139. Speaker Kevin McCarthy: In Defence of Donald J. Trump

25:04He's not going to do anything crazy on tariffs. He's not going to do this kind of stuff. Just calm down. And the other piece of advice you said, we asked you what advice would you give to world leaders? And you said, learn to play golf because that's the way to influence Donald Trump. And then call him. Right. Now listen, honestly, what is your assessment of Trump so far? Trump is different than he was the first time. Better or worse? I would think probably better personally, internally himself. But this is why. This is only the second time in American history do we have a president who served, took a break and served, right?

25:39And what's difficult, you find yourself, you've both been in it. Most presidents serve these two terms, but get no break to think about what they're working on, right? And you're just on a treadmill. So you can get a plan. So he had four years out to think about what he'd want to do. He can't do another term. Are you sure about that? Does he each think that? There's two reasons why he does that, right? He just wants to screw with the press. Okay. And if he said he couldn't do another one, you make him a lame duck. He wants to troll you. Look, he comes from - Why doesn't he have better motivations in life?

26:11Because, look, he's got strength. He's got weaknesses. He accepts those in life. But he comes from the media in America knew him ahead of time, right? And so we accept him. We see warts and we see everything else, right? But I don't believe Trump started the time he picked. I believe this goes back to Ross Perot. And I believe it's a combination of, I see around the world, parties failing to solve problems. Okay, tell us about Ross Perot and how he relates to the story you gave Newt Gingrich. Who is Ross Perot again for international young artists? Ross Perot was a very successful American entrepreneur.

26:48He's from Texas. He created many companies in tech and others, right? And in the 70s, when Americans were being taken hostage, he would go in and rescue himself. He was a Texan, not a tall person, but a tough person. And he was the folklore of America, the Western, not from a cowboy point of view, but hard charging, and I could do it myself, and we can make things happen. When George Bush ran for a second term, Ross Perot runs. And he runs in an unconventional way, right? And had he not run, Clinton would have probably never won, okay? He runs and he has a unique voice about him and he's a straight talker.

27:33And he touches the cord of the people who felt they hadn't been listened to. Not so much from a party, but from a country that you felt you've been left behind. And you think Trump modeled himself more on him than on a conventional Republican leader? Look, Trump is a populace. I would say Ross Perot is a populace. But there's two principles Trump has always believed in life, in tariffs and in drug prices are too high. Those are just principles in his mind. It wouldn't matter if he's a Republican, Democrat. That's just what he has always believed in, right? And there's moments in his life he's been a Republican.

28:11There's moments in his life he's been a Democrat, right? And he's intuitive. The difference in this presidency is he had four years out to think about it. The first time he ran, he might be honest with you and tell you, I didn't really know I could win, right? But he tapped into something, kind of the forgotten man. And then when he won, he had to run against the establishment. And so he didn't have the old staff to come in and do things. And when he first comes in, he puts people together and kind of the Malcolm Gladwell type thing, he gets his 10 ,000 hours. But then he still has people who are in there that didn't come in with him that have stopped him from doing certain things, right?

28:52And then COVID hits. And then he personally believes that he got cheated in that, right? How did he get cheated? Well, he believes he won the election. I know, but I was annoying COVID. Yeah. But COVID is a really good example because COVID comes along and starts telling us to drink bleach and undermining Fauci and all this sort of stuff. We just looked at him and thought, how the hell is this guy, the president? And then when he loses and wins again, we think, how did you people do this? Do you accept that's the kind of broad European attitude to Trump? Do you get that feeling when you're here?

29:23Yeah. I get that feeling when I'm still there for Europeans. You're not shy. I respect people's opinion. But if you think about how was he able to run again, kind of the prosecution of him elevated him. Okay. I'm in America. I see it. You won't see it from there. But what happens in America, you get a pendulum swinging. And a challenge to politics in America, not in this presidential election, but the last two, I believe presidential elections are aspirational. Tell me what America is going to be like in the next four years. And off your elections are like a report card. And that's why in the House, you can win something, you run against it.

30:02But when it was his first election and his second election, people went to vote against somebody, not for something. And the Democrats, when they won with Biden, they just ran against Trump. And they won with that. But they kept doing it. By the way, because you at the time, you were a bit equivocal about whether it was stolen or not. You were absolutely accepting. You take it during, it was a very tight election. We've had these really tight elections. And this is just during the time after the election, you don't have everything done yet. I don't question who won that election. Biden won. Yeah, Biden won.

30:33But Trump still questions that. Yeah, and he truly believes that. Does he really believe it? Yeah. He truly believes that. Does that worry you? No. But, okay, so he gets these four years to think about the next four. And that's healthy because people in elected office, be it governor and everywhere else, you never have the time. You're always 30-minute meetings, everything else. Do you ever take a moment to sit and think about what you just thought you wanted to do and what you learned, right? You ever read Adam Grant's Think Again? But he doesn't even write anything down. He doesn't read. He doesn't write.

31:06You've never met him, have you? No. Okay. So those are characteristics that are not true to the man I know. Okay. He is very intuitive. He listens a lot. Okay. He's intuitive. He talks to more people and he's more accessible than anything. And if you watch the history of America, you used to go up and be able to see Abraham Lincoln, right? He will talk to people around the world. He'll talk to somebody that they don't like or he doesn't like. But does he read briefs? Yes. Yes. Kevin? And he will know things. Yes, he does. I've been in it. I've been in the meetings. I've been to Camp David. I've been in the dark side.

31:45Sorry, Roy. I've never seen a bare desk in my life. Look, he's not going to deliver. This is the difference with Trump. You're putting him in a box of all other American presidents and how they got there, all right, without knowing the past ones. He is a businessman, and everything to him is a business deal. And he's trying to set the table. So he may say something that's totally different than a normal president, but he's trying to get an advantage in a discussion. Let's come back to tariffs as an example. So when we saw you in Davos. Okay, he didn't see me. I was online. So when we saw you online.

32:20You were at Palm Beach. I was giving a speech, yes. Yeah, you were at Palm Beach and you were. I was trying to make a living. He's so excited to get a chance to argue with someone about Donald Trump. He's been looking forward to it all month. He really shamed me up. can't withhold himself. Okay. So on tariffs, you got a series of stories. So after he was elected, you got all these kind of Wall Street titans saying, don't worry about it. He's not going to put up tariffs. He tried that last time. He put them up against Canada. The automobile industry screamed. He dropped them down again. And he's got Scott Bessington and Scott Bessington doesn't believe in tariffs.

32:53Then Liberation Day happens. The tariffs go rocketing up and everyone's like, ah, yes, we always knew he was going to do this. He's always loved tariffs. And it's going to be easy because Elon Musk is going to make a trillion by cutting the government and Howard Lutnick is going to make a trillion from the tariffs. And then we're going to have sort out the deficit. And then he blinks and all the tariffs come crashing down again. And then suddenly the narrative all changes again. Oh, yes, no, no, no. We always knew what he really cared about was the markets. He cares about stock exchange, cares about the bond markets.

33:22Whereas on the 3rd of April, they were all saying, no, no, no, actually, it's all about tariffs. So there's something very odd going on, which is people who've worked with him quite closely people who know him as well as you do, miscalling this again and again, and often after the event, providing a different kind of psychological explanation for what he's up to. I think he's different than he was in the first term, but I disagree with part of that. Let me explain. The difference that he has this time is he has the 10 ,000 hours and he can't do a third term. And he does believe in the first term when he wanted to do certain things, he was always pushed back.

33:57So he couldn't fully implement what he wanted. Okay. Because of the deep state. Yeah. And then people working for him and everything else. And he'd take certain opinions. So this time he wasn't going to do it. He's going to go out and do what he believes. I believe, and he doesn't say this, but this is me analyzing. If he tells you he's going to do a 10 % tariff, he's going to do a 10 % tariff. He did that in his first presidency and Biden kept it. So what happened in that time period, he said, oh, everybody was complaining about it's not so bad, you kept them. So they didn't create inflation.

34:34They're not so bad. So it gave him more reassurance. If he tells you the tariff is going to be higher than 10%, what he's doing is, and people don't understand how to read Trump, he wants to negotiate. Anytime he raises it up, what he's trying to do is negotiation. And what he was saying is reciprocal. Now, that's a legitimate argument. I'm a free trader, but reciprocal is a legitimate argument, especially when it comes to America, based upon the last five, six decades. And understanding Trump, Trump prides a great deal on how somebody treats respect to him, and you think to America. Yeah. And if we allow you into our markets and you don't allow us, And even if we have a trade agreement, that will irritate him.

35:23Now, when he started all this, he wins the election and he's not sworn in yet. He starts with Canada and Mexico. Remember, he got elected on, I believe, three issues. Immigration, our border, the economy, and he's not Biden. So to get a hold of the border, especially last time, he needs the help of Mexico. and he utilized tariffs for negotiations last time with mexico and he got him to react so the first thing he says fentanyl's coming in it's going to be 25 so again if you read through it i want you to negotiate and it's going to go on effect in this day which it never went into effect because they did what he wanted and we before he was sworn in we already started slowing there.

36:12Can I interrupt for a second? Yeah. But Canada's different. What's weird about it is that his logics for tariffs are all mutually contradictory. Number one, I'm doing it to raise a lot of money so the manufacturing stays in China, but I'm going to charge the Chinese goods when they come in. Number two, I'm moving manufacturing back to the US, in which case you wouldn't get the tariff income. Number three, I'm doing it to deal with fentanyl, so I'll drop the tariffs down if you stop bringing the drugs in. Number four, I'm doing it for geostrategic reasons. I want to punish and weaken the Chinese economy because I don't want them to be a geostrategic competitor.

36:42All these things mean completely different things in terms of what you do with your trade policy and they contradict. Yeah. And is that a little bit of a strategy? No. Get the principle of Donald Trump. Everything's a negotiation. So he's going to use the argument at the time that gets him into a playing field different. And now you would say most politicians would fail doing that and wouldn't be able to be elected because they think they're flip-flop with trump how he came into politics was different anything else okay he he was on television but what was he on television as a successful business person who brought people into the room and was the apprentice and would fire people and put them out and so it was always moving something different it was chaotic but in the end we picked somebody up and he he made somebody out of nothing and made him a good business person because he was a negotiator but kevin do we really want government to be like a reality tv show no but reality tv is It's pretty popular, right?

37:37We have democracy. Democracy is so critical. So cricket in the UK. Okay. So let me be a counterpoint to this. Do I want America to have an open border with all these people who come through? Do I want inflation like we haven't seen since the 70s that hurts everybody? Do I want to allow Putin to invade another country? Do I want the missteps of Afghanistan? No, of course you don't. So that was all Biden. He may have been a very polite person that you would invite to tea. He wouldn't really know what was happening. But Americans didn't want that. And they picked a disruptor because they felt it had gotten so out of control that, yes, we've watched this.

38:16But they also picked a disruptor because he had got such control of the Republican Party. And let's be frank. Now he is. But when he first won, he was not. Okay. But there are lots of Republicans. We speak to them. You will know this is the case. I'm amazed how many Republicans you speak to who will say in private, the guy's an absolute monster. I wouldn't trust my daughter with him. I wouldn't do a deal with him. And yet publicly, you're all out there because he's so powerful over the party. He is more powerful in the Republican Party today than at any given time. But if I measure that, I remember when I first ran in the Statehouse, George Bush was more powerful than any Republican at that time.

38:59We just had 9-11 everywhere else. Ronald Reagan at the moment. Most leaders, when they hit their peak, it also moves out to everywhere else. They help elect governors. George Bush went around helping elect. He expanded majorities, right? That's what leaders do. And if you waste that, how is that strong? And why do leaders do it? They want to put more people who support their view and grow. I get that. And so people that have different view. And remember, when he ran the very first time, he ran against 17 others. He has a different philosophy than the other traditional Republicans. The same thing happened to Ronald Reagan.

39:41They tried to push him out when he first started running, right? Because he ran against Ford, and Ford was sitting, and a lot of Republicans go out and campaign against him. So it's more a change within the party, but it's no different than any other leader. Okay, but when you were talking about Ronald Reagan earlier, and I did meet Ronald Reagan, and even though I'm very much not his politics, I could see what you mean. He's a world leader. Right, but he's also that happiness and that sort of positivity. Right. Trump comes over to me as one of the angriest people alive. That's not the same. Okay, you're making these comments, but you had never met him.

40:16So, let me try. You know, I see quite a lot of them. Okay, but let me try to give you an example. Most people have not met him. If I'm in America, I wouldn't say it equal to you, but I would say somebody of your part, someone of your beliefs, philosophy, and is out front and talks about it all the time, I'd take a Bill Maher, okay? He's on television. He has a show that's on HBO and everything all the time. I just was on it the other day. And his whole starting monologue is criticized. And he's a liberal. He literally gives money too, like millions of dollars. And he hates Trump. Hates Trump. He has Trump syndrome.

40:47I mean, just goes crazy, yells at you, you know, stop it. And then kid rocks on and says, you know what? Have you ever known? Why don't you go to dinner? He goes to dinner at the White House, hates this man, says all these things about him. And Trump has said terrible things about him. You know what he does? He takes the list like 52 and has Trump sign him. He walks away. I was just on the show with you guys. He goes, I could have never had that conversation with Clinton or with Obama. He's more genuine. And what he found is sitting there one-on-one having a discussion. He disagrees with his politics and he disagrees with some of his delivery.

41:20Was Trump wrong that Europe should actually get to 2 %? He was right. And I've said that before he was there and I'm saying that. So I take it from an American looking back, his delivery is not good. But when I talk to, just as you say, you talk to a Republican. When I talk to elected officials in Europe, they'll say they don't like him, but they say, but there's a lot of truth to what he says. But there's another problem, Kevin, which I think we're underestimating, which is America spent 70, 80 years building up an extraordinary network of alliances, incredible goodwill, incredible soft power.

41:54Countries like Denmark worship the United States and couldn't imagine a world without the United States. And we built an entire NATO in America's shadow, So all these institutions, UN onwards, right? And the last five months has been unbelievably traumatic for Europe. I mean, something has broken, which will be very, very difficult to fix again. Just small things which you don't care about, like Greenland, are devastating. The idea that the United States, we never scenario plan for a conflict with the United States. We assume that we are. Wait, wait, wait. Let's just develop this, right? It's a sovereign territory, part of a NATO member, right?

42:41And Denmark makes it clear that this is not happening. J.D. Vance goes there against the express wishes of the sovereign elected government and makes a provocative and offensive speech against his democratic government. He endorses the AFD, a far-right party in Germany, interfering in a German election as it's happening at a very, very sensitive moment. Everything that's happened with Ukraine has completely thrown people off balance. It may be funny. He may be doing stuff that American voters like. The impact on America's alliances, particularly in the West, is shattering. It's going to be very difficult to rebuild this.

43:19You think it's all fine? Everyone's going to think it's a joke. No, look, I don't think it's fine. I know there's challenges here, but let me give you from a point of view of the outside. And I have a different opinion on what's happening in Ukraine than probably some people in my party do. I think these actions of Putin have very similar actions before the start of World War II. I think the world looks more like 1938 than any time. And we've got the crinks now, right? We haven't had that since the axis of evil. You're coming off COVID. Something like COVID only happens once a century. And what happens when something like COVID takes place, leaders in democracy lose, not because he or she has done something wrong, but because it's so life-changing and authoritarians stay in power and on a natural place, they usurp more power.

44:08If I take from an American point of view, looking out into Europe, I don't know who the leader of Europe is anymore, right? Is Macron strong in France? I don't know. I think the Prime Minister of Italy, I think she's strong. Germany? I don't know what's happening within Germany. So I think we're both going through this political movement, but I don't see how a bond between American and Europe can break that quickly when we have shared the ultimate sacrifice for each other. You would have thought so. And then I would believe that. But can you imagine threatening a sovereign state, interfering in internal elections, suggesting that your allies, France and Britain, did not sacrifice lives or participate in Afghanistan?

44:56You are the only people. J.D. Vance said this explicitly. You are the only people who've ever triggered Article 5. We deployed for you after 9-11 in Afghanistan. We gave lives in Afghanistan and we then get insulted. I was the minority leader in Congress when Afghanistan, the withdrawal took place. And I remember calling President Biden saying, you can't pull out this fast because how can you do this to the UK? They're not there because they had a 9-11. They're there because we had a 9-11. No, I couldn't thank you enough that you were willing to sacrifice your own lives because we're Do you see that?

45:36I was in Munich when J.D. Vance made that speech. And I promise you, you talk about soft power. If the guy had gone in with a bucket full of sick and thrown it all over the room, he would have had the same effect. Because he was essentially saying, you guys aren't really democratic because you don't say like I do that the AfD are great in Germany. You guys don't believe in free speech. I think they don't believe in free speech. Who doesn't? I think Trump and Vance, they go after anybody who criticizes them. They go after anybody who challenges them. Look, I understand even though you're out of Congress, you're still a Republican.

46:11You want Trump to succeed. Let me be clear. I want America to succeed. I want Europe to succeed at the same time. But just at the same point you want with yours, I just think from a perspective, look, you two were served in government at the same time. Government is much bigger on a number of different bases. We have too much bond in there in a basis to throw something away so rapidly or something. But we are in a world where things are going very quickly. Okay. Let's play devil's advocate though, okay? Is there any merit to Americans when I'm back home to say, why do we have to pay the largest share of NATO?

46:50And all these European countries have promised us 2%. Agreed. But I never came to your country and said, we just broke a bond because you guys have promised something and you haven't done it. But you're the powerful person in this relationship in a way. And Rory and I have taught, ever since we started this podcast, we talked about Europe has to step up for its own defense. We've taken American leadership on this for granted. I get that. But I think it's more about the things he says, the things he threatens, the way he says them, the way he threatens them. I actually think, and I think you may agree with this, or you may have agreed with this at one point, I actually think what he did on January the 6th renders him unfit for public office.

47:32In our country, that would have been unfit for public office ever again. The voters get to decide, look, I don't support anything that happened on January 6th. I think what happened on January 6th was wrong. But you still support him. He instigated that. Look, you haven't met him. You weren't there. I was literally in the capital and had to be removed from the capital at the time. So, I mean, I don't judge somebody based upon their opinion, based upon their life experience when they lived through something. I kind of test that that's what they know. Look, do I think our relationships, what I feel as I'm here in Europe is strained?

48:08Yeah. But what I would say is I think it's been more building. You ever been in a relationship and you let something go, go, go, go, go? And then whatever transpires isn't that big, but you let everything else build up in between it. And so it's higher. I think that's kind of where it's at. But I also believe in the Bible, it tells me, iron sharpens iron. I don't see how the sacrifices we have made for one another. Europe has laid down their life for Americans. And Americans have laid down their life for Europe. You don't break that bond. Do you have differences of opinion at times? Do you get frustrated with it?

48:43Yeah. But that's where you work through whatever the challenges are. And remember, America is a land that lives under a constitution. I think, unfortunately, your analogy is a good one. I mean, I think frustration with Europe in the U.S. was building for a long time. I mean, I remember seeing it even in the 90s. And you may well be right that what we're seeing now, you know, kind of Vance has sort of taken off the mask. He's revealed what a lot of Americans really think. You know, he served in the U.S. military and he somehow appears to have believed that America fought alone and that there weren't any allies with them and that they didn't do anything.

49:15I don't see that view. But he said it. And to be honest with you, I've never heard others bring that up. That's not something America. So it's healthy that I get to hear that. Okay. Anyway, so I think the risk is that if you let these things build up and then you're really unpleasant in the final days, whatever the background is, you know, whatever the justification is, you can end up with divorce. And I think we are very, very close to a world where the West that America carefully curated for 80 years is disintegrating and where it's becoming quite clear that, you know, President Trump's first visits are not to Canada, not to the United Kingdom.

49:52They're not to liberal democracies. They're not to NATO allies. Where are they to? I would disagree with that premise wholeheartedly. Don't overread where somebody first goes. But let me give you an analogy or why my thinking is where he transpired and why this Middle East trip was so successful. We've got conflict in Israel. We've got Ukraine and Russia. We got Iran. So Henry Kissinger, before he died, he wrote this column with Graham Allison, destined for war. 16 times in the history of the world, the number two power has surpassed the number. Only four times he didn't go to war. Their city is trapped.

50:32And they wrote it with Three numbers, 72, 72, and nine. 72 years since we've had a great war, and that's actually a long time. 72 years since a country has used an atomic or nuclear weapon. Nine countries have that capability. If we were sitting here in the 1960s having this discussion and trying to project how many countries would have nuclear capabilities in 2025, we'd say 40, 60. Working together has made that, all right? If Iran is ever allowed to have a nuclear weapon, there'll be 40 countries with a nuclear weapon within a couple of years, easily, right? Going to Saudi Arabia, okay? In the first administration, he created the Abraham Accords, which I think was very important.

51:18I also think America has learned a lesson. We have been at war for two decades, right? And I think part of our learning is you can't force democracy on a country that doesn't ask for it. I think America's greatest strength is not our aircraft carriers, the idea of America. What he did there with Syria was a new start. What he did there was trying to get Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords. Also, energy is important on how you're going to get Putin to the table. His whole economy is based upon the price of oil. If we're able to lower the price, we're big producers, they're big producers. If we worked together and it didn't have a good relationship in the last administration, when Biden went there, it wasn't very positive.

52:05Then China comes in and brings Saudi Arabia with Iran. Well, that's America stepping off the stage. Russia wasn't in the Middle East for quite some years. And then during the Obama administration, when he had the red line and let it cross 12 times, we brought him into Syria, right? Doing what he did in Syria was a different policy than we had a long time. And probably he was the only one to do it, probably like Nixon going to China. But that kind of makes sure Iran and maybe push Russia out of that region, which I believe would be positive. If you lower the price of oil for every economy in the world, that's very helpful and lowers inflation.

52:44So that combination of all that. But if you sat back and you looked where you didn't come to my country first, I will tell you on a personal basis, he has such high respect for your country. and especially when the queen hosted him. I'll tell you this personal story. I've never shared it somewhere else. He told me a story where I believe it was in Buckingham Palace and he was about to go down and the queen was hosting him and he and Melania. And he turns to Melania and said, can you believe we're all here? I mean, I watched in his face, I watched in his eyes and depict that you didn't go to UK first, but who did he do the trade agreement first with?

53:20The UK. So I look at positives. I mean, sometimes people just look at negatives. Yeah, and I get sometimes that we, the Brits, are probably a little bit needy about this special relationship, etc., etc. But it is special. It's beyond special. Okay, but you mentioned Ukraine there. It's very hard for us here to see what he is trying to achieve by this constant, I mean, he's dialed it down a little bit recently, but constant berating of Zelensky, whose country was invaded by a kind of murderous dictatorial thug. I think you're being kind to Putin. Okay. But Trump's kind to Putin. And sometimes what we sense is that Putin ultimately, you mentioned Kissinger's book.

54:03I mean, Madeleine Albright wrote a book, Fascism, A Warning. And she was talking about your country. That was in Trump term one. Is he not somebody who has deeply authoritarian, potentially dictatorial tendencies? And that's why he likes Putin. And that's why he likes Xi. He admires strong leaders. He likes to be a strong leader. That doesn't mean you're dictatorial or otherwise. I've served with a lot of presidents. Putin has served with a lot of presidents. There's only one president that he didn't invade another country in. I mean, let me give you one analogy. When you think about, I look at the world and it concerns me at times.

54:38If I look at the actions movement up to World War II, where Hitler serves in the German army, but he hates that they signed the Treaty of Versailles, right? So what does he do? He runs for office in a democracy again and again and again. and the moment that he takes power, within a month, he takes power. And then he moves into the Rhineland and he rebuilds his military, even though it goes against the Treaty of Versailles, but the world power doesn't do anything because they believe they'll keep the communists at bay. So then he takes Austria. Then he creates, with a country in Asia and Italy, an axis of evil.

55:10They all want to expand their sphere of influence. Then he tells, I'm making it fast, then he tells the rest of the world he's going to take Czechoslovakia on a given day. So in comes Neville Chamberlain, right? His own generals tell Hitler, knock it off. They can defeat us. But he sees weakness in the eyes. He doesn't go with it. He signs a piece of paper he can care less about and plans and creates World War II. Putin doesn't serve in the Soviet Union army, but he serves in the KGB. He hates that it collapses to the West. So much more when Gorbachev died a few years ago, he wouldn't attend the funeral.

55:43What does he do? He does the same thing. He runs for office in a democracy, respects the democracy, serves two terms, puts its puppet Medved in. And we all knew what it was, right? Barack Obama gets caught on a hot mic talking to the president Medved and says, tell Putin I'll be more flexible after the election. Then he uses - How does this explain Trump's - Well, I'm going to get to the point because you're going to get to the point. I'm telling you my view of the world right now. He uses to rebuild his military, the natural resource. He uses KGB tactics to fund environmental groups in Europe.

56:15to get Merkel and everybody else to buy his natural gas. The pipelines go through the old Soviet Union. When Ukraine changes its leadership, he doesn't want to pay the dividend anymore. So what does he do? Proposes a new pipeline that goes through no country, goes just through the ocean. The only country to stand up against it was America, to sanction it. Then what does he do? He invades Georgia. He takes Crimea. He goes to the Donbass. Then he goes to the Olympics in China and creates a new crink, right? And then he watches the missteps of America in Afghanistan. He got his meeting with Biden.

56:49And when Biden met with him, he didn't tell him to remove the troops he parked along Ukraine. He lifted the sanctions off North Stream 2. So the world has to be strong, but you've got to judge on the outcome. What Trump wants to do, and I think everybody would say this, this war is atrocities of what has happened. I've been to Ukraine. I went in 2015 after the first invasion, and then I went back to my White House, and I sat with then the Vice President, Joe Biden. I said, let's sell javelins to Ukraine so they could defend themselves, right? You know what he told me? Europe wouldn't support it.

57:24You would provoke Putin, right? I said, okay, well, let's train him on him, keep it in Poland. So he understands How are you going to get Putin to the table? You cannot give, and this is where we're wrong because what did we promise Ukraine before? You've got to get Putin to the table. Ukraine wants to have some guarantee. This is where I think Zelensky misread it. The mineral agreement is the guarantee. Because what he was doing there, he literally said America is going to be a partner with you. If you read through the lines, if somebody attacks you, they're attacking America. So I'm giving you an agreement, but not putting it in a manner that gives Putin to save face to come to have a negotiation.

58:07So you can't judge it until it's over, right? He's a negotiator. So what he's trying to do is get people to the table to stop people from ending the atrocities that are going on. Putin is 100 % wrong with everything about this. I don't want Putin to be successful in any shape or form. But does he not look at Trump at the moment and think, this guy's pretty weak. He's saying the things I want to hear. Vance is saying the things I want to hear. Do you ever have somebody who's smooth talker compliments you and everything else, and you walk out and your pocket's gone, you overpaid for something? Yeah.

58:39I think that's a hell of a negotiator. So you can't judge until the end, to be fair. We're going to have to wrap now. Okay. I can see Alistair's so enthusiastic. He would keep going, Pras, and you've been wonderful. Happily. I would happily keep going. What better things have we got to do? He's fascinated by this conversation. As I might. So thank you for your time. Let's finish with a final one. You're a very optimistic bouncing kind of person. Always. Always. And it's lovely to see. But I want to finish just with a sense of the personal cost and the strains of being a politician. And what are the things, along with all the lovely stuff that you'll say to encourage young people to go into politics, what has become tougher about politics?

59:17If you were being honest with your family about the personal Can I just add into that as well a sense of what it was like when you were being ousted a speaker at the emotional level, at the kind of, you know, huge around the world. This is being watched and covered. And it's about you and your family are in the background somewhere watching this. Just give us an indication of what that feels like. Well, because I had been in for a while and because you've gone through the barrel a few times, I didn't have qualms. I had peace. Look, I got removed because I had one member sleep with an underage woman who wanted to leverage me to end an ethics investigation.

59:59Who Donald Trump wanted to give a senior position in the administration. Yeah, who didn't get there. Okay. Okay. And so from that standpoint, I'd rather stand on what's right, right, from the same point. It's difficult in politics. You can't have – everything's in a snapshot. You can't tell the full story. Everything's not black and white. And you got to be tough skin to be able to survive it. So is it tough on your family? Yeah. And then your family can't have a normal life. But there's also a lot of benefits. The tough part that I think through the ages, what we've done is we've said a lot of things, everybody that's in politics, to try to win.

1:00:36So we downgrade the job itself. I want the very best people to serve. I don't think I've served the whole time. And I don't think I was on this CNBC show, The Squawk Box. You know, they're in there and they're talking about carried interest. and they think anybody that has a different position, who bought them off? Well, somebody could have a different opinion in mind and not be bought off by somebody else. They look at the world a little differently. And I think the difficult part today is before, if somebody made an agreement with the other side, just like in business, you'd have a win-win. Today, society thinks if you make an agreement that you must have sold out, right?

1:01:14I had to walk through and get a debt ceiling, which Republicans don't like to vote for, with a five-seat majority, the Democrats controlling the Senate and the White House, and I got the largest cut in American history. I got the most conservative stuff you'd ever find, but you couldn't celebrate it because somehow the Democrats had to be a part of it too. In the removing, the Democrats always before said they would never vote for a motion to vacate. Pelosi told me, we'll never vote for that. but I'm the only leader in modern history that has always won seats. I elected the most women for Republicans and the most minority for Republicans, and I won every single time as leader.

1:01:52We gained seats. Even when Biden won the presidency with 82 million votes, you know how many Republicans in Congress lost their seat? Zero. That hadn't happened since 94, and we beat 13 Democrats. Everybody projected I'd lose 25. The power of the idea, getting the right person who represents it. I still think, look, I look at the Capitol. I don't take back one day. I loved every moment of it. I do it all again. And I do it the same way. Even the falls, because it's what makes you who you are, right? I love to read books about people who have stumbled and picked themselves up. And I think that's kind of what America is about.

1:02:29That's what we look for. Well, listen, thank you for your time. Our motto, I don't even know our motto is disagree agreeably. It sounds to me that you're calling for a bit more of that. That's a message I think you should take back to your leader who should disagree more agreeably. But thank you very, very much for your time. Yeah, it's been an honour. Thank you. Good to see you guys. I really appreciate it. So, Roy, that was our second encounter with Kevin McCarthy, first in Davos and then on the podcast. Yeah, well, I thought the main thing sitting in the room was, I've never seen you so animated or excited.

1:03:01It was actually, in a way, very kind of charming. It was a bit like me being sort of stuck in a room trying to argue with some philosopher I disagreed with. You were clearly so sort of confused, intrigued and enraged about his support for Trump. But I don't think it's very good to indicate to possible new listeners and new members that I'm normally asleep. I don't think you're asleep. But I meant, no, I don't think you're normally asleep. I feel I'm always animated and energetic. No, you're very animated. But this one was very charming because it was one where you would occasionally look at me and say, you know, you can ask the next question.

1:03:32But then when it actually came to it, you couldn't resist asking a second or third question yourself. I think because you were so sort of puzzled by the fact that you find it very difficult dealing with someone who's still a massive supporter of Trump. So you kept coming back in saying, yeah, but deep down, I don't believe he is. I don't believe he believes all that. I think he I think he has to say that he feels he has to say that because even though he's no longer a politician, as it were, a serving active politician, he's still on the circuit. Yeah. He's still part of the kind of national Republican Party conversation.

1:04:05So he feels he has to say those things. I mean, I talked to Anthony Scaramucci beforehand, so, you know, and he was very strongly viewed that that was the way to press him was, you know, does he really believe this stuff? And I genuinely find it hard to get over the January 6th stuff. And so at one point did Kevin McCarthy, but now it's sort of, oh, well, that's all ancient history. What do you think about him as a politician? Well, I thought one thing that was interesting is that you saw the clearest possible example of what the moderate defense of Trump was. So I had dinner with a Trump appointee in the States just before I left, who was saying almost exactly the same line as Kevin.

1:04:48And it was very similar, actually, to when we interviewed Natham Zahawi about Boris Johnson. You've got to meet him. You should spend time with him. Exactly. Classic defense is when you spend time with them, they're very charming, they're very smart, they're very well briefed, and they let you get on with it, and they're great managers. And it's really weird because the massive dissonance is how difficult it is to get across to Kevin McCarthy. Firstly, as you pointed out, the fact that he said when we saw him in Davos in January that Trump was going to be much more moderate and restrained and wouldn't want to do anything crazy on tariffs or scare the markets or the bond markets.

1:05:28and how he now processes that. The second thing is the struggle of American supporters of Trump understanding how totally thrown off balance Europe has been, how much they feel that what Trump has done has destroyed the American alliance since 1945, how things like Greenland, the threats of Greenland are not a joke that you can't just say, yeah, he's a bit of a clown and he gets to go around saying stuff, but we'll kiss and make up and we'll be just as it was before. that they just don't understand how much he's wrecked by his behavior. But also, I just don't buy this idea that if you met him and you spoke to him, because the truth is, Donald Trump does everything in public anyway.

1:06:12I mean, I wish the news channels would stop saying, breaking news, Donald Trump takes questions from reporters, because he does it about every 20 minutes. And so we see the guy. I don't need to meet him and to have a conversation to know that he behaved in a repellent fashion to Zelensky when he met him. I don't need to meet him to know that when he sat down with Cyril Ramaphosa recently, he behaved like a complete jerk. I don't need to meet him to know that. And the idea, by the way, Roy, that if you met him, he reads his brief, you've got the bloody Kirstie Noem woman, the intelligence person, saying that because he doesn't read his brief, she's trying to get them packaged like Fox News bulletins to give him a daily morning video briefing rather than the thing.

1:06:58And likewise with Johnson, I don't buy the idea that if you met Johnson, you'd suddenly think he was a hard worker. Just look at the COVID inquiry to sort of put that one right. So no, I don't buy that line. But what I think we're seeing at one level with both Trump and the kind of milder version of Boris Johnson is what it's like to be a professional party politician, how important party loyalty is. I mean, Kevin McCarthy is the ultimate party insider. He became involved in politics quite young. He's completely sort of Republican through and through. And what really matters to them above all is winning.

1:07:33I mean, I think that the real answer that I used to get on Boris Johnson when I'd say that I thought he was a terrible prime minister, a terrible human being, people would say, yeah, but he won. He did really well in the 2019 election. And that's what they They will sense that above all, provided he can win, the sense of party loyalty seems to trump any kind of ethics, any kind of international relations, any kind of anything. You can see why he made it in that system. He's very, very eloquent, very charming. It was interesting after you had to run off, but, you know, he hung around at the end and wanted to chat to the production team and very affable.

1:08:12but I suspect deep in his heart he thinks this Trump stuff is a bit of a disaster but he knows that if he says that you know, he's going to toast. There we go. That's my view, Kevin. Anyways, lovely to talk to you. Thank you, Kevin, for your time.

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