291. The Rise of Kamala Harris

26:27The parallels are there, but I think what you do when you're into a campaign and Keir Starmer did this, you play to your strengths. And her strengths, as we've suggested, are in this kind of prosecutorial, taken argument, really probate, really test it. So, I think for example, if Trump and she'd were involved in a TV debate, I mean, it would be absolute box office for sure. She a bit like Vance the other day suddenly went from being quite a big figure to a very big figure, and now he's gone. He's sort of, he's always vanished in the last few days. I mean, he'll come back obviously. But I think she's gone from, she is suddenly the person in the world that is being most talked about.

27:11And that is a massive opportunity. The fact that yesterday, virtually every major new station in the world cut to her baking, a very anodine speech about these young athletes who'd become champions of America, and then analyzing it for how she looked and how she spoke and all that. This is a huge opportunity. So, the question is, how does she now play to her strengths? And I think that is a massive opportunity for her and for the Democrat Party. And I think that the thing about Trump, I just think about where we were. Trump had the assassination attempt. We had the TV debate where all went wrong for Biden.

27:51Trump is suddenly in the ascendancy. We then had the assassination attempt where Trump was able to project himself in a very different way, present himself as this great unifying figure. The minute Joe Biden pulled out, Trump was back to being Trump again. His truth social post about Biden was about the least agraacious thing that has ever been written by human being. It was horrible. Now, just imagine he's in a TV debate with Kamala Harris. And Trump's people are saying to him, don't be too abusive, don't get carried away, don't let suburban women think you don't like women, don't sort of. And if you look at what she's said about, she said some vile things about her already.

28:34Crazy, she's nuts. The other thing which the right push out the whole time is Kamala Harris slept her way to the top. That's what the right tend to do about women who reach positions of power. When you see this stuff starting in the conspiracy theory world, what happens when we saw this with the whole birter thing with Obama, eventually Trump takes it on. And by the way, the Jamaica India parentage, you watch, it's already started in the kind of the dark web and the conspiracy theories of the right. She's not really American. This is what I think that Faraj was doing, a black African woman. And it's just a cut to the chase.

29:11What you're saying basically is that she shouldn't try to become JFK and make huge big charismatic speeches that that that would be risky. That she's better concentrating on what she's already proven that she's very good at. I mean, she's she's 60 years old. She knows who she is. She's not going to change her mind. So suddenly trying to reimagine her as a kind of great giver of passionate band storming big rhetorical speeches. It's not the way to go. The way to go is to lean into what she's good at, which is the forensic prosecution stuff. Also to be pretty bold about how she campaigns, where she goes to campaign, the danger she's got to watch is that she doesn't sort of stack up more and more and more votes in the places where she's already fairly secure.

29:57It's now about going into those places where people have got doubts about her and really confronting them. And I think, by the way, I think she's a better speaker than than Kathy was giving her credit for. I think she she will be able to kind of rise to it. But yeah, she's not JFK. She's not she doesn't have the Obama or a torical touch. And in terms of that going into those swing states, again, the big question is, will she now return to emphasizing her background as somebody who was tough on crime or in the words of the book that she wrote, smart on crime, right? She she was somebody who was very much seen as a tough prosecutor.

30:35San Francisco Chronicle and I end feeling police chiefs who were like, yeah, she was a good woman, which meant, you know, she was on the side of the police. She had to suppress that during the Democratic primaries in 2020, because that was the era of George Floyd. And she very much wanted to present herself as liberal in a context in which people were talking about finding the police. Now she needs to get those votes out in those rust belt states. Is she going to make the decision to sound more conservative? In other words, is she going to be a bit more like Kierstamer in a way again, trying to reassure the center ground, Republic Convacers, by sounding quite right wing, assuming that she can hold the left wing base behind her on the basis of who she is in her own story?

31:21I'll tell you one thing that I think will come up from her record in California, although she was, as you say, pretty tough on crime. She was always pretty outspoken about the death penalty. And, you know, I think in our country we don't really understand it, but the death penalty is one of those touchstone issues for some of the places where she's going to have to win over. So that's something I think she'll understand. I think we'll see this in her choice of running mate and in where she goes to campaign. But don't underestimate her as a campaigner either or the fact that since Joe Biden dropped out to the race on Sunday, she's raised $81 million.

31:58Now, I don't know what the total spend on the UK general election was, but it was way less than that. It's an interesting thing though, that raising because Shoshana is a registered Democrat and got an email immediately. And she got the email basically from the Biden campaign saying, will you send us some money? Of course, Shoshana means she was like, I'm sending in the money. But what was happening there was very interesting, very clever of Connollar Harris's campaign because basically what she was pulling off there in those very early hours after President Biden announced he was stepping down is a huge surge of Democratic support, which was then interpreted as a massive endorsement for Connollar personally.

32:37But in fact, was actually a lot of Democrats just feeling, and I think this is something not to be underestimated. Hope has returned to the Democratic Party. They were so miserable. They were on the floor. They were on the floor. What had happened after that debate and after the assassination, people just thought, this is it, we've lost, we're not going to get anywhere. And Connollar Harris with all the challenges she's faces and all these questions around the blank slate, which is what we're going to have to watch, what kind of candidate does she turn out to be, nevertheless there is for the first time hope.

33:06Yeah, well, listen, on that, let's take a break. Just to say as well, Anthony and Cassie who we mentioned a few times, they've got their own episode out today. So once you've finished this one, go and listen to them. Just search the restless politics, US, wherever you get your podcasts. Let's go to a break. And when we come back, we'll talk about Venezuela and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Very good, House. So thank you.

33:33This is an ad from Better Health. At the moment, we're getting advice from everywhere. You just have to go on TikTok. Could be Alice's cold plunges. Could be my attempts to meditate or the digital detox that I'm doing in Colombia. But of course, one of the things that we know is that it can be incredibly valuable to talk to another human being, somebody who's actually been trained as a therapist to work through these ideas, calmly, objectively and professionally. And as the largest online therapy provider in the world, Better Health can provide access to mental health professionals with a very diverse variety of expertise.

34:08They've got over 5 ,000 therapists in the UK. They've helped more than five million people globally. And you can join in session literally at the click of a button, change therapists anytime. So obviously not about fixing you, but it's about hearing yourself clearly, maybe for the first time. So talk it out with Better Health. Our listeners get 10 % off their first month at BetterHelp .com slash rest politics. That's BetterHELP .com slash rest politics.

34:42Welcome back to the rest of politics with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Alice Campbell. And Rory, let's, before we finally, finally, finally leave America, very interesting stuff happening in the relationship between the two main parties and the tech giants, which is a good opportunity to plug our excellent two -part interview with Nick Clegg, which I really, really enjoyed. I mean, as you know, I'm a bit of a kind of Nick Clegg fanboy, which is a French position, I think, in British society. One of our production team is part of your club. Very good. A credible story. I mean, he managed, people forget this now, in 2010, he got more votes than Richie Suneck, the conservative leader, former primers, to just got in the last election.

35:25So he, of course, was in government. He was deputy prime minister, and I think he's a really interesting kind of glimpse of a different Britain, a different sense of personalities. I got a bit of grief as not pushing him as hard as we might have done on meta. And it's sort of the downsides thereof. But I think I can safely say, I don't think this is a controversial opinion. When I look at the tech world, I think Nick Clegg is not nearly as big a dick, as Elon Musk. I think we can do that. And I think your friend Nick Clegg will like you a bit more positive than that. And I think when people listen to the rest of politics leading into your Nick Clegg, they'll come out with a pretty positive impression of him.

36:08I'm probably overcompensating for the fact that he's quite good friend to buy. Now, the first episode's out now, but if you want to listen to the second episode straight away, you can sign up to Trip Plus. Just head to the rest of politics .com. And it's great, because you also don't get the ads, but it's also an opportunity to get our interviews early and get the pods as soon as they drop. So the rest is politics plus. Now, let's turn to Venezuela. And you mentioned the before the break, the comparisons between Kierstama and Kamala Harris. Well, the comparison that you can make with Kierstama and the opposition, the main opposition alliance in Venezuela is a massive poll lead.

36:48And this is fascinating, because you have Nicholas Maduro, who is the leader of the PSUV, the United Socialist Party, the Chavistas. And he is up against a guy called Edmundor Gonzalez Uruchia, who is a kind of pretty non -descript former diplomat, the leader of the main opposition party, Maria Corina Machado, the government blockter from standing. She then recommended somebody else, Corina Yoros, and they blocked her too. So Gonzalez Uruchia is a very much third choice, but he is the alliance that they put together, this kind of popular unitary platform, they call it, is somewhere between 20 and 30 points ahead in the polls.

37:35And what that means for the election, which is at the end of this month, is that if Maduro announces that he's won, there will be nobody who believes it. And that really will, I think, provoke all sorts of angst and grief from, yes, the United States, but also from Venezuela's neighbors as well. So this is an election where it's entirely possible that an authoritarian leader could lose and could be forced out. Little explainer on Venezuela. So Venezuela is a country which has kind of defied the trajectory of the rest of Latin America. So the basic story of a lot of Latin America, if you kind of step back and look at it from 30 ,000 feet, is that you go through a period 70s and 80s of military dictatorship.

38:23And then as you come into the late 80s, early 90s, technocrats come in, the Washington consensus, austerity, balancing the books. And then you move forward to the early 2000s, where you get lurches between left and right populism. Venezuela bucks the trend in every way. It's a country which was in the 70s and 80s, moving between two different democratic and elected parties, sort of equivalents to social democrats and Christian democrats, and they exchanged power peacefully back and forth until in the early 90s, a man called Ugo Chavez, who was a military commander, tried to mount. Well, is he a man?

39:05Is he a man? Because a lot of people say he is a god. He was, he was, he is a godlight figure. Yeah. So tried to mount a coup d 'état. It didn't go so well for him. He was put in prison, but when he was released from prison, he ran to become president, became president, and set up a totally different style of government. And right the way through to his death in 2013, and boy, he clung on. I mean, he had very bad cancer towards the end, going off for treatment in Cuba, but he just kept pushing the revolution forward. And he was the first kind of real epitome of populism. Yeah. He ruled the country from television.

39:44So he had this amazing show on a Sunday called Hello, Mr. President, which could go on between four and seven hours a day, where you could call in. And Ugo Chavez would answer your calls. He did this great stuff, which dictates his love, which he would fire people on television. So he'd say things are going badly in the oil companies. So I tell you, Mr. Alistair Campbell, you are fired. And then he'd pull out a whistle and he'd blow it. And then he'd go on for the next. And he was running a country, and I suppose this is the final thing that I'll hand back to you. Before he handed it over to his chosen successor, Maduro, who he basically, in his final speeches, he's dying.

40:22He announced his chosen successor. He was running a country where the number one thing you need to understand is oil. Venice, Waleck is sort of Saudi Arabia. Population, not very different in size than 1972, Saudi Arabia, and has proven oil reserves larger than Saudi Arabia. And if you looked at it in the early 1970s, it felt very much like Saudi, similar GDP per capita, exporting similar numbers of barrels of oil a day. But since then, huge divergence. Like Saudi benefited enormously in 1974 from this massive rise in oil prices. Like Saudi Arabia, into some extent, the other Gulf states created an entire state, which was basically about the government takes the money from oil, and then it hands it out and benefits to the people.

41:10So it's not really a country with a proper tax base. It's not really a country with a function of democracy because in the end, the state gets all the money and the state hands out all the money. And in the good days, the oil revenue in 1974 went from about a billion shot up to something like six or seven billion a single year. So you can imagine the kind of revenue jumps up. But then you head in the other direction. And this is the story to finish with. The economy of Venezuela, when things began going wrong under Maduro, contracted by 65 percent. And the way to think about that is that if there were three shops open on the streets, you're now down to one shop open on the streets.

41:52If you were eating three meals a day, you're down to eating one meal a day. If three people in work, now one person works and this led to the largest push of refugees of any place outside war -torn Syria. Yeah, yeah. They reckon about a fifth of the population of left. One of the reasons why this election could have an impact upon the American election is because after Mexico, Venezuela is the country that produces the most people trying to get into the United States. And they reckon that another two million will be hop -footing it if Maduro does try to cling onto power. The thing about, I've only ever been to Venezuela once.

42:32And the thing about Chavez is that it's I was only half joking in saying that there are those who think he is a god -like figure. There was even the Lord's Prayer. I don't know if you've heard this one, Rory. Are Chavez who are in heaven on earth, in the sea, and in us the representatives, howl I'd buy that be thy name, thy legacy come so we can bring it to towns here and there. Give us this day your light so it guides us every day. Leaders not into the temptation of capitalism, but deliver us from the evil of oligarchy and the crime of smuggling because the Motherland is ours as his peace and life, forever and ever, our men long live Chavez.

43:13And that was a, that was a use that one of the training programs for the party after his death. So this is somebody who, when you go around the place, you see these kind of, you know, these poor traits, these figurines, there's all sorts of things linking him to Christ. And of course Maduro is a pretty charismatic guy in his own way, but he doesn't have that same charisma and he doesn't have that because the economic picture that you painted, whereas you say they take the oil money, farm a lot of it out to poor people, yes, but also huge amounts of corruption, huge amounts of clientelism. And that is what has turned the people ultimately against them.

43:51And so the polls now, this woman Maria Carina Maccardo, Maccardo, she's on, if she were able to stand, she has approval ratings that to die for if you were elected politician. So they've blocked her from standing. Maduro's down in single figures. The guy that he's up against is not the most charismatic guy, but he just goes around the place and not being Maduro. She campaigns alongside him. She really, really pushes it. And there've been independent polls suggesting she's got something around 70 % support, whereas Maduro's in the mid teens. So this is not like those elections where the polls were in there saying, well, it's kind of 60, 40 against him.

44:30And then suddenly he wins and people say, oh, we pull that off. If he pulls this off, nobody in the world is going to believe it. So then it's down to what the international community does about whether he stays or goes. And if people are interested in a deep read, there is the most beautifully written book by a, I think, former New York Times journalist called William Newman. And it's called Things Are Never So Bad That They Can't Get Worse About Venezuela. And he starts with the electricity network as a way in because it's a really good metaphor for the country. Because essentially this was a country that was one of the wealthiest countries in Latin America, as I say, a sort of mini Saudi Arabia, where suddenly it's blackout and it's blackout for five days.

45:18And you get Maduro coming out saying, this is because the CIA has mounted an attack, a cyber attack against the I'll trust the infrastructure. And then the next time there's a blackout, it's because the CIA sniper shot, you know, the main thing, whereas clearly what's happening is the entire infrastructure of the country is just crumbling through ineptitude, corruption, departure of all the talented people. And it's just story after story of him going to people's houses. And one of the things he, as a journalist likes to do is to ask to look in their cupboards. And of very sense of people eating one meal a day on lentils or beans of people in shantytowns literally on top of seeping oil.

46:03The oil is very close to the surface. You know, you see the oil literally coming out of the ground and these houses on cinder blocks just sort of sitting on top of the oil and this sort of horrible combination of kind of wealth and poverty. But how do they get, so they've gone from three million barrels a day to under a million. And how does that happen? Is that just is that just mismanagement? I mean, we all know about the corruption. We all know about, and also the thing about he does still have the support and the Maduro, the army. And of course, they get paid more through this whole sort of this system and the corruption, the clienteleism and so forth.

46:36But how do you literally go from producing three million barrels a day to under a million? Well, it's two things. It's massive mismanagement and they've never managed to really step up their production on the way that places like Saudi have Saudi get it, get it, get it, you know, nine 10 million barrels when it's when it's going well. But it's also US sanctions. So when Trump came in in 2016, he really ramped up the sanctions. And you remember there was an attempt by the US to recognize an opposition president in the face of Venezuela. So Marco Rubio, the senator from Florida, became the leading explanatory of this very aggressive policy towards Venezuela and a lot of the rhetoric coming from Maduro is against Marco Rubio.

47:18But so it's two things. It's terrible, terrible mismanagement of the economy and its US sanctions. And China ended up pumping in money to try to finance Cuba got involved in trying to keep Venezuela alive. Turkey, every country is the Turk still, I know. Yeah, well, these countries, I mean, someone like Venezuela is very interesting because it's a bit like Iran. I mean, if you're sitting on an incredible or indeed Russia at the moment, if you're sitting on board, incredible amount of oil, even when your sanctioned, even when the US pushes you out, there will be countries that's going to come in behind you.

47:50You'll find customers. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. The reason why they barged Ricardo from standing was because she expressed support for the sanctions, which they deemed to be kind of anti -patriotic. But because people knew the extent to which this was actually damaging them in their lives, that gave her a massive booster rocket of support. The other thing just to say about Maduro, he's got the International Criminal Court and looking into extraditional killings and torture. The Americans got a $50 million dollar bounty on his head. But so, and the other thing, I was looking at their their ballot papers for the for the presidential vote because they represent sometimes different groupings.

48:35There are 13 photos of Maduro on the ballot. There are two of Aruchia. We'll put a copy of what other news letter is. So if you can't read or write, you just look at this thing. Literally, the whole top row of the ballot paper is just a picture of Maduro. And then you sort of down in the middle, you find the guy who's actually leading the opposition. And we're not, and I think just as we finish and maybe hand back to you on Britain, I mean, the reason I'm very grateful that you've raised it is that it's not just a sort of eccentric example of a kind of strange late populist socialist country. If Venezuela manages to transition, it's so important for the whole region because Venezuela, those millions of refugees, the crime, the poverty, the instability has had a massively destabilizing effects on the whole region.

49:29And so there will be so many people in Latin America praying at the moment that Venezuela gets back on a sensible path. And of course, it's got this incredible resources if only it could begin to return to some sort of sensible government. Well, they had a meeting, didn't they, a while back with leaders of Brazil or Colombia? And essentially, they quote agreed to free and fair elections on condition that some of these sanctions were eased. And there is a lot of pressure for both sides in the election to commit to absolute statement that they will stand by this year as a free and fair election.

50:07I think the mechanics will be broadly free and fair, other than the opposition of no excelsis media, a lot of their people have been banged up. But just to maybe get a little bit of hope, if you look at recently, Chilean, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, the Philippines, there have been elections where autocratic figures or certainly very powerful figures who looked like they were trying to rig an election lost and then moved on. Poland as well. But Poland is not necessarily in Latin America, Rory. But I do think, I mean, when we're trying to be optimistic for our listeners, give the populists of this sort, try to stack everything in their direction.

50:51They take over the media, they take over the universities, they put their rivals in prison. And it's really encouraging because we've seen obviously with Modi in India and we've seen with editor one's local elections how populists are not doing as well recently. And we've seen in Poland where there's been a real reverse. And as you say, these great examples from Latin America. So let's see, so I think it's on July the 28th, the election and we'll doubtless come back to it. Finally, election point, Rory, Rwanda, we have to congratulate Paul Kogami. I mean, 99 .16 % of the vote. This is, I mean, no wonder we were looking forward to having this great deal with Rwanda.

51:32Enough said. Now, let's just briefly close off with the UK. Actually, Rwanda, if that Cooper was in put in the other point, which is worth remembering, unlike Venezuela, the important thing in Rwanda, of course, is that there has been the most extraordinary economic development and security. So I spend quite a lot of time in Rwanda and Rwanda is, of course, an example of an authoritarian government, which has been very, very successful at helping lift people out of poverty, deliver economic growth. And of course, people are still very much traumatized by the genocide. By the killing of the Tutsi particularly.

52:16And so Kogami is a different type of government. I mean, clearly that is an electoral result, which is bizarre, but it's a context, which I think you need to understand more from my point of view, like other authoritarian regimes, which are delivering for people, rather than something like Venezuela, which is so chaos. No, I get that. In fact, my old friend and boss, Tony Blair, is always quite flattering about Kogami, but I mean, I don't think in the modern world, Rwanda, any politician gets 99 % plus support. Do they? Let's be honest, unless you're able to run, of course, possibly, even us, even us.

52:56So, Anastya, thank you so much for the Venezuela stuff. Just before we go on, and I really want to hear from you about how you think the Labour government's doing. A quick piece of information, quite interesting. The evening, which is Wednesday, the 24th of July 7pm, is the closing time at which you can join the Conservative Party to join and vote in the next leadership election. And we've often talked, both of us, about how the Conservative Party membership tends to be much older and more right -wing in the general population. And that's what's produced Prime Ministers like Liz Truss. This is a chance for different people to join the Conservative Party and bring in more moderate, centre -ground memberships.

53:36So, an opportunity to join the Conservative Party before 7pm tonight. A few thousand could make a huge difference because this is pretty small party without many members, a real chance to bring change to the Conservative Party and through them, hopefully, in the long run. To Britain, now, over to you, Anastya, to tell us more about how you think the Labour government is fairing. Well, I like you. I've been following America very, very close to it. I've also been out of the country, but I watched Yvette Cooper in the King's Speech debate and she was absolutely lacerating about this Rwanda scheme.

54:12She revealed that the cost so far, and she's obviously seen the checks now, 700 million, and what's more that they had been prepared to spend up to 10 billion on trying to make this scheme work at her insanity. And I also watched Rachel Reeve speech and we had Rachel on leading recently and you were, I was quite positive, you were less so. I absolutely guaranteed that my, oh, I politics, I love your club. I love your club. But it's my club comes and I, yeah, that was my great interview where I absolutely guaranteed that my fantasy that I would be brought in and a cross -party capacity to chair some commission for Labour was blown out of the water.

54:53It's amazing, another of our leading guest Mark Cardi, he was put in charge of that instead of you Rwanda, amazing. No, but I'll tell you what, I think if you watch her speech in the King's Speech debate, it's about half an hour, and a little bit like here's Stalmer, I think looks a lot more confident now. He's become, he's become prime minister. I felt exactly the same about Rachel Reeve. She's got a very, very clear script, which is an obvious one, you know, you lot left us a complete mess. We now have to clear it up and here's how we're going to do it. I was thought at the time, oh, is that real?

55:26Is that when she announced in the campaign, the Covid corruption commissioner? But she made a big deal about that. This is taxpayers money. It's been abused. It's been given to the wrong people. We're going to get it back. The thing that I'm still looking for and that I'm anxious about is I still believe this Ken Clark line, which is that you've got to do the brutal, unpopular reforms in the first year or two, and then show the results when you go back into the election five years time. And Britain is in such a mess. Our public service system, such a mess, our economies and such a mess. I think what we're looking for from Labour is to see them do some very brave, unpopular things now, which are going to potentially annoy unions, challenge, junior doctors, challenge.

56:17I don't know. It could be challenging businesses, but they need to do things now, which are tough and difficult. Rip the band aid off. So it's in five years time. They can show the NHS is better, the economy is better. And what's worrying me is the steady as you go stuff is fine. But unless they become more radical, they're not going to get the changes in five years time. I mean, I think the thing that was coming back from not so much from Jeremy Hunt, but from the Tory interventions was very much on this planning and infrastructure stuff. And Mark François, for example, said, I've heard all this before, you're not going to be able to do it.

56:56Everybody says they want to do planning. Everybody says they want to build more homes. You're not going to be able to do it. I think that's where they are, they are gearing up to take on a lot of vested interests. And I wonder whether they're almost like gearing up for that as the first step in this. It has been interesting. You're right in relation to the National Health Service, for example, and education, both we're treating and Bridget Phillips and the pretty high profile, they're making some interesting sort of commentaries and interventions. But nothing at this stage that is really going to kind of set people running to the barricades.

57:29I guess what you're saying is for big change to happen, you have to have stuff that has people run into the barricades. Yes, that's what I think. But I want to thank you and thank you particularly for bringing us to Venezuela and look forward to speaking again on question time. See you soon. See you soon. Bye bye.