What Hulk Hogan taught Trump about politics

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1:02This is a Global Player original podcast. We made this connection between what we see in the wrestling world. If you smell what the rock is cooking. And how that has formed Trump, right, publicly, his image. When you're creating a character, what you want to do is you want to create a character so distinguishable that you could recognise him from their silhouette. You know, Trump has a silhouette. you know from the quiff from the weird t-rex hands and the jerking off of imaginary ghosts when he's dancing you know that is a level why are you here let me put it very simply vince i'm taller than you i'm better looking than you i think i think i'm stronger than you

1:56and I'm here to challenge you to a match in WrestleMania. That is Donald Trump speaking to Vince McMahon at the WWE in 2007, a full decade before he became president. He is telling a fantasy, a story to the wrestling crowd there that he has now managed to tell to America. We spend a lot of time thinking about how Trump thinks what he thinks. What if all of Trump's thinking basically comes down to the fake reality that is wrestling? What if we're living in Trump's wrestling political world? That is the view of actor and comedian Monia Chihuahua, who thinks to understand Trump, all you really need to do is understand WWE.

2:50Welcome to The News Agents.

2:59It's Maitlis. It's Lewis. And wrestling. Bear with us, because we have been talking about Donald Trump pretty much as a world non-stop for the last 10 years. We've run out of superlatives. We've run out of theories. We've run out of descriptions. But there is a way of seeing Trump through the lens of something he loves. It is a world that is pretty much make believe. It is pretty much fantasy and it is extremely, extremely wealthy. And it is the world of wrestling. WWE. In many ways, 10 years on, we've run out of superlatives for Donald Trump. We've run out of names for Donald Trump, but we haven't given up trying to explain where he gets his thing from.

3:52Is that a good way of putting it? I'm looking at Munya right now. Munya Chihuahua, who is, as many of you will know, satirist, comedian, but also now the host of a new show on Channel 4 called Wrestling with Trump. and I have to say that everything I know about wrestling comes from Margot's Got Money Problems, which if you haven't read it, is an absolutely brilliant book, which is all about the kind of setup of wrestling in our real world. And you've essentially, Munya, kind of made this connection between what we see in the wrestling world and how that has formed Trump, right, publicly, his image.

4:31A hundred percent. I mean, I thought you were going to say everything you know about wrestling comes from Lewis, which would have been an absolute huge. It wouldn't take long now, to be honest. Well, we haven't got time for that, haven't we? I love Hulk. Mr. Hogan, what a man. So, yes, the documentary is a thesis, which is to say, look, we all know what Trump's doing all the time. We're totally saturated. But so often we're looking for the why. Why is he doing it? And so, you know, you can go to such a cerebral level with it and an intellectual analysis of this man, of this enigma. Or you could just pose a question, is Trump just, like so many young men, someone who absolutely adored wrestling and then decided to violate the golden rule of wrestling, which is don't try this at home.

5:16Trying at home, then in the White House, then on the global stage. We should say when you're right, in case people aren't aware, I mean, he really did love wrestling. Absolutely. I mean, he was genuinely, I mean, there were WWE action figures of Trump, right? Because he was sort of part of the fixture. He would turn up, he would sometimes take part in the wrestling matches you know he you know wrestlers like trump because he was he was good to them he hosted wrestlemanias in his buildings he flew out their families people who couldn't afford the tickets to go to wrestlemania we speak to a hall of fame of british beefcake who just speaks about liking trump because he'd take them all out for steak dinners you know he did the dance of you know just courting these wrestlers and then obviously he took part in a WrestleMania against Vince McMahon.

5:58Second, well, at one point, the most viewed pay-per-view of all time. And he's a WWE Hall of Famer. He's jumped through all the hoops and all the initiations to really embed himself in wrestling culture. But if we want to get really sort of over the top and intellectualise this, right? Part of the wrestling thing is that you set up, I mean, the fakeness of it, you set up good and evil. You set up characters. You have the face and you have the heel. You have the triumphant person who's going to succeed and you have the evil man who's going to be vanquished. And actually, people understand that about wrestling, right?

6:37They know that they're seeing stuff that is not real. It's not a real fight. It is a kind of, it is a dance of a performance. And I guess that speaks to what Trump does with politics, that he's never going to try and sort of bring people together. There's always got to be a goody and a baddy. Absolutely. You nail on the head. You know, wrestling is very pantomime, you know. But the thing I will say is that to you, because the matches are quite short to earn that sort of violent catharsis, you really need to weave this this web of storytelling and the devices they use. They do to to do that. They used to do that.

7:14Sorry. Things you mentioned, like the foreign heel. You know, this isn't just WrestleMania you're watching. This is a threat to American existence. It's Hulk Hogan versus the Iron Sheik, who coincidentally was an Iranian-American villain from back then. The ice immigration thing is part of the wrestling story already. You could argue that is a foreign heel arc. That is America trying to protect a threat to its way of life. So you've got the foreign heel mechanic. You've got the smack talk, which is, you know, no one's paying money to see the rock and stone called Steve Austin enter a compliment battle.

7:46You know, I need to hear the worst things you could conceivably say about another human being. then I'm going to pay to tune in and watch you beat the crap out of each other. And is SmackDown also from the crowd themselves? Like when they are chanting, when they are screaming, when they are, you know, demanding, you know, whether it's USA or lock her up or, you know, out or whatever, that comes from the crowd as well, doesn't it? Well, absolutely. Because the baby face or the hero within a wrestling match isn't there to be supported. They're there to be lionised. You know, they're there to be idolised.

8:17What your icon says, you wear on your shirt, you hold on your sign. Or on your cap. Or on your cap. And so, you know, as an audience, you're there to parrot the hero, realistically. And so at these rallies, of course, the parallel drawn is what Trump says they say. And his protection, his armour against that is the third device, which is the kayfabe, which is the dancing on the lines of plausibility. Is this person saying something that I should truly believe or is it all part of the pantomime? If a pledge... So this sort of, it's almost like a fantasy world, an invented world, right? Correct.

8:48so in the world of politics the reason that that's so dangerous is in wrestling kayfabe is just a lubricant to the storytelling but in in politics especially at a time when people are so desperate we cling on to everything that's said and so if you make a pledge or a policy in which it sounds bogus and ludicrous if you pull it off you're a hero because there's a one in a billion chance of you being able to do that but if it falls flat you just turn around and say well obviously i didn't mean it and then the only the the dum-dum in that situation is anyone who believed it so as a politician in that sense you're unfalsifiable if you can't be falsified you can't be wrong and if you're not wrong why should we remove you from power but do you think his whole understanding or projection of truth comes from the wrestling world which is like well it doesn't have to be that true it just has to be a story yes and actually i'm going to drop you a little newsagent exclusive because you've heard of k about time right you've heard of kayfabe there is a sas called josie reisman who suggests that trump may have created this symbiotic mutation of kayfabe called neo kayfabe right now the idea here is gel or something i've got some on now actually um so in wrestling you tell predominantly the truth but then there's a couple of there's a couple of lies scattered in there okay and we're sort of digging out to find them neo kayfabe is this idea that everything you say is a lie and once in a while you might tell the truth and supposedly according to josey this is what trump does and so it leaves us as the electorate or as journalists, you know, sniffing around like truffle pigs, trying to find out what is the real thing we're meant to run with here?

10:22What's not part of the pantomime? And within that confusion, there's no accountability. Yeah, I've heard a few people sort of make this wrestling analogy with Trump or analysis. That is good as me. I was supposed to do it. I know, yeah, absolutely. You're a wrestling fan. You're totally an impression and you're like, I'm not even going to try it. But like, what made you, but it's obviously really captivated. you what in doing the documentary what sort of extra did you want to kind of push on that analogy what what what extra do you think we can learn from it that we might not have understood before that's a really great question i think number one is the idea of platforming you know what i mean that is kind of implicit within the storytelling of the doc but the people we put on these stages just be aware of what they can learn and be aware of how that alters perception even subtly amongst people wrestling fans who voted because you know many many people watch wrestling even in the documentary we opened by saying you know there's a billion viewerships in a billion households some people who knew nothing about trump or his policies or his manifesto would have just been like oh that's the guy i saw shave vince uh vince mcmahon's head at wrestlemania i love that match all right cool i'll go bait i'll go on that gut feeling we are guilty of it here you know even with Farage and Amisalep, you know, that is that was an enormous platform for him.

11:42And, you know, it makes me worry every time I see these names announced alongside these shows. You know, Donald Trump was on The Apprentice. Thank God he was never, you know, for example, on a love island, even though he loves islands. And it's almost like, you know, you put you put them in front of these eyeballs and you have to know that not everyone is going to do their research before utilizing their democratic token of voting. And so if all you do is play to the kind of base instincts of, oh, I like that person when they're on telly or I don't like them, that's the risk you want, an informed voting.

12:10But the wrestling as well, right? I mean, it does speak to something true about Trump, right? Which is that sometimes, like, it has been tried with him. And it's tried sometimes with Farage and other sort of similar political figures to be like, this guy's nothing like you. You know, he's so rich. He's a plutocrat. He's got nothing in common with your life. And, like, that is true in lots of ways, you know, in an economic analysis. But in a cultural analysis, in lots of ways, Trump is quite similar to a lot of his voters, right? In the sense that he genuinely clearly likes wrestling. He sort of embodies a lot of the kind of moors and the kind of cultural kind of proclivities of a lot of those people in a way that, let's be honest, Kamala Harris isn't going to like wrestling.

12:45You know, like Dems are like... No, but a lot of rich people like wrestling. I mean, just look at the prices. You know, if you go to a WWE match, those tickets cost thousands and thousands of dollars, right? This is, you know, there are some things that are kind of spit and sawdust and they're in your local place, but this is big money stuff. So, you know, I think Trump probably loves it because a lot of celebrities love it and a lot of money goes into it. I think he could be both, right? I mean, he could probably love it. But also just because, frankly, it's because it's the kind of culture that appeals to him.

13:13Almost certainly way more, I would imagine, than, say, going for a night on Broadway and watching, I don't know, an Alice Hemingway. Let's throw another spanner in the works, another gold spanner in the works, because as well as enjoying the sort of gladiatorial aspect of wrestling, you know, wrestling has broad appeal in its sense because, you know, we have this primal urge for violence. and so many people will have enjoyed wrestling. Remember that wrestling was a fantastic business model for Trump as well. He takes a sideways glance at Vince McMahon, who is a billionaire, right? He is cashier.

13:41He's bringing these enormous ratings. And then when ratings fall, Vince McMahon goes, OK, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to make myself the bad guy. I'm going to make myself the main event. I'm going to weave storylines where I might be involved in an incest storyline or I might put my wife into an induced coma so that I can have an affair with a WWE diva. utilising controversy to bring in numbers like the WWE never saw, right? That's a fantastic case study for Trump. You know, there's no way that Trump would not have looked at Vince as someone rising in parallel during the era of Reaganomics and gone, I need me some of that.

14:14So I could be a bad guy and earn just as much as being a good guy and being a winner. Exactly. It's a really twisted form of operant conditioning whereby wrestling and the WWE universe rewards you for the wrong things. Smack talk is a good thing. Being someone to a pulp is a good thing. Having this binary good versus evil storyline, that's a good thing. How do you shake that off in your next endeavour, which happens to be a few years down the line of the presidency? In the documentary, you raise that moment after Butler, Pennsylvania. That sort of photo that is in all our minds now of Trump, a man who was shot at from the crowd and ducked and was surrounded by security and then sort of emerges with his fist brandished.

14:59Do you think that comes straight from the wrestling handbook? Does it? Well, I think that there's a risk there of being conspiratorial, but the guy that I'm speaking to, Brian Idol, is more convinced that actually the instinct, maybe not the gesture, because there's only a few ways a man can fist pump, right? There's only a few remixes to that motion. Have you seen Lewis? The fist pumps of Lewis Goodall. That's a crazy part. Honestly. That needs to be the biography. I don't do it because they affect people around me so profoundly when it happens that it's just too unsettling for them. That's why Sokol's not here.

15:33But I would hazard to say this. It's more about the instinct and the impulse in that moment of thinking, should I run for cover if my life is at risk? Or do I capitalise on a moment of fear and panic and hysteria and turn it into a storyline? I also want to talk about this idea of the silhouette. in comedy I always misattribute this to Sasha Baron Cohen I'm not sure if he did say this but when you're creating a character what you want to do is you want to you want to create a character so distinguishable that you could recognize him from their silhouette with Sasha Baron Cohen's characters you've got the Ali G in his hand signs throwing up his gang signs Borat with the big hair you know Trump has a silhouette you know Trump from the quiff from the weird t-rex hands and the jerking off of imaginary ghosts when he's dancing.

16:19You know, that is a level. Again, much like John Sopel. That is a flex of being able to say, you don't even need to see my face, but you know who I am. And so that fist pump for Trump, if I show you that silhouette, you know what event it pertains to. And so it's part of his character creation. But do you think there's enough, does all that thought go into it? Yes. Well, I mean, this is the thing. if he's a wrestling fan if you watch wrestling for long enough you pick up these things you know what the rock what the people's eyebrow looks like when the rock does it you know how to imitate his finishing moves wait did you just go I do know what he looks like I know what the rock it's like this kind of like it's like this kind of like you know he does a little like no that's straight contemplation it's not bad is it it's alright wasn't it I never thought we'd get that hey look it's Thursday so what are those millenniums even if it is even if it was whether it was subconscious or overt there is something to be said which is and this is crazy we didn't include this but this was one of the best nuggets of the documentary bo james who is a local wrestler that we meet talks about this technique they used to do in wrestling which is blading you had a blade in your wrist straps and then you take a particularly big bump like you know move and you just cut your forehead i used to say to a man why did you do this because you tell me some stories once he swallowed the blade by mistake he had to eat a load of bread to make sure it didn't cut him on the inside i said why run the risk?

17:39And he said, because red turns to green. Red turns to green. Green money. Oh my God. So look, okay, now. I was going to, I was just going to say, I was just going to, does any of this transfer to UK politics? I mean, do you see UK politicians either, they might not sort of know consciously they're starting to echo kind of like wrestling kind of mores or moments. Sort of quite Matt Hancock, isn't it? Yeah, but they're sort of doing it subliminally because they're learning from Trump, so it's all just a bit vicarious. Do you see it in UK politics? Right, So yeah, I would not say that UK politicians are learning from wrestling, but they're learning from wrestling by learning from Trump.

18:14Yeah. Trump is a fantastic role model to people like Farage because what he has achieved, you know, from it from by objective standards, you know, he's made himself richer than ever. You know, he's maybe the most powerful leader in the world. And he's done it by this sort of non-conventional, very heel skewing playbook, which is to with the trash talking, with all the wrong ingredients to being a leader. And so for somebody whose base instincts perhaps aren't as valiant as we'd expect from a politician, it's great to know that there's a cheat code to still landing as prime minister or leader of a country by doing the wrong things, by playing a little dirty.

18:51Let me flip the question around then. If you're a Democrat or if you're a Trump opponent, are you thinking, Jesus, if I if I need to play politics in America in 2026, I need to work out what my fight is or what my sign is or what my silhouette is. You can't just go, oh, I think I might try and block that bill. Right. I mean, that doesn't feel a comfortable place for us to end up with democracy. No, no, no. We should never get to that point. Of course, look, I would like more than lemon and herb caliber politicians. You know, it's good to have a little bit of flair about you. You know, you guys recently discussing Andy Burnham, we were just talking about slightly more aura, OK, than Akia Stammer, for example.

19:28It's helpful. But remember the golden rule of wrestling, which is don't try this at home. if we copy and paste the you know one of the ground rules of wrestling which is there's no middle ground there's only good versus evil we've got a problem because then it means that accountability becomes the enemy because i'm asking you a question i'm challenging you just like you guys are talking about uh massey and cassidy and all of a sudden i need to be booted out because i'm a threat to your existence as leader no even now if i ask questions about farage and these five these five million pound donations it's not necessarily because i'm asking because I'm his enemy and I want to fight reform voters.

20:02I'm just asking because I'm saying, right, okay, if this guy is going to be in charge in a few years' time, I just want some accountability. What do you think of Farage? I think that my biggest problem with Farage actually doesn't come from a place that you would necessarily anticipate it to come from. You know, I think a lot of people look at me and they think, you know, he's a guy who's from Zimbabwe. I'm actually from Derby, right? It's more on an objective level of leadership, which is, I don't know how much good this man actually wants to do for people because what is at stake for him as a leader by the time faraj becomes prime minister which looks very likely he will be in my i would guess richer than he's ever been more popular than he's ever been and more the most credible he's ever been interpreted as a politician right he's already won we're talking about the loser who sat in the corner of the class waving his brexit flag who no one took seriously and now he's achieved all of these things that never in a million years did we think he could do?

20:58And so for me, him being prime minister is just the icing on the cake. It's just a side quest for him. And so in that first term, no matter, even if he rips apart the few remaining infrastructures we have working for Britain and plunges us into social and economic turmoil, even more so than now. So what? What expense is that to him? Especially because most of his career is behind him. Why do you think, though, he's got such following? I mean, he's got more TikTok followers than every other British end people together. particularly obviously amongst young people. Why do you think he has such purchase?

21:29Because that's populism. It's populism and it derives so strongly from for anyone who doesn't understand it I began understanding it by just understanding the word popular and what makes you popular at a time of uncertainty and desperation is simple answers. I know how to fix immigration, you do that. I know how to fix the economy, you do that. But don't you think it's funny that we are watching Trump in real time and we're watching the American people kind of find out what Trump is like in real time I mean, we're seeing his own ratings now, favourability ratings. I think it's like 28 % on affordability stuff, really low.

22:02And yet you're still saying, well, actually, we're going to bring that model here and it's going to be the same thing. I mean, why do you think we're not able to kind of go, oh, that doesn't seem to be working out so well there? Because a lot of British people, even reform voters, hate Trump. Why aren't they making that connection? well because for well for a start we've not anywhere near enough put the burners on farage for for brexit you know the difference i suppose he's such an interesting case study because you know populism often works by basically speculating what you would do if you were brought within proximity to power yeah and so you know for an extent to an extent you're unfalsifiable because you're so far away no one can ever prove whether or not you can do those things obviously Brexit was the love child of Farage he was the one saying look guys trust me if you do this it will change your lives and then via the Conservatives Brexit did happen this golden egg thing that he said I will live and down this this this policy this idea and it failed and no one no one has interrogated him over that because it was sort of under the cloak of the Conservatives so he's one of those rare instances where he's a populist who actually had a shot at creating real political policy and it didn't work but no one wants to attack him because as you guys have mentioned before if you attack Brexit as a decision on the part of voters you risk alienating them and making them sound like listen aha you got it wrong and you know Keir Starmer's the least likely to want to do that and since you mentioned Starmer now there's a man who probably doesn't have a silhouette is that his problem?

23:34he has no cultural imprint like it's hard something we've talked about on the show a lot are you saying he's not a wrestling fan? It's one of those things, but if he was a wrestling fan, right, you'd never believe he was. Much like, as he talks about football, he's like, I absolutely love The Undertaker. You know, like, no one's going to believe him talking about that, right? So, like, is that the problem? He doesn't have an imprint or a silhouette? Well, we go from, you know, being in America during the documentary to going to a Tuesday drinking club just in honour of Donald Trump. We met the Triumph Trump's Day Tuesdays drinking club.

24:05A weekly gathering of MAGA fans who get battered every Tuesday for Trump. I can't imagine a Starmer Sunday Slurp Club, right? No one's wearing his face on their T-shirt. But Lewis, actually, I don't know whether that is necessarily... That's not a bad thing, really. No, no. Is it? I don't know if that is a bad thing. But what I would say is that I think it's almost like a slight paradigm shift in that because of the economic financial shit show we are, how deep and how viscous a quagmire that is, I think any politician who gets into who's in power now and for the foreseeable is going to be unpopular.

24:40It's almost as if you have to be that sacrificial lamb because the scale of the burden to which you're trying to reduce can't be fixed quickly. So it's almost like viewing leadership as this huge axe that you use just to take as best a bloody swing as you can at that tree trunk, pass it on to the next one. But any politician entering the race saying, we're going to ride into the sunset on the back of my bright white shining horse, it's just not going to happen. Well, that's what Burnham's doing. That's what Streeting's doing. So you're not impressed by him. Well, no, no, but if it gets him into power, so long as the intention is, well, look, I know the task at hand.

25:12And to be honest, at the end of these four years, I probably won't be very popular. But that's fine because I've started to reduce this problem and get us out of this deficit doom loop. I take it. If Andy Burnham were a wrestler, if Wes Streeting were a wrestler, if Andy Burnham were a wrestler. Well, we did have someone called the British Bulldog, who I think was Canadian. Johnson would be gutted not to do that. He'd have to be called the Burn, wouldn't he? Is there not one? Is there not the Northerner? Burn, baby, Burnham. What do they call him? The King of the North? King of the North. That's quite interesting.

25:40That's catchy. And streeting? He belongs to the streets. That phrase I know won't resonate with you. What makes you say that, Munya? No, you have never used the term belongs to the streets. I'm always talking about belonging to the streets. I have to say, Munya. That's crazy. I never thought I'd hear that term. I'm always saying, John Sopel, you belong to the streets, my friend. That is crazy. You're actually starting a rivalry. The mean streets of Sydney. Correct, yes. Yeah, you two are going to be... Just near Bondi Beach. You and John Stoeple, WrestleMania this year. I'll take him down. You get full marks for news agents' knowledge.

26:14Really? Yeah. Can I say something? Just sprinkled in. Lovely. Real politician trick, that. You just listened to the last episode and then mentioned it repeatedly. The penultimate. Very good. I shouldn't say this, but do you know that there's... On my Notes app, this is Glaze Central. Sorry? Yeah, don't Google that. You get the transcript. No, no. I write a list of words that Lewis uses that I don't understand. do you want to know how I got on there self-flagellation alright Mr. Viscous bloody quagmire I'm taking no lectures from this guy back to the streets son back to the streets with you pal thank you thanks for coming in absolute pleasure really fun felicitations to you do I win the donut

27:01when people turn to telehealth or weight loss they're looking for real support that's why more people are choosing orderlymeds.com. Orderly Meds connects you with real doctors and access to proven GLP-1 medications like semaglutide and terzeptatide. No guessing, just a more supportive experience and all shipped directly to your door in discreet packaging. Do your research, ask questions, then visit orderlymeds.com slash podcast for an exclusive offer. That's orderlymeds.com slash podcast. Individual results may vary. Not medical advice, eligibility required. See site for details.