan and she said no your surname, Mrs Wilkins this was and I said Sopal and she said Sopal sit over there and I was kind of it was a shock to the system So I'm kind of happy with John and Lewis and Emily. Emily's not. Why don't you use Berris out of interest? On a more regular basis.

46:22Jon Sopel:Why don't you use your middle name?

46:24Lewis Goodall:Well, I want to. That's what I'm suggesting.

46:25Jon Sopel:You can do if you want.

46:26Lewis Goodall:Anyway, the answer is, Louise, it is, we have no idea. Not a bloody clue. But let's see how long it lasts. I think that's about it, isn't it? Yeah. All right. Thank you, Berris. And thanks to all of our viewers on Global Player and YouTube for tuning into this live Q &A of the newsagents. The episode, of course, will be available. as a podcast at the normal time at 5pm. So from Berris and myself, it's goodbye. Happy Easter. And happy, happy Easter. We'll see you next week. Bye-bye. See you next week. Bye-bye on Tuesday.

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47:33Lewis Goodall:The News Agents.

47:35Jon Sopel:I hope you have a very successful Easter egg hunt. We'll be back. What are they, 12? Well, I don't know. Everyone loves an Easter egg hunt. Yeah, they do if you're like, you know, pre-pubescent.

47:44Lewis Goodall:I still love them. Right. OK, well, draw your own conclusions. We'll see you on Tuesday. Bye-bye. See you next Tuesday.

47:51Jon Sopel:This has been a Global Player original production.