142. Are We In A Golden Era Of Corruption?

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1:13Hello and welcome to The Rest Is Money with me, Steph McGovern. Now, Robert is currently stateside with the Prime Minister. We're going to be getting an update on all of that When he's back on Friday But in his place we have our podcast Grandfather I don't know how to describe it Alistair Campbell That's a min-muchiness That is awful I meant it as in you're the OG You're the ghost The leader of the rest of his tribe Listen When in a hole Stop digging Steph there is no way you could justify calling me the grandfather of anything we know we know and you've got a mind that everyone loves to hear about so there's loads we've got to talk about i want to talk about us ukraine deal what that's all about what's going on there um obviously the announcement from case starmer about spending on defense loads to get our teeth into i mean what how are you feeling at the minute about everything because it just before we get into all that it just feels like it's every five minutes if you walk away from your phone something mad has happened and it normally involves Trump or Elon Musk I know it's horrific I mean how am I handling it not very well to be honest I'm finding it very very difficult difficult emotionally because I just think you just have these moments of thinking the world has absolutely had it this is this is dreadful then you sort of try and step back from it you try and get a bit of a sense of perspective and then as you say the pace of things so rory stewart and i literally before talking to you just on a live on the defense keir starmer's defense announcement because we he announced it while we were recording the podcast yesterday the main podcast and it's such a big thing we thought we can't not talk about it uh especially as he's heading off to the united states so no i think it's very very difficult because i think this i think these are genuinely quite anxious times i think people are i'm amazed how many people i meet who say to me i can't watch the news yes um you know i think and i and i think the reason why the people are sort of listening to podcasts about all this is because they're they're looking to try and find people who can you know give explanations as to what's going on but i'll be honest at times it's hard to make sense of it yeah totally i had that exact conversation with two of my girl mates earlier about they were just you know smart girls who've got really good jobs and they were like we are just avoiding the news because it's just feels it's at such a pace as well where you know it can lead you to feeling quite panicky about the world can't it yeah and also you you know i think that if you've if you're like us and you you do this sort of stuff and you've got a platform other people might think that that gives you some kind of role within it but actually the worst thing I find about this is that you see this stuff happen, particularly the stuff that's going on in America right now, and you think, well, there is literally nothing I can do or say that's going to have any impact upon that at all.

4:15But hell, people understand it more. I think that's important. Yeah, maybe, maybe. But I think if you're a complete control freak like me, Steph, it's a horrible feeling. Yeah. Let's start with the Ukraine deal, because that's very much kind of dominant in the headlines today. And I'll just do a little kind of recap of where we're at with that. So last week, of course, we had Trump calling Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, a dictator and basically blamed him for starting the war in Russia, which obviously everyone was outraged about. But this was off the back of Zelensky turning down essentially a demand from the US to pay back the military aid that has been given to them.

4:54And Trump wants this paid in the form of the money that can be made from Ukraine's rare minerals and other resources. And I'm going to explain that a little bit later. But Zelensky originally said no to this offer and said this$500 billion that the US was saying they were owed in military aid was wrong. There was an accusation of disinformation and all of that. It blew up into a massive row. But then this week, they've made a deal together, or that's what it looks like, which would see the US massively benefit from the minerals that Ukraine has. Now, I don't think, Alistair, I'd love to know what you think.

5:34It's not a shock. I don't think that we're getting to a deal here because Zelensky was originally the person who'd suggested to the US to get involved in the mining of their minerals. He did that last year in return for some type of kind of peace plan. But what's really interesting about what we've heard so far from this is that it doesn't look like this arrangement, this deal, this offer with the US really gives Ukraine any guarantee in terms of security. So that's where I'm scratching my head about this. What do you think? Well, it's very, very hard to know what's true. Yeah. And that is what happens.

6:16See, Zelensky was telling the truth when he said that Trump lives in a disinformation space. So, for example, when Trump was with President Macron earlier this week, he talked about America's putting 350 billion into Ukraine. It's just not true. That is not borne out by any analysis. That's the kind of figure that's just somewhere inside his head. he talked in front of Macron and Macron corrected him which was you know pretty brave thing to do he because I don't think Trump likes being corrected by anybody but Trump said that you know Europe is Europe is putting all this money in but they're going to get it all back because it's all been done in loans and Macron said no no that's not the same this is the case and and actually he was very polite but he pointed out that the European Union and if you add in us and Norway as well is it's bigger than the Americans have put it but then there was a very interesting moment in that press conference i watched the whole thing and there's a very interesting moment when i always feel when trump's trying to emphasize something he does something really weird with his mouth and with the way he speaks he opens it yeah exactly no he does this thing he goes i'm all about deals i'm about deals my whole life's been about deals he decides to focus on one word and bang bang bang and what you know when he's doing that is that's what he wants you to be thinking about that's what he's talking and actually of course he famously wrote or didn't write or had written for him the book the art of the deal but it's very hard you've talked a lot of people who make business deals the whole time it's very hard to see this as a great deal making thing well obviously we have to judge by what end by the end of it because he's gone into a deal with putin now what has putin wanted since the start this war normalization of relations with america trying to get sanctions lifted well you've got to do the first of those to get the second of those and he wants the americans in particular to push back on the idea that they should give back any land that put it that ukraine should ever be a member of nato or that they should have any europe should have any say in the future military structures surrounding ukraine and they're like trump talked about how you know well Russia's in a good place because they've got all the cards.

8:31You gave them the cards. You know, he actually didn't have a strong hand at all. There's a fantastic, we talked on the Rest His Politics this week about this study by the Institute of the Study of War, that actually the pace of the Russian advance is slowing. The Russian economy cannot sustain the level of commitment to this for that much longer. So actually Ukraine was in a strong, yes, they were losing ground, But in terms of the overall picture, provided they could keep the international alliance together, they were in a much stronger position. And I think the thing about the deal on minerals, I mean, it's classic Trump, isn't it?

9:09It's basically, he says, well, we, America, and by the way, he always talks about in terms of, you know, Biden is never part of this story unless it's a bad story. Sort of, you know, America as represented by Donald Trump, we reckon we have put in 350 billion. We're going to have to get that money back. and that's why he does all this stuff about you started the war zolensky is a dictator because he wants american public opinion to think yeah that's fair why have we given them all this money we should get it back and i mean i i saw today an interview i think it was in the financial times a ukrainian minister saying this this original idea was our idea again yeah i don't know if that's right or wrong i don't know yeah zolensky went to yeah pitch this to the americans So maybe far Trump was even in.

9:53So, but there was, and then you had this thing where, so when you make a deal, you know, it's best to try and get the deal done. And then you start talking about it publicly. Trump doesn't operate like that. So the Treasury Secretary, Scott Besson, he goes to Kiev. He's planning to try and get this thing agreed with Zelensky. He doesn't get it agreed with Zelensky for whatever reasons, you know, maybe one day we'll find out. To which Trump's response is to go, Scott Besson went all the way there. and the guy couldn't even see him because he was asleep. I mean, there are pictures of them meeting.

10:25There are pictures of them talking, having a long meeting. So it's very hard to know what actually happened. And to be fair, you know, from Zelensky's perspective, I mean, he is in a really tough place right now. Yeah. He knows that Trump doesn't like him. He knows that America has shifted position almost 180 degrees. I mean, they're no longer. You had a situation, there was a thing on social media today where Mark Kelly, the American Democrat, was at the nomination hearing of the Deputy Defence Secretary. And he asked him this question, in your view, did Russia invade Ukraine? The guy just wouldn't answer.

11:06He was dancing around and finding this phrase and that phrase. It's really depressing. It's so depressing. It's interesting because looking at this from a kind of economic perspective of you saying that Trump wants deals, and that's what he's bothered about. He wants to show the Americans he's going to make the money. The reason why, obviously, Ukraine is so interesting to Trump on that level is because of this richness they do have in these minerals. And I think it's just worth explaining a bit about that because Ukraine is rich in lithium, titanium, graphite, really rare minerals like scandium and zirconium.

11:45And these are basically the building blocks, the things that go into pretty much everything we use in life. We've talked about it on this podcast before about how important they are in things like cars, planes, batteries, phones, communication technology on every level. And it's estimated that Ukraine has these massive underground deposits of these minerals worth in the trillions. There was one estimate that puts it at something like $11 trillion worth of stuff. Did I read today that they reckon that 5 % of the world's minerals and rare earths are in Ukraine. Yeah, which is incredible. Some of that is ground that's been taken by Russia.

12:23But there's a couple of issues around this. One is, yes, it's undeveloped. Two is, is there really that much there? There's a lot of scepticism around actually what is down there because it is undeveloped. No one's actually been down there and properly had a look at all of them. And there's also the amount of money that's going to need to be invested into it in order to get them out. Trump as just plain monopoly, isn't he? He's like, that's where I want to, you know, same with Greenland. Greenland is also rich in these rare minerals. So he's just like, let's buy Greenland. You know, let's just go and take over these places and get all this stuff.

13:01And so therefore you can see where Zelensky's coming from in the thought of this is our asset. This is our, we've got what the rest of the world really wants in order to progress and have all this amazing tech. We've got it. so therefore it is the only thing they have really to put on the table for deals but it's like where does this end and what does it really mean and is it like this fake pot of money that's at the end of a non-existent rainbow because that's also a bit what it feels like. Yeah and two things have happened. First is Trump is now president and that has led to a genuine shift in American policy and American strategy vis-a-vis Ukraine And if you remember during the campaign, he said, I'm going to sort this war out in 24 hours.

13:46Well, everybody knew that was a figure of speech. But this was the move. This big shift started with the J.D. Vance speech in Munich and with the Defence Secretary, Hexerth, going around saying that, you know, Europe can no longer depend on America in the same way that it has done for the last decades. Lots of talk about Europe having ripped them off, all that stuff going on. And then when you start to think about, well, what does a deal mean? it revolves around issues of land, issues of sovereignty, issues of territory, and issues of then the security of that territory. And I guess, look, I don't know, I can't get inside the guy's head.

14:26I guess what Trump is essentially doing is, everybody's thinking about security guarantees in terms of, you know, tanks and soldiers and planes and all that stuff. But actually, what bigger security guarantee would you want than the fact that you've got, you know, Big Uncle Sam economically all over this place because we're trying to help you to get rich and help ourselves to get rich with the minerals in your ground. And I think that's the only kind of logic I can sort of find that maybe he's trying to apply to this. But I think when you do that in the context of his general demeanor towards Ukraine and actually his general demeanor full stop, I don't know if you've seen this thing to do, doing the rounds today that he posted on his own social media.

15:14I know what you're going to say. About the Gaza. Yeah. Trump Gaza. Now, I don't know who's made it, but the fact that he's posted it on his own social media means he must like it. And it's one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen in my life. him with a gold statue of him in gaza trump gaza casinos trump gaza beaches i mean it's just it's just terrific so is that part of him owning the libs which they love to do get people like me really wound up or is it actually that's the way he thinks about the world so when he says i'm going to get greenland he's serious he doesn't know how but that's what he wants to do when he says i'm going to make canada the 51st state is serious and likewise with with ukraine look we put all this money in you need to pay us back you need to be a bit more appreciative we'll have what you've got in the ground yeah and that's really tangible to somebody you know if you're an american saying what is our president doing that's really tangible isn't it it's like it's not the kind of or how much difference is he making to the quality of life and things if you can think he's bringing our money back yeah then that you know and this was something i remember um i was very lucky to have a lunch with hillary clinton before christmas and one of the things she was saying to me is what obviously lost them the election carl mother harris the election was the fact that whatever the americans voting for trump just could say was inflation is a massive problem and it is biden's fault and you know trump's going to solve that now the chances are everything he's doing with trade tariffs and everything else is going to massively ramp up inflation.

16:57The irony there. But as Robert and I often say on this podcast, the other thing that Trump has as his defense in all of this is the fact that so many assets are backed by the dollar, which comes back to him, which means that even in times of chaos created by him, people will then put their money into the more certain assets, things like gold or whatever, which are backed by the dollar and therefore it's like no matter what he there is a very big chance he might massively benefit from this because no matter what happens and what chaos he creates it'll still come back to the dollar and the american economy being stronger because of it well that's that i'm sure is part of the way that he thinks in his mind works but i think a lot of this stuff is fraught with risk including for them yeah what i find really odd in relation to the way that he's handling this whole Ukraine thing because he's got two projections of himself that he puts out all the time one is I'm a great deal maker and the other is I'm a real strong man leader okay and you know I on our main podcast this week I quoted a woman that we've interviewed before Fiona Hill who used to be Trump foreign policy she's a Brit but she was a foreign policy advisor to Trump in his first term.

18:14And she wrote this amazing article about four years ago now, after he'd left office, when Biden was in, about what it was like working for Trump and what she'd learned and what she thought. And when you read it now, and I quoted the key, I haven't got them in front of me, but essentially what it was saying was that he respects the other strongman leaders more than he respects the advice that he's getting from his own people. So people find it really weird. Why does he believe Putin rather than his own people? Answer, because he respects Putin because he sees him as a fellow strongman leader. Why has he got this thing about Xi Jinping as being, you know, he always says nice things about him, even though China's like their big enemy and what have you.

18:57Answer, because he's become a president for life. Well, if there's one thing that Trump wants is to be president for life. And she actually says in terms, he believed these rumors that Putin was probably the richest man in the world. and he admired the way that he used his running of a country like it was his own business. And I've read my column in The New European and said, you know, we've got to imagine this as Tony Soprano with an army or Don Corleone with nuclear weapons. So I don't think it's more complicated than that. He looks at Putin and thinks, I want a lot of what you've got. Yeah, yeah.

19:34Well, we were talking to Bill Browder about this because obviously, you know, he is... He doesn't like him. Well, no, yeah, funny, obviously. And he was behind the kind of financial sanction laws, the Magnetic laws and all of that, which obviously are in play at the moment. But he was saying something about that. And just in terms of Putin's just created this magic richness, which is actually just through how he's, you know, corruptly run the country. And it's not through graft or anything. But as you say, Trump wouldn't care about that. He just cares about who's ended up winning the game, who's the one who's the richest.

20:12You know, if you think, I find it absolutely mind-blowing, just to give you one example. So Trump first term, his Middle East advisor was Jared Kushner, who was the husband, is the husband of his daughter. Yeah. And whose dad had been to jail for all sorts of dodgy stuff. Trump has pardoned him and he's now the ambassador in Paris. Okay. now that alone you think hold on a bit Jared Kushner on the back of being his Middle East envoy comes out of that job which if I was doing a job like that I'd imagine I'd be on a kind of reasonably good state salary probably just into six figures dollars he comes out and he sets up a two billion pound hedge fund, two billion dollar hedge fund the fact that on the eve of the election Trump launched that meme coin thing, right?

21:09That made squillions of money. The fact that they're getting rid of all these inspectors general who are meant to be looking out for fraud and waste and abuse. They're getting rid of the guardrails against corruption. And, you know, Scaramucci, Anthony Scaramucci, who does our American Rest His Politics US, he's on the record as saying Trump and Musk between them are ushering in a golden era of corruption. they sat together on a tv studio the other day on fox news of course they sat there and the question was asked you know how are you going to work out conflicts of interest when the guy's the richest man in the world he's got all these companies that relate to government that are that are regulated by government how are you going to work out there's a conflict of interest and they basically said oh we'll just have a chat about it and we'll decide it's so normalized yeah the danger is so which i have said to robert before is what if it works though like what if What, do you mean economically?

22:04Yeah, like what if they do manage by getting rid of the bureaucracy? Yes, okay, corruption increases and all of that, but what if it does make things better for Americans in terms of the money they're making? You nearly said what if it makes America great again, didn't you? Yeah. It was popping into your head. No, but I mean, don't get a taper with all the moral, obviously horrendous moral and ethical problems here. that there is a danger it might just you know it might just work and it might make their economy better and that's really because i mean elon musk is also the richest man in the world not by default he's done that through building all of these companies and things unlike trump you know musk is a genuine business person he's clearly a very intelligent person and obviously this is a really dodgy relationship a lot of it a lot of it based on massive deals with governments around the world.

23:01So we're talking about, you know, I think we've got to, I'm not saying to become the richest person in the world, whoever you are, and to have all these amazing businesses that he runs, I'm not undermining at all the fact he's incredibly clever and he's a historical figure and that's kind of what he wants to be. Fine. But ultimately, once you get to that position, you've got to understand, you know, there is such a thing in life as values and character. And, you know, I saw recently the Prime Minister of Norway, you know jones garstora now they were when musk was first sort of tesla was first becoming the thing that tesla's become norway was one of their big markets and he was saying that the guy was easy to deal with he was great to deal with he was you know this person we see now is a completely different person right well we should probably use this point to have a quick break and then when we come back i really want to just see what your thoughts are in terms of what this all means for Starmer's beating with Trump and how it's going to impact everything here.

23:57But let's have a quick break.

24:02So bringing it back then to where we are next in this story, we're obviously, you know, Keir Starmer's on his way to the States. You've been there with a Labour Prime Minister, with a Republican president. How different do you think this is going to be? What does he want out of it? Like, what's your thoughts on it all? I mean, honestly, I think, you know, I was talking to somebody in Keir's team the other day and saying that, you know, whatever difficulties and challenges we might have had trying to develop a relationship with George W. Bush, it says nothing compared to this. I think in a way, although it was probably a bit irritating on one level that Macron got there for the first meeting with the European, as it were, I think on the other hand, it was actually quite helpful because Keir and his team will have been able to, And I know Macron and Keir have been talking a lot about, you know, both of their visits and they're kind of working pretty hand in glove, I think.

24:56So you saw, I think, a similar approach is what's required. And I don't mean all the sort of, you know, the tugging and throwing and the touching and the touchy feet and stuff and all that, because that's just not Keir. Oh, God, yeah, that's so... It's just not him. But what I do mean by that is that sometimes as Trump comes out with a load of nonsense, you just got to sit there and take it. I thought I thought Macron was an absolute masterclass in neutral body language when Trump was talking absolute rubbish. He didn't sort of. But then when he went, he went over, for example, it was Macron who kept talking about the Russians being the aggressors.

25:36It was Macron who corrected him very publicly on his getting his facts wrong about what Europe had put in and so forth. It was Macron who said, if we're talking about compensation, it's got to be for the Ukrainians, nobody else. So he made those points, but he did it in a way that didn't have Trump sort of, you know, leaping off the deep end. But ultimately, I don't think we know what the effect of these meetings will be, because in a way, you've got to be in the meeting after the meeting with the other side. You know, so what we'll know when Trump starts to talk about it in public after the event, we won't necessarily know from how they talk to each other or from the press conference afterwards.

26:16But I think Keir's got to be very, very clear that this current situation and the sense of America vacating the field is bad for Europe, but it's bad for America as well. He's got to somehow persuade him of that. Very difficult thing to do. I think the other thing, I don't know how you do this. I've been thinking about this a lot, and I sort of ruminated about this on the podcast, and I still can't work out how you would frame this. But he's got to get across that point somehow that, you know, you know what, Donald? You think that you're being a strong man, but you've given away too much here, and they actually maybe think you're a bit weak.

26:56Whether you can say that to his face, I don't know. But that thought has to get into his head, because that's the truth. that's the truth putin's thinking i've got this i've got this guy around my finger which he has and everyone can see that apart from trump trump can't see that though well you gotta what you've got to understand is i mean you're talking about a level of narcissism that is off the scale the fact that the first i don't know if you watched his press conference with macron right yeah the first question was so obviously a planted question yes about a poll that nobody really believes because it goes against all the other polls that are out there, saying that Trump is hitting sort of stratospheric popularity satisfaction ratings.

27:39How insecure have you got to be to have that as the sort of big thing when you're talking about matters of war and peace? But he absolutely is. And there are no offence, but there are loads of blokes like that out there who unfortunately are in, have a lot of power, but are deeply insecure. Is it a man thing? Is it a man thing? well but it is really that was that was weird and i think that the constant sort of denigration of biden and this wouldn't have happened if i had been president it's all i mean it's a level of me me me that is i don't think i've the closest i've ever seen to it but it's a different scale was was maybe robert maxwell when i worked for robert maxwell at the mirror yeah you had that thing that this is all around everything going on is all about me but But Trump is on a scale that's a different level.

28:30And that is so not Keir Starmer. That is so not his style. But are you not worried, though, by the kind of influence the Americans are having in terms of because they're going so extreme? It means that, for example, Kia can announce that he's increasing money for defence but cutting aid because the Americans are doing that as well. And therefore, there's that danger that Kia might end up making decisions which are more, I guess, I don't know how to describe it. No, I know what you mean. I mean, we've just, Rory Stewart and I have just done a live stream about that very question, because we both support extra money for defence.

29:15100%. Not 100%, 2.5 % and then go up. But both strongly believe that it's not the right thing to take that budget out of the aid budget, which is actually part of our defence and security as well. Yes, of course, because one leads to the other shoe needs. Correct, correct. And I think there is a danger that, you know, we just think, well, if the Americans are doing it, maybe we've got to go down that road, particularly the road that they're going on, which is a sense of, you know, nationalism and ethno-nationalism and the whole kind of, you know, some of the kind of really extreme stuff that's out there that they're pushing out there.

29:49I mean, I just just ask yourself what their reaction would have been if we, the Brits or the French or the Germans or the Australians or the Japanese or anybody else had interfered in their election to the extent that they've tried just been interfering in the German election. And likewise, I think that this sort of constant sense of Trump, you know, I'm popular, every loves me. You know, they get they get one sort of clip off GB News or something and they sort of pump it around their own ecosystem saying, you know, Britain loves America. There's a new account on Twitter, you know, Britain's love Trump or something.

30:29so if you're feeding that to him because that's what he needs his ego needs i think then in the real world other stuff's happening do you not think though that maybe we need a bit of that in terms of positivity and talking up the gate rather than down because we do have that british tendency to be like you know things are really tough we've inherited a really bad situation here that means we're gonna have to do these awful things whereas trump's going i've inherited this bad situation but i'm going to make everything great again and yeah people follow that whereas in britain we're maybe looking at our government and going particularly if investors not investing in british businesses and things it's that oh well it's so gloomy there and actually we we look more stable than a lot of countries at the moment yeah i do i'll tell you the other thing i i think that one of the reasons why i think kia will probably this could be famous last words but i think one of the reasons why kia will get a pretty decent hearing in washington is because trump does look and say well he's going to be around for quite a while because he's got a big majority um and yeah they'll be in the briefing they'll say to him listen he's not very popular at the moment the polls aren't great but trump's going to think yeah but the guy's got a huge majority and you know will he think like that will he not be like how rich is he what does he you know and he not people and will he look at majorities?

31:53I think he'll look at power and a majority in parliament is part of power. That's why for Mertz, it's going to be harder. But I think that the, look, you're not dealing with the, you said at the start, so the presidents I saw close up, as a journalist, I saw Reagan, I saw Bush Senior, and then with Tony up close, Clinton and Bush Junior, and Biden, not as president, but before that. And you look at, this is like nothing you could ever imagine in America. Even America, you just can't imagine that this is happening. So, and for Keir, who's so kind of public service and stayed and sober and serious and wants to get the words right and wants to think about the issues, it's going to be fascinating to watch it is a real challenge of statecraft though it really is i mean this is like right up there i'll tell you one thing i said on the on the podcast and i meant this is that i've been really quite impressed by the way that quite a lot of tories that i've been seeing on the airwaves not always at the current i listened to jeremy hunt i thought rishi sunak said some interesting, quite sensible things.

33:12Tobias Elwood, who's no longer there, James Heapy, Ben Wallace, the former Defence Secretary. I've been listening to things they've been saying and posting and what have you. They get just how much this meeting that Keir has with Trump matters. It really, really, out of this flows all sorts of stuff. So it does matter. And I think the other thing he's got to let go, there's no way, he can't control what the other guy does. He can only control what he does. and how he comes over. And again, I think that's what Macron did that very, very well. He didn't get drawn in too much to the madness. He knew what he wanted to say.

33:50He said it. He came out of it pretty well, I thought. It'll be interesting to see what Kia says about the meeting versus what Trump says about it as well. Yeah, the great thing about those joint press conferences and the one that sort of, the most, well, the two most difficult ones for us in a way was the first one with Clinton in the White House was right in the middle of the whole kind of Monica Lewinsky, Paula Jones stuff was going on. And that was all the American media were really interested in. You know, it was one of those moments where there was me, Tony, Clinton and Clinton's press guy, Mike McCurry, in this little huddle before they went out to the press conference, sort of going over tricky questions, what to say, what to do, all that sort of stuff.