373. Europe vs. America: Crisis in the West

25:11And if you're other legal scholars in the US saying, no, no, this seems to be going far beyond this, that actually they're challenging fundamentally separation of power, free speech, equal justice under the law. In that list of people you mentioned, of course, the other one whose name keeps coming up is Orban. And Vance is a massive admirer of Orban. He's openly saying that one of the best things Orban did when he came in was take on the universities take on the courts, take on the media. And it's hard to think they're not doing something similar. Just on the courts again, Roy, the other thing which I find amazing, remember when we were in Chicago and we bumped into, I think you'd left by them, but I bumped into Eric Adams, the mayor of New York.

25:47Yes. Now turns out that because he's been saying very nice things about Donald Trump and because he's basically been saying he supports Trump's crackdown on this, that the other illegal immigration, et cetera. The Department of Justice has basically said, We've got to drop up this case against Eric Adams. And several US attorneys have now resigned, including some of them who are avowed open conservatives, Republicans. And this is now creating a real mess. And Trump has now backed pedal and basically said, I've never said that you should let Adams off. Or this is all going to, I think, unravel fairly quickly.

26:21But meanwhile, this is the thing that people keep sort of emailing you and me and others and saying, Meanwhile, what Musk is doing is literally getting his hands on the levers of power and of money within the American government machine in a way that no American presidential team has ever tried to do before. The big test question is with this now is about enforcement. So when the courts say something, traditionally, the convention is a federal official, government official will follow the court ruling. So, you know, when I was a minister and you will have experienced this again and again. If the court strikes us down, we grumble, but all our civil servants implement and follow what the court has ruled.

27:05Right? And even Boris Johnson, when the Supreme Court ruled that it was illegal for him to pro -Oguepalament, actually brought Parliament back, attacking the Supreme Court, attacking the opposition, and doing all this populist nonsense, but he did actually bring it back. But what happens if the court rules and Trump tells officials don't implement that rule? Well, they don't have many options. They can sue the official for contempt of court, but that may become a badge of honor for a low -level official. They can try to appoint their own independent prosecutor, the court can, to get round the problem caused by Trump.

27:38They can try to tell the US marshals to come in, because the US marshals constitutionally are supposed to implement the court decisions. But if all of these things fail, they're really, really stuck. And there have been times in American history in the 19th century when they were stuck. Now when that happens, then there is no check and balance to Trump because what you'd find is the legislature is with him. And the judiciary increasingly don't want to challenge him because they don't want to be revealed as paper tigers. They don't want to tell him to do something he won't do for fear that they just lose all their authority.

28:13Well, it's a nice, great job, right, Rory? And before we do, I want to give you my tweet of the week from Munich was from the guy interview on a leading a few months ago, Tim Snyder. He tweeted as follows, I'm in Munich, people keep asking me to decode JD Vance's speech. Okay. In Vance English, free speech means let Elon Musk run your elections. Democracy means let Russia run your elections. Now move on. 2025 is about what Europeans do, not what Americans say. So let's come back after the break and talk about what Europeans are today in Europe, in Paris, under a meeting organized by Macron actually doing.

28:49Very good. Look forward to seeing you after the break.

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30:04Welcome back to The Restless Politics with me, Alistair Campbell. And with me, Rory Stewart. So, Rory Stewart, are you crying then? And what we think Trump is trying to do, and whether we think that Macron was right to call to this kind of, what's clearly an emergency meeting him and Chalts and Rutter from NATO and Kierstamer and the Tuskland Poland, Prime Minister Denmark, and you know, he's got together the Europeans. I think partly this is about showing a bit of weight, so we're not going to be excluded from this. but meanwhile, Lavrov, the Russian foreign ministry, is out saying, why should we involve Europe?

30:43All they want to do is keep the war going. This from the country that started the war. And likewise, the Americans Kellogg, who is Trump's special advisor on this, is essentially saying, well, you know, instead of whining about not being in the torches, why don't they come up with some constructive ideas? So what do you think about European reaction? Yeah, well, I think the first thing to frame is that what's triggered it is that Donald Trump has announced that he will be meeting Vladimir Putin in Saudi Arabia and America and Russia between them are going to be deciding the fate of Ukraine and they're not inviting the Ukrainians along, right?

31:19That's the first problem and then the second problem is you pointed out they're not inviting the Europeans along who are providing just under half of the funding and support for the war, right? And that's of course at the heart of Trump's general attitude because it's also true when he talks about Greenland. He's not actually interested in the opinion of the people in Greenland whether they want to be part of the United States or not. And when he talks about Gaza, he's not interested in the two million Palestinians who actually live in Gaza when he's talking about creating his little beach resort on the Mediterranean.

31:49So somehow he's going to solve Ukraine by talking to Russia, problem one. Problem two, we don't actually know what he's going to do in that negotiation. It's complete chaos. So there is as you pointed out Kellogg and Kellogg seems to be saying to the Europeans come up with a plan lovely and Europeans who want to be optimistic of scarring around thinking will come up with a plan and will help shape this Then you've got another quartet which is Rubio Whitkov a Mike Walst and Ratcliffe. Yeah, you guy who again? It seemed to be making nice noises Towards the Europeans you've even got JD Vance in private going around the Munich Security Conference saying don't worry, we're not going to sell out the Ukrainians, we're going to be tough for the Russians.

32:32But this ignores the 300 -pound guerrilla who's Trump himself, and Trump himself clearly wants to get this done quickly. And the problem getting it done quickly, it ain't nobody leverage over the Russians. The Russians have been making a lot of battlefield advances, they found it easier to mobilize soldiers troops than the Ukrainians have, they found it extremely easy to manufacture missiles. And so if he wants a quick deal, he doesn't have much to push back at Putin with, and you know, I'm very happy to get in a second maybe into the question of what these different deals are. I think there are three possible scenarios that might come out of what Trump's doing.

33:14But the split that I wanted to come back to you on Alistair is there's a split basically within Europe, which I would describe, maybe this is unfair, as Britain on the one hand and Macron on the other. The British view is being frightfully keen, trying to take Kellogg seriously. David Lamy was absolutely delighted that he got a meeting, very delighted about how close the UK government is to Trump, one of the only people who got a meeting with Trump when other people were excluded. And the UK is talking about molding Trump's mind, coming up with a deal with an offer and sees itself as this absolutely pivotable relationship between the US and Europe.

33:53And Kirsteem next week. And Kirsteem next week. Macron I think is a little bit more doubtful. Macron is beginning to think about the worst case scenario. What would it mean if we had to cut US weapons out of European supply chains? Would we be able to cancel F -35 waters? What other alternative countries could we turn to? I think there are people in Europe even beginning to ask questions about whether at Europe may have to turn to China for semiconductors, EVs. How does Europe make long -range missiles? So, over you, tell us a little bit about your sense from the inside of the British government of how they're seeing this pressure.

34:27Am I right in saying that actually Lamy and others are quite pleased at the moment, strangely with their relationship with Trump and are hoping they can shape deals? Look, I don't think there's a foreign affairs minister anywhere in the world, but particularly in Europe right now who isn't very, very nervous about what Trump has announced and about how it's going to play out. But I do think the British government thinks it can carve out that place that traditionally the UK has managed to have as a sort of bridge between America and the European Union. It is interesting. It may be bullshit, I don't know, but it is interesting how on the few occasions he has talked about Kierstown.

35:04The Trump has been very positive and very warm and I've always worried whether that's a sort of divide and rule thing going on with the European Union. He does have We're kind of curious relationship with Macron. There's obviously no Macron's not going to be there for that long. Shorts is clearly not going to be there for that long. But I think he's got a bit of a grudging respect for Macron and the fact that Macron does say what he thinks. And even the fact of this summit today, this meeting today, is Macron basically saying, we're not going to sit around and just imagine we get carved out of this.

35:38We will be part of this discussion because he's about us. And to be fair to me, it's by the way, And Merz has been pretty strong since this thing. He basically said, you know, there can be no talk about Europe security without Europe being involved. And there can certainly be no discussion of the settlement of the war with Ukraine without Ukraine being involved. Now, that being said, all that being said, another leading interview with Fair Wild Bat now, Fiona Hill, who was a foreign policy advised to jump in the first term. And Foreign Affairs magazine, I don't know if you saw this, but they reposted the article she wrote in November 2021 about what that was like.

36:18But there was this lie that really struck it, leapt out at me. If a foreign visitor or caller was one of his favoured strong men, Trump would always give the strong man's views and version of events the benefit of the doubt over those of his own advisors. And she gives examples of where that happened. And if you just think, the point I made at the start of the program about treating your friends like enemies and your enemies like friends. He continually gives the sense that he believes Vladimir Putin when he talks to him. He says, I've talked to Putin. He wants peace. He wants this to stop. He wants to, you know, I trust him and you trust me.

36:55We have a great relationship. Whereas Zelensky, they kind of basically talk about it. Zelensky constantly bigging up the Americans because he has to. But Zelensky himself, the way that they talk about him, is very, very different. And I think that this is creating the sense within the European community that, you know, Zelensky's right when he says, you can't rely on this guy anymore. You cannot rely on the America anymore. And within the American politics, you know, how badly does that damage him politically, which is what he thinks about the whole time? And the answer is probably not very much.

37:33No, and it's also interesting how little criticism comes out. I got some pushback from Denmark. after our comments last week where I'd said that it seems to me that Denmark is being quite sort of isolationist and saying we're okay and Denmark we don't care very much about the rest of the world. We're not prepared to criticize Trump and the pushback was to say well Denmark spends a great deal on international aid and cares about European institutions. But I think the deeper point is this that for Denmark as for Ukraine and maybe even for Britain they don't even really feel they can criticize the US, whatever their private views are, they feel very, very small, they feel very, very vulnerable.

38:10And we forget that a lot of these countries have essentially created their entire foreign security policy for 70 or 80 years around the idea that the US is there to support them. And these alliances are so precious, they can't even bear the thought that they may now be dealing with a rogue actor and speaking up. Just on the different deals then, just to lay out a simplest icon with apologies for over -simplifying. But there's a deal that Putin wants, and then obviously there's a deal that Euro -Pensalinsky might want, and maybe something in between. So let's take the extreme. So Putin's deal, he laid out in Istanbul.

38:48He wants the five oblasts in eastern Ukraine, recognized as Russian territory. He wants no security guarantees for Ukraine, So, no NATO, no European security guarantees, and he wants to cap the Ukrainian army size, and obviously he wants all sanctions lifted. So that's his view. He would then be able to say, I've won, got all this territory, no security guarantees for Ukraine, and what does that mean? Well, why are people worried about that? Maybe it sounds okay on the surface. Well, basically saying there are no security guarantees for Ukraine and the size of Ukraine in army is going to be cap, then leaves him the wonderful option of wandering into Ukraine.

39:23when everyone's, he can invade whenever he wants because there's no guarantees to Ukraine. And even without wandering into Ukraine, he would have such incredible leverage over Ukraine from that position. He could force the Ukrainian government to effectively be a puppet satellite. So other extreme, the other extreme would be a scenario where probably with a loss of pressure from the US, more sanctions, dropping the oil price, really crunching the economy and investing an enormous amount in the war on the front line to make Russia lose a lot of lives there, got about 1200 wounded or killed every day at the moment.

40:00They forced Russia into a different position and that other position would be freezing the front line, no recognition of Russian ownership of those territories and the security guarantees in place for Ukraine, NATO guarantees, European guarantees, US guarantees, which allows Ukraine to rebuild. And the question really there is what Lieverich's Trump have over Putin? What Lieverich's Putin have over Trump? What would it take for Trump to say no? What would it take for Putin to say that? So Europe is calculating and I think the British are really hoping that Trump's ego will mean that if he doesn't get a pro -Ukrain deal out of Putin, he'll become very angry and go anti -Putin.

40:42But the risk is in fact that Trump just wants the deal as soon as possible and that's what matters to his base. Some are very strange that Trump always talks about millions, he says millions of lives are being lost. And I thought why does he keep saying millions? And so I checked out the numbers as far as you can. So Zelensky says that more than 46 ,000 Ukrainian soldiers are being killed, tens of thousands more are missing in action or in captivity. He says that the 19 ,500 Ukrainian children have been deported. UK defence intelligence reckons that in December, 1 ,523 Russian soldiers were being killed and wounded every day.

41:26Zelensky says 350 ,000 Russians have been killed and there are other reports suggesting that that could be even higher. So we are talking about huge numbers. It doesn't stride me that Putin has Necessarily felt that much heater home. I thought there was a point when he would but it doesn't seem to have Seems to have happened for the casualties But there must come a point particularly with the economy where he does with this is maybe where Trump is right that Putin Does want this war to end but there's no way he's going to end it on the basis that Russia moves backwards and likewise I cannot see either from what Trump has said, what Vans has said, even what Marco Rubio has said, I cannot see that America will be putting in the sort of investment that you were talking about, to get that wall going.

42:15Given that part of his stick that got him elected was, I'm going to end these walls. And all these things, of course, depend on people's calculations. So there are big structural weaknesses in Russia. Intelligence analysts will point out there are big problems in the Russian economy. There's problems with armoured vehicles, there's problems with and other soldiers they're losing. Equally, Putin will be aware there are big structural weaknesses inside Ukraine. So he'll be very aware that Ukraine is struggling to mobilize that the Russians are tending to advance slowly on a lot of these fronts. And so there's a game of chicken going on.

42:47Putin probably thinks Ukraine is going to crumble anytime and people being optimistic about Ukraine say Russia's only got another six months, 12 months. So the optimists think that if Putin rejects the deal, actually that will give Europe time to stockpile, train, build up, and then Putin will be in a worse position in the years time. Putin probably thinks that if he says no, he'll be in a stronger position in the years time. For the reasons you just laid out, which is that the US is unlikely to bail him out. And this is just to come to the end of this. I mean, people will notice that the Kirsten was talked about putting British troops on the ground, really big news.

43:22Macron has often talked about that. The Europeans are likely to increase their defense spending, so Germany will probably go up to 3 % of GDP on defense. The UK may go up to 3 % on GDP on defense, and this is almost double what it would have been 10 years ago. But, but, but, but, but. The problem for the Europeans is that they cannot operate in Ukraine without the US. They need to be able to buy US kit, well as we said probably Trump would sell them US kit but they also need this horrible jargon enablers which means they need US intelligence, they need US electronic warfare, they need the US air picture, they need US logistics, air defenses but most importantly of all they need the psychological reassurance that if things go wrong the US will be in there behind them.

44:14That I think is going to be very, very difficult to get to. Yeah, the ordinary Trump seems to be sort of back dating any future deal where basically he seems to be saying we're going to calculate all the money that we've given in supporting Ukraine against Russia and as part of any settlement that means we've got to get access as to all your minerals, which again is a very, very, we're talking a very old fashioned military diplomacy here. And the other thing I can't quite work out really on the one hand, Trump and now Vance are basically saying to Europe, you're all a bunch of horses and you haven't spent enough on defense, get your act together.

44:56And meanwhile, I'm going to sit down with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping and we're going to agree to cut our military spending in half. I don't quite get how that all hangs together either. So I guess the only hope, if you're a linskin, you're a Europe. You're basically the only thing you've got is to think, well maybe Trump doesn't yet know what he wants to do. Yeah, I mean, I think that's right. And it's that there's a paradox, isn't that? Sometimes it seems as though he really enjoys other countries being dependent on the US. Because if Ukraine's dependent on the US, he can, as you say take reparations in the forms of hoovering up Ukraine's mineral resources.

45:34If Denmark is dependent on the US, you know, maybe he can get something in Greenland. If Europe is dependent on the US, the defense and security can extract more cash. If Saudis dependent on the US for bases, he can get more money out of them. Generally, it comes down to a heist that it's a funny thing where US protection is now called a protection racket, or US security is now called extortion. On the other hand, sometimes he talks about them being independent of the US and not wanting to spend the money. At which point he would lose the ability to bully and extort because you'd end up with Europe standing on its own feet, understandably not relying very much on the US because why do you want to rely on somebody who keeps presenting you with an unexpected check every day for something that you didn't sign up.

46:19And then of course, the US would lose its power and influence quite quickly over the short to medium term because they wouldn't be dependent on the US anymore. I guess that doesn't matter for him too much because I guess he's only in for a four -year term so he can make out like a bandit over four years and leave it to other presidents to worry about that they have no more influence over the global law. Well I'll believe him giving up on a third term when I see it. The idea though of China sort of suddenly say yeah we'll cut our military in half. I mean I don't know if you saw it was the FT recently had a piece about this amazing new military headquarters that the Chinese are building, which is ten times the size of the Pentagon, which suggests they're not really thinking about, cutting back on defense.

47:00And sorry, one small thing which I haven't done, which is hugely praise the people who are doing the serious work on Ukraine, particularly Jack Watling from Rusy and Sheshenk Joshi with the economists who are doing incredible work on the detailed pitches on the ground. But if you were China and you were looking at the US at the moment, why would you cut? Surely you would say this is the golden opportunity of a century. The US is setting out to attack and alienate all its allies, dismantle NATO, get rid of its security guarantees, abuse and extort minerals out of everybody who's relied on the more cash out of every Israeli.

47:36them. And this is the moment for China to say, actually, you know, we're a much more reliable partner. We don't have these pesky elections. We don't have people like Trump coming in. We have 50 hundred year plans. Let's do some belt and road initiatives. You know we're not really in a positive expansionary power. We don't really want to invade Ukraine or have a bit of Europe and we'll give you cheap electric vehicles. We'll lead the energy revolution and all your anxieties in the past, which were yes, but we're a bit autocratic and corrupt. Well, the US has just emitted itself that it thinks Europe is autocratic and corrupt and is certainly proving itself to be pretty autocratic and corrupt.

48:16You're mentioned in China giving you better and cheaper electric vehicles. The face that popped into my head was Cheryl Crow. Now Cheryl Crow, or when she was going out with Lancaster on the cyclist, she once complimented me on my hair. And I know how much hair means to But this way, I don't know if you saw her, she's got rid of her Tesla, she sold her Tesla, and she's given the proceeds to National Public Radio as a protest against Musk. My final thought, or before we have a breach out on Alexei Navalny, I mentioned for in a first magazine, they had some really interesting stuff these last few weeks about something that you and I discussed with David McCloskey when we talked to him, David from the rest is classified XCIA about whether the intelligence relationships are going to suffer as a result of Trump.

49:08And some really interesting pieces. The guy called David Gio, G -I -O -E, who is also like David, a former CIA analyst. And he basically says that because of Trump's record and the handling of intelligence, he thinks there is a problem. And there is a problem with the way that uses information to trade. I hadn't been aware of this, but apparently once shared a piece of information gained from intelligence in a meeting with Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, we know the thing famously about taking documents tomorrow, Lago. And then another interesting piece that was written by a couple of people in the Brookings Institute, essentially that they see Musk's role as a RESTU in intelligence.

49:49Apparently, at one point SpaceX were going to try to get musk and even higher security level clearance level and would revise against it because the sort of examination that he might be subject to would lead to questions being asked about that. So I think this is something that the the breets, the Australians, the Canadians, particularly Canada right now, we what's going on. I think this is something that we should keep an eye on. They actually said that this is a quote from the piece by these two people in the Brookings Institute. American adversaries surely see what's going on as an espionage and blackmailed bananza.

50:29This is with Musk's team now all over the kind of infrastructure. And they say that the treasury itself is a huge player in domestic and foreign policy. Final thing from me before we get to Navalny is just to pay tribute to Latin American analysts. probably the best analysis that's coming out on Trump are from people who specialize in Latin America and the Caribbean. Partly because they've seen this slip from populism to fascism and how it works and the point that they keep making is that it doesn't happen nowadays through dramatic sudden military coups. It often happens with democratically elected government slowly taking things.

51:08So there's a great thread from Havier Corales, who's been doing great stuff on the 11 signs that Trump is becoming a Latin American style leader. There's great work by Federico Finkelstein, who's written a book called The Wanna Be Fascists, which looks at this space that Trump and many other Latin American leaders operate between populism and fascism. And finally, of course, there's your friend Moses Naim, who was the man who brought the three peas. Absolutely. Yes, if you want to understand what's going on in the United States, look to the Americas and particularly to Latin America, right? Over here on Navalny.

51:44Just before that, you've probably just said I wasn't in races, but most well, Millay in Argentina and all sorts of trouble at the moment because he backed some weird cryptocurrency which turns out not to have been quite what it seems. So he's there got he's got lawyers and judges taking a look at that. We interviewed Julia Navonnier, the widow of Alexei Navalny. It's out on leading this week and it was timed to the first anniversary. I was very very impressed by how many people turned out in Navalny's grave in Moscow yesterday. Now the truth is since Navalny's death, there has been very little organized or disorganized opposition to Putin and Russia.

52:24So those people who turned out, I was watching on the German news, there were some of them interviewed and they said you know we're taking a risk being here, but sometimes in life you have to stand up and be counted. So that's their courage. I think the courage that they both represent came through in that interview with her. It was incredibly moving, wasn't it? And one of the things when people listened to that leading interview is the level of her commitment to her husband. The sense that she doesn't question for a second, his decision to return to Russia doesn't in any way at least feel, or say that she feels any resentment towards the fact that he took himself away from his family, he was imprisoned for many years, and then eventually murdered, because she believes completely in his idealism, his vision for Russia and is going to put herself through the same danger and sacrifice that he put himself through to keep the fight going against what feels like from her point of view, almost hopeless odds.

53:26It's not as though she was saying to us that anything's happening anytime soon. In fact, she seemed to be saying nothing can happen so long as Putin remains in power in Russia. But this question of when these regimes collapse is the key, isn't it? But we could see the weaknesses in Bashar al -Assad's regime in Syria for a decade, but nobody predicts it that it was actually going to happen suddenly in December. We can see the weaknesses in Putin's Russia, but I remember us in 2014 being in meetings in our security council saying he had six months to go. And I think it's actually our friend Mouch who draws attention to the great Hemingway quote, which is from the Sun all surprises, where Bill says, how did you go bankrupt?

54:10two ways, Mike said, gradually, and then all at once. And the other thing, I don't know whether this would be, would be timed to no value of the anniversary, but there's this guy, Vadim Strøikin, who is a musician, and he has joined the long list of people who mysteriously fallen out of windows while being visited by the police. piece and of course this was then announced as a suicide yet another one falling out of the window and I think this is just this is something that Union of Army she talked to us about the they've normalized this idea that they can just sort of pick off their enemies wherever which is why it's so brave of her to carry on doing what she's doing when we all know what happened to her husband and her account of his life in prison I really defined even by all we know about Putin the way he treats his enemies was pretty, pretty shocking.

55:07So I hope people listen to that. And the other thing I think underlying sure is the importance of legacy. And we talk a lot about legacy and in a very few people, let's be frank, very few people have a big legacy. But part of legacy to me is the fact that I woke up this morning in this hotel, went for breakfast, came back, turned on the telly to see how the German four -way debate was being interpreted by the media the day after. And I actually elitered on this documentary on Arte, the Franco German television station. And it was a long, long, I actually had to go out, I only watched half of it, but a long documentary about Navalny.

55:46And it was fascinating to watch the, they played the bits of Yeltsin when he was leaving power. When honestly he could barely get his words out, he was he was breathless, he looked really puffy. And then this young guy comes in and it's the young puter talking about what he's going to do for Russia. And when you see the context of what you know happened to the Valle, and now this guy's striking falling out the window, when you see puter with his hand on the book because he's taking the oath of office and talking about standing up for all Russians and so forth. It was a very, very moving film. And that, as I say, is part of legacy.

56:28And what she and the daughter, Dasha, are clearly going to do is to make sure her memory doesn't get forgotten. And while I'll talk about leading Rory, Angie Scaramucci and I talked to Mark Carney on a live stream at the weekend, people can see on YouTube, or we're going to put it on the leading channel next Monday as our usual leading interview. Well, thank you, Alessandro, very much. And look forward to chat tomorrow on question time. See you then, bye.

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