386. Trump's 'Bomb Yemen' Group Chat

26 Mar 2025 · 59 min

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Podcast Summary: The Rest Is Politics - Episode 386: Trump's 'Bomb Yemen' Group Chat

Episode Overview In this episode of *The Rest Is Politics*, hosts Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart delve into current geopolitical issues, including American diplomacy, Turkey's political landscape, and the implications of recent discussions among former Trump administration officials about military action in Yemen.

Key Topics Discussed

  1. Stag Do Diplomacy in America
  2. The hosts critique the informal and cavalier approach to national security discussions within the Trump administration, illustrated by a leaked Signal chat group involving senior national security advisors.
  3. The conversation highlighted plans for military strikes against the Houthi rebels in Yemen and displayed a lack of seriousness that would have been unimaginable in previous administrations.
  1. Security Leak Analysis
  2. The hosts express disbelief over the lack of secure communication channels in discussing military operations.
  3. The conversation included identifying CIA operatives and discussing targeting details, which poses significant national security risks.
  1. Contempt for Europe
  2. A recurring theme in the chat group was the disdain for European allies, underscoring a broader shift in U.S. foreign policy under Trump that prioritizes autocratic allies over traditional democratic partners.
  3. Discussions revealed that many officials were willing to act on Trump's whims without understanding the broader implications.
  1. Turkey's Slide Towards Authoritarianism
  2. The hosts discuss recent developments in Turkey, particularly the arrest of opposition leader Ekrem Imamoglu, as a significant sign of President Erdogan’s increasingly autocratic rule.
  3. The implications of Erdogan's actions and the public response are examined, noting that protests continue despite government crackdowns.
  1. Rachel Reeves' Spring Statement and the UK Economy
  2. The episode concludes with a preview of Rachel Reeves' upcoming Spring Statement, addressing the challenges she faces with fiscal policy amidst economic uncertainties.
  3. The hosts discuss the tight fiscal rules imposed by Reeves that limit her ability to respond to changing economic conditions and the potential consequences for the Labour Party's credibility.

Key Takeaways

  • Informality in Security Discussions: The unorthodox and informal settings in which national security discussions have taken place under Trump signal a troubling shift in U.S. governance and diplomacy.
  • Potential Consequences of Security Breaches: The implications of the leaked Signal group chat could lead to severe breaches in national security, affecting relationships with allies and exposing operatives.
  • Erdogan's Authoritarian Shift: The political landscape in Turkey is increasingly moving towards authoritarianism, raising concerns about human rights and democratic processes.
  • Labour Party Challenges: Rachel Reeves is under pressure to navigate strict fiscal rules while ensuring the Labour Party remains committed to its principles and economic growth.

Conclusion This episode of *The Rest Is Politics* presents a critical examination of contemporary political issues, revealing the complexities and challenges faced by leaders in both the U.S. and U.K. The discussions encapsulate the precarious balance between national security, diplomatic relations, and domestic economic policies in a rapidly changing world.

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Transcript

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1:34Welcome to the rest of politics with me, Rory Stewart, and with me, Anastak Campbell. And we were going to kick off with the British economy. But not for the first time. That was not for the last. The Trump administration has sort of slightly put us off planned. So we're going to do the British economy in the second half. We're going to talk about Turkey, but we're also going to talk about this incredible, I don't know what to describe it as even, war planning by chat, signal group of the American administration's most senior national security advisors basically splurging out all sorts of stuff about military planning and accidentally adding a journalist to their group.

2:14I mean, I don't know where to start. Quick explainer than just to bring people in. So we're talking about March 15th, about 10 days ago. And Mike Waltz, who's the national security advisor, sends a signal message to Jeffrey Goldberg, who's the editor -in -chief at the Atlantic. The Atlantic is a sort of very high brow, long -established America magazine that runs long four messes. And Goldberg thinks it bit weird, particularly when it then turns out that the group is called the small group focused on the Houthis. And as the list fills up, and this is basically like being put on what's that group, this signal group, Marco Rubio, JD Vance, Telsi Gabbard, Besson the Treasury Secretary, Hegseth the Defense Secretary, Ratcliffe from CIA, Whitcoff, Suzy Wilde, and Stephen Miller.

2:57Stephen Miller being one of the great ideologues of the Trump administration, end up being put on this list. And either they or their designated aids begin this conversation. And the conversation is clearly about the fact that Donald Trump has said to them that he intends to launch strikes against the Houthi in Yemen. Quick reminder on that, Houthi being a group which is not a traditional Sunni group. It's a form of Shia group increasingly close to Iran that has taken dominant position in much of Yemen and has been firing missiles at a hundred different ships. They say in solidarity with the struggle of the people of Gaza, which has sunk three ships and killed four people.

3:38Biden shot a lot of rockets at them, the British and the Israelis joined in some of these rocket attacks. And we Trump wants to do it again. And this then opens the whole conversation and I'll just get to the end of the story. Fundamentally, what's happening in the story is along with an enormous security leak which I'd love to come to you on straight away is quite a lot of interesting content on the different views of Hegseth, Vance, Stephen Miller on what North they think they're doing in the world and what North they're doing the Houthis. But let's go to the security leak first. Well, it's sort of mind blowing.

4:06Let me just say what I would have imagined would have happened is that there would have been meetings in secure rooms. There would have been the national security infrastructure, top advisors surrounding these people as they were discussing it. This has the flavor of, I mean, complete with emojis. This has the flavor of a group of guys planning a staglight or something, you know, should we go next month or should we wait for a month? There's this factor and there's that factor. So I think on just on the security side of things, I find it hard to imagine that if this had happened under the any previous administration, I think heads would have rolled instantly.

4:48And you're talking here, you've got the entire infrastructure, you've got the head of the CIA, you've got the chief diplomat, you've got the defense guy. And what these, the people who work for these guys, I mean, Hexas, we know is sort of seen as this kind of TV guy. Most of the Pentagon top brass will be thinking, what the hell is this guy doing here? This has been reinforced by the idea that they're just not serious. What they are discussing in an enormous amount of detail is exactly how eventually cruise missiles are going to be flying into particular locations in Yemen. Also on this group, are underclared operational CIA officers with their identities and names, targeting details, timing details on when the attack's going to happen.

5:30So if a foreign government were to penetrate this signal group, and this is not an official US platform, it's not an official US secure platform for discussing its commercial platform, they would be able to know the names of CIA officers when the strikes taking place, where the strikes are taking place. In addition, of course, regardless of how secure signal is, they have such bad communications, precision security that they've randomly added somebody who has nothing to do with the US government has no security currency at all, who is in fact the editor -in -chief of the Atlantic. And they're very lucky because when he writes his reporting, he actually redacts the name of the CIA officer and takes out some of the detailed targeting information.

6:08I wonder whether whoever added him as the Atlantic thought that that was NATO or something. The sort of door that wasn't something to do with the Atlantic. I mean, the whole thing is like, it's just fascicle. The fact that they're communicating in this way and this very cavalier kind of way between each other indicates a style of government that I think is pretty alarming. I think a lot of their allies will be quite alarmed by this. And the other thing that comes through, as you say, going right through the thread is the fact that Trump has asked for this. So there is a bit of a discussion about, well, is it the right thing to do?

6:41Vance is a bit sort of skeptical. But a kind of basic feeling is what we've got to do because he's asked us to. And then the other thing that comes through, particularly from Vanson, Hexas, is that this contempt for Europe is really, really deep. You know, I'm sick of bailing these people out and yeah, I grew through the free loading yet again. And it's sort of a contempt which we've also seen again this week in relation to Denmark. JD Vance talking about how Denmark's not reliable ally and his wife making this ridiculous trip to Greenland to watch a dog race, a plane yesterday arrived in Greenland with a hundred plus secret service guys to go and set up this visit from Mike Waltz, the security guy and Mrs Vance.

7:25I mean, this is absurd. And what we're seeing, I think, is that what this WhatsApp group, signal group has shown is a sort of a style. Well, you know, what we're seeing again is in their response is indicative as well. Donald Trump saying, I don't know anything about this. I think Atlantic's a terrible magazine. Their ratings are hope as their sales are falling. I think it's going to go out of business. And Hexas coming out, basically attacking the journalist, saying that this is a guy who's only ever done hoaxes about Trump. Nobody within the administration taking responsibility for the fact that this is a massive security breach.

8:00I think it also lifts the lid as you as you're pointing out on what's happening now to the US national security planning. So traditionally, what you would see is people sitting in the national security council around a table. And as you say, each one of them would be heavily briefed with their aids and assistance behind. They would all have a common information picture. So, you know, this is the stuff that we did in the British national security council, but you'd put up a slide deck where everybody would agree on the basic facts. You'd have a view on what the impacts of attacking the who's these were going to be on the shipping lines.

8:33What impact you might have on oil prices, what impact you might have on your strategy for the whole region. How does it tie in, for example, to your Middle East strategy? What differences it going to make in Gaza? What impacts it going to have on Egypt, et cetera? And then everybody would talk and turn. And in the old fashion system that exists in the US and in the UK, each of those individual people will often talk on behalf of their end department. So the defense secretary would probably talk about some of the technical considerations, how many charisma cells we got, where our aircraft carriers are based and what the likelihood is of hitting the targets properly.

9:07State would then come in and give you the broad strategic picture. How's it going to affect the region? So here's a good question for state. We told off these Saudis and UAE for attacking the who's these. The US government said that the who's these took them off the terror list and put huge pressure on Saudi and UAE not to attack the who's these. And Trump didn't respond in the last administration when the who's these attacks, Saudi and UAE. But we're responding now because they seem to be threatening Israel, how are we going to explain that to our partners? And then finally, I guess some communications people might come in talking about how this goes forward.

9:41Now, none of this is happening here. Firstly, no officials are in a room. There's no common information picture. And the conversation basically is focused on really only three issues. Issue number one, we don't like Europe. And we're worried that by doing this, we might be somehow bailing out Europe. And Stephen Miller then puts a lot of emphasis on, yeah, we better get the money back from Europe if we do this. Second thing is comms. How on earth are we going to explain this the American people? None of them have heard of who the who's these are. Doesn't this contradict other stuff that we're saying?

10:12Can we pin this on Joe Biden and Iran? And number three, President Trump has said something. We don't really know why he said something. We don't really have the confidence to go back to him. And question what exactly the reason is that he wants to hit the who's the, we thought he was nice. Lationists, he didn't like doing the stuff. He's doing the stuff. How does this make sense? But in the end, we're too afraid to do this because Stephen Miller's come in and said Trump's really greenlighted this. So we'll try to provide a justification after the event. Well, it's just a very, very accurate description.

10:42It seems to me, not just of this chat group war room, but also of how they operate following his whims, following no real sort of focus upon fact, no discussion. No, we don't know. This wasn't necessarily the entirety of the discussion, but no sense of anybody from Congress being involved, no sense of any of me being brought in to be briefed on it, no sense of talking to allies, no sense of anything other than Trump has had a bit of a whim. How do we make that work for us? Bear in mind, this is the, these are the people who, when Hillary Clinton was, you know, using her own private email, which is on a, you know, this is, this is so, so, so, so much worse for all sorts of different reasons.

11:27But this, this led to the entire MAGA movement suggesting that she should go to jail. P. Hexer, the Fox News Guy turned defense secretary. There were clips running all over social media last night of some of the stuff he used to say about, you know, if something's tough, secret, it's cuss, it's top secret. You don't talk to anybody. Everybody knows the rules, apart from me now that I'm in, actually, in charge. And I just can't get my head around the fact, this was going to do so much damage unless there is actually some sort of accountability, unless actually there are heads at fault. There's no sense that that is going to happen.

12:02It's just another day, it's another story, it's another big blow that we can all talk about for ages, and then we'll forget about it and people will move on. And Mike Johnson, the speaker, so there's Congress, which is being sort of emasculated before our very eyes. And Mike Johnson basically comes as well. I've just been in the Oval Office with the president and he then just gives the line to take. Somebody's made a mistake. They'll look into it. It won't happen again. The Russians are going to be laughing their heads off yet again at them. They've had such a good week. They've had Steve Whitkopf, Trump's connection to Putin did an interview, which I think will, I hate to talk about Carlson, because I think he's a sort of maligned force.

12:39But the fact is, as an interview, I think communications and political communication students for generations to come will watch that interview between Steve Whitkopf and Tucker Carlson as an example of how easy it is for Putin to manipulate Trump. It is the most remarkable thing where Steve Whitkopf, an American whose qualification for this job as a special envoy seems to be that he's played golf with Donald Trump quite a few times, essentially is feeding and having fed back to him, Kremlin talking points in an interview with Tucker Carlson, which at times absolutely begot belief. I think it's an amazing echo of what we seem to signal.

13:23In this new world, we're getting insights into the heart of this administration real time in a way that was almost never possible before. And something about podcast, Paul, isn't it? Because we also benefit from this. The fact that Whitkopf is prepared to sit down for an hour and a half really sort of uncensored and untrained, just shooting the breeze with Tucker Carlson suddenly reveals an incredible amount about the kind of answer apology to be pompous of the Trump administration. I watched it yesterday and it's really interesting. It's interesting partly because sometimes he's quite surprising by being less extreme, unless obviously nasty than one gets the impression the Trump administration is.

14:00So he comes across as quite an amiable elderly man who talks very politely, sounds very reasonable all the time. And you can actually see how the maggot crowd listening to this are going to think, well, sounds all right. I'm just saying I'm going to listen to all sides. There are some very interesting little glimpses into foreign policy thinking from Whitkopf, which we haven't seen before. So really important on Ukraine, this interview reveals that they are considering, or at least Whitkopf's considering, giving article five guarantees to Ukraine without NATO membership. So full US security guarantees for Ukraine without NATO membership.

14:34Number two, he seems to be saying that he doesn't think that Hamas can be militarily defeated and they're going to have to continue because Hamas is an idea, nevertheless some disarmament can happen. And number three, he seems to be being very positive towards Amadal Sharra, the Syrian president who he interviewed, saying that he genuinely believes he's changed and can be a partner for peace in the region. So there's three huge revelations which are very odd and which may turn out of course because the way the Trump administration operates to be completely undermined by Trump next week who may well say no security guarantees.

15:06Jolani's not to be trusted and we want to continue the war against Hamas. The other thing that of course goes through it which you've told us about again is loyalty to Trump. I mean, in answer to almost every question Whitkopf keeps saying, of course don't give me any credit, the real genius here is President Trump, only President Trump would have been able to do this. This guy's so outcome focused, etc. And then of course we have this witness around Putin where he talks about how Putin has painted a beautiful portrait of President Trump that he's carried back that Putin's told him that he's prayed for President Trump's health and that he keeps saying and Tucker Carlson keeps echoing this.

15:41What a straightforward guy Putin is. He's a straight shooter and Tucker Carlson says, yeah, every leader I've talked to around the world says, whatever you think of Putin, you can absolutely trust him to say it how it is. Yeah, I found those bits pretty chilling because again, I think there's a danger with this, like with the signal thing, even already when you're watching the news coverage of this, it's sort of you know, the White House has accepted the mistake was made blah blah. It's an abnormal government being covered as normal. It is so abnormal to have somebody who's clearly not that qualified in this level of negotiation, being the person to go to sit down to negotiate one on one on behalf of Trump, we're glad to be a Putin.

16:22It is not normal. And then what is really not normal is for that to be an American who is clearly utterly desperate to see this guy as a good guy. I actually felt sick watching him explain the thing about the painting because he was basically saying to Tucker Carlson who's we know is an unadulterated member of the Vladimir Putin vancla. And he was saying to him, but you know, Tucker, let me just explain how nice this guy is. One of the first things he got this painting commissioned by one of Russia's greatest artists and it's a beautiful painting. It's a beautiful painting and I was able to take that back and show it to the president with a message with a message from Vladimir Putin.

17:04That's how close these guys are. And then there was the other thing you didn't mention in the other thing that I thought was interesting. We're going to go on to talk about Turkey in a minute. He talked about there's some great news going to be coming out of Turkey. And I think we're going back to this thing about the strong men. He just loves to be seen on a part with these guys. So then when and then the thing about the praying, I mean, you know, the image, if you knew nothing about current affairs and you suddenly just relied for your analysis of Russia and Putin on this interview between Carlson and Whitkov, you get a sense of Putin as a as a family man, a nice guy, a god -fearing person who just wants to do the best for his country.

17:44And then also the level of ignorance when he said about, I mean, the thing is the big issue here in Tucker. What we're talking about here, Tucker, is these four or five provinces. There is Karazhan and there is there is Crimea, Crimea. And then there's and then Carlson comes in and says, Lugansk, which of course is what the Russians call him with a G, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, Lehan, so he can't even name these damn provinces. And then he says, and they had a referendum there and they speak Russian. This is like somebody saying that because a lot of Irish people speak English, Ireland is actually still part of the British Empire.

18:27So it was puke -breaking. And yet this is the guy in charge. It's mind blowing. Final one that links the signal revelations and the Whitkov interview is the contempt for Europe. So there's a very striking thing which I think will be a theme for the next four years, which is when he says Europe unfortunately is dying, Europe's dead, the future is the Middle East, the future is is Rady Tech, Saudi, UAE investment and technology, young leaders, dynamic growing economies, people who want to do business, that's what Trump understands. Europe is dying, very interesting because there's two things that he doesn't mention there.

19:07Firstly, those economies in the Middle East are one -tenth the size of the European economies. He's got a completely out of whack vision of how important they are. And secondly, he doesn't remotely take on to account the fact that Europe are liberal democracies. They're the United States' longest standing allies, they're part of NATO, where Saudi Arabian UAE are autocratic monarchies and all these countries are involved in very, very aggressive actions against human rights decedents, against their neighbours, none of that features. So complete shift in region, complete shift in values. This thing when Europe is interesting because the guy is not an experienced politician and he he was being led, he was a witness being led quite a lot of time by Tucker Carlson.

19:49So for example, the BBC headline out of the interview was actually Wicoff agreeing with a question from Carlson that Kierstarmus positional on boots on the ground coalition of the willing was a posture and the pose. And he said, you know, yes, what's Starmor up to? Is this just like a posture and a pose? Yeah, Tucker, it's just a posture and a pose and they feel they've got to be like Churchill. Now, no serious senior politician would have kind of fallen into that little sort of trap as easily as he did. But I think that does again indicate this sort of contempt for anything European. And there was then this awful bit where basically Carlson again was leading him and saying, you know, why would he want Ukraine?

20:34Why would he want it? I mean, once he gets this bit back, he'd find and he said, why would he want anything? When they talk about, you know, then he go for other European countries, why would anybody want these countries? I wouldn't want these countries, says Tucker Carlson. And they're sitting there laughing about the whole thing. I just found it sickening. And but as you say, very, very revealing of a deeper thought. And I think we're, you know, we really are kidding ourselves. If we hold on to this idea that America's still got Europe's back, but there's just too much from private and public what they're saying.

21:05There's too much utter contempt. And we haven't even talked about their continuing ongoing stuff about Canada, which now now going to election. So should we turn to Turkey? We have covered Turkey quite a lot. In fact, we did a podcast recording when I was in Gazianteb after the earthquakes in Turkey. Erdogan has been in power now in Turkey effectively for well over two decades. And what we have with Erdogan is a kind of vision of what's happening more and more around the world. So he is somebody who's been on a slow journey slower than most from being a leader that the West was quite optimistic about in the late 90s, early 2000s through to where he's going now, which is making the final shift from a populace to a full authoritarian ruler.

21:51And that's just happened in the last week where he's announced that he's arrested the main opposition leader, the Marerva Stamble locked up all his aids. So quick reminder of this story. He, as you say, he's been there 22 years, first as prime minister, then as president and the more powers going to the president. And he's another one who fancies, I think, being being in power for life. Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul, pretty popular as seen off Erdogan's candidate several times, including in one election that he won, which Erdogan, the authorities announced was not legitimate. So they made them do it again, and he won by an even bigger margin.

22:27Nobody seriously believes that these charges are anything other than trumped up. And they were proceeded, don't forget, by the Istanbul university, with drawing the academic qualifications that Imamoglu has. And the reason for that is that to one of the qualifications to stand for president is you have to have a higher education degree. So he's lost his degree. He's been charged, formally charged now, been put in jail. And we've had six successive nights of very, very big demonstrations in a country where 90 % of the media is pretty much government controlled. So they're not necessarily seeing the scale of the demonstrations.

23:11They all know that the government has put in place restrictions against large scale protest. And yet these protests seem not to be going away. They're desperately trying to keep them peaceful. The protesters are desperately, I think, trying to keep them peaceful, because they're worried that if they do turn really violent and nasty, there has been water cannon and rubber bullets and pepper spray. But it's not really, really, really kicked off yet. And I think there is a worry that if it did, then the crackdown would be enormous. 1300, something like 1300, 100 people have been thrown in jail. So this feels like a step towards genuine full -on autocracy.

23:49In the world in which you were in Downing Street, Turkey began a candidate negotiations with the European Union and then accession negotiations in this period, 99 to 2004. And everybody thought, okay, this is wonderful. Out of the one is like a Muslim version of a Christian Democrat. And this new country can join the European Union and we can become, and it can stretch the Middle East. Second period, 2004 to 2014, everything in the world begins to change and Turkey changes with it. So as China explodes, Middle East becomes more important. And as the financial crisis happens, and the European economy is a hit, Turkey begins to think, well, maybe I'm not quite so dependent on these dynamic, fast growing European economies.

24:32I'm going to be diversify a little bit more away towards China and the Middle East. And in doing so, he becomes a kleptocratic plutocrat. So he becomes more corrupt. He becomes more tied into businesses and he's less interested in losing his presidential position. Next thing, which connects with something we've done, which is our interview with Amadashara and Syria. So again, something happens in Syria and it changes the whole world. The Syrian Civil War drives 5 million refugees out of Syria. And that is, of course, leads firstly to the rise of far -right parties in Europe because they've got their responding to this massive surge in immigration.

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25:07Secondly, it means that nobody's interested anymore in Turkey joining the European Union because at a time of anti -immigration, people don't want Turkish immigrants coming to the European Union. And the third thing that happens is that Turkey is suddenly able to present itself as the country that's stopping Syrian migrants going to the European Union. So an EU -Turkey deals, made Turkey keeps 3 million Syrians and suddenly the relationship between Turkey and the EU becomes much, much more transactional. Finally, fast forward to where we are today, Trump comes into power, all norms change. Europe's suddenly very worried about Ukraine.

25:42They want Turkey as a possible ally in Ukraine. And this is the point at which Erdogan sees his final opportunity to go much more authoritarian because he knows that Europe isn't going to really criticize him. He knows that Trump really isn't going to care at all. He's got much more freedom of movement than he did in the late 90s, early 2000s. And he completes his journey away from a sort of competitive authoritarianism where the odds were stacked against the opposition because he fixed the media, fixed the university's fixed civil society. But it was still theoretically possible to win on the opposition sometimes, one in some of the cities towards a situation now where he's moving fast towards a one -party state.

26:21But as you say, the politics, the geopolitics around it have changed. I found that the American administration response was the only thing I could find very little reaction from any American politicians. The official line from the state department was that we don't interfere in the political processes of other countries, which is, I think that's used a lot of people down through history. And so that was that one. And then Macron, who in the past has been very critical when Turkey has kind of been on this road towardsocracy, very, very quiet, as you say, because of these other factors, especially at the moment, I think Ukraine.

26:56We were talking a few weeks ago about doing a big episode on Turkey becoming so much more of a power broker in some of these big, you know, Middle East, Ukraine, Asia, the relations in Europe and Asia. So I think that he is thinking, if there's ever a time when I'm going to get away with this, it is now. And that's why these protests are one very, very brave, but also very, very important. I had an amazing conversation for about an hour and a half yesterday with a Turkish academic called Berk Eson, who's I think a really great analyst of this. I mean, he had an analogy, which I thought, you know, might appeal to you.

27:32He said that the way to understand the old Erdogan system is it's it's like a football match in which one team has 11 players. And the other team has nine players and the ref tends to favor the team with the 11 players. But if you don't understand, you're not concentrating on the game very much, you're just occasionally glimpsing it on television. It does look like some sort of fair competition taking place and it's occasionally possible even for the team with nine players to score a goal, but basically it's stacked against you. That was the old, old system. It was also interesting, because what, but was reflecting on is the way that I mean, he's very brave.

28:05I mean, he's calling the sounds in an environment that is getting more and more all sort of, you know, where genuine need people are being locked up, people using losing their university jobs. There still seems to be space, Berk thinks. I mean, he's speaking to be from Turkey for academics, such as himself to call it out and to try to speak up for a different secular liberal version of Turkey. He also really though wants to get people to focus on the fact that he thinks Trump is doing exactly the same thing, but much, much quicker. Trump's going through the journey against universities, against the media, against the judiciary judges judges against independent agencies at a much more accelerated pace.

28:44And he said this is partly something he's observed, which is the way that the populists are different in their second terms that Erdogan was much more aggressive having left power for about when the ismas came back into power that Autobahn started as a sort of almost a kind of liberal lost power. And then when he came back was much more conservative. And that's definitely the case for Trump. And I think his final point would be the huge difference between, you know, middleing countries, like Turkey or Mexico or even Brazil going down a populist route on the one hand, or small countries like Hungary.

29:18And on the other hand, what happens when you get a superpower like Trump doing it? I mean, his capacity to do harm is so much bigger than anything that Erdogan has. And you can see it also in how much more I've spoken here is that, you know, generally when Erdogan or Autobahn, these populists turn up at international meetings, they're relatively polite. They make their most extreme statements at election rallies to their own domestic audiences and their own local languages. That's when Erdogan will call the German government neo -Nazis, for example. But when they go to international conferences, they're quite polite.

29:48Erdogan was part of his communications on this since the arrest. First of all, is to say, to go through this pretence that it has nothing to do with politics. And they sent out the justice minister, a guy called Yulmus Tunch. And he went out and said, attempting to associate judicial investigations with our president is an act of audacity and irresponsibility. It sounded very kind of Dmitry Petskov when he was in the early days of Putin taking over the judiciary in Russia. And I think the other thing to understand it in this is that because we do live in a pretty even though we don't have complaints about our media, we do have a genuinely free media.

30:31It is quite amazing to think that in Turkey, it's not always been like this. They have a sort of free media in that you'll see there will be a column. There will be this. There will be criticism. There will be debate. But 90 % now, the Turkish media essentially is controlled by government or by businesses which support the government very, very closely. And you are seeing that develop in America. You're seeing it partly developed voluntarily. The newspapers and broadcasters who are sort of limiting what they say, they're volunteering just to be... And that's just taking care. Now, that might sound odd given that we've just talked about the guy from the Atlantic who was pretty cautious in how reported, but he didn't.

31:12He understood there's a very big difference between being a journalist and working for the government. But in Turkey, you've got these big protests going on. I was talking to somebody last night who said that who lives in Istanbul, but who said who'd been at work, who said they're not really aware of them. So it's only word of mouth that is getting these crowds to come out because actually imagine if this was Britain with hundreds of thousands of people out on the street through the night, it would be rolling news, it would be sky news 24 hours a day. And we'd all be aware of it. We'd make a judgment about whether to join or not to join.

31:42So I think it'll be very interesting to see at what point. I've got no doubt at all there will be a crackdown, a real crackdown at some point. And it'll be interesting what point that happens. And I think one of the reasons he's waiting is because he's waiting to see whether this international reaction does take place. And thus far, as far as he's concerned, it's gone completely according to plan. I'm afraid. Well, I think the point to take a break can come back to the very different subject to the UK economy. But thank you very much.

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33:21Welcome back to the rest of politics. We're being honest to Campbell. And with me, Roy Stewart. Just a quick reminder for people, Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied territories is our latest interviewee on leading. Very, very interesting, very, very passionate. Got a lot of response. A lot of people say she was great. And we had a usual massive pushback from people that we always get a massive pushback from when we talk about them at least. But anyway, it's worth listening to and I hope that you do if you haven't already. But let's talk about the economy.

33:56Let's talk about the spring statement. We're recording this on Tuesday. It'll be out Wednesday, early hours, and then later in the day, Rachel Rees will stand up in Parliament. For what feels like a bigger moment than maybe that it should be, that's why we'll be doing a, I won't call it emergency pod, but we'll be doing an instant reaction to the spring statement with none other than one of the heroes of the rest of politics, Paul Johnson of the Institute of Physical Studies live on the rest of the pollinities YouTube channel today Wednesday 3 30 pm. Keep an eye out on our social media accounts for any more details.

34:32And everyone will be able to watch that live on YouTube. And if you want to catch her afterwards, it will be available for members of the rest of this politics plus wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're not already a member, you can go to the rest of this politics .com to join. So as you're quite right, this is a very interesting moment because the story was that we were going to move away from two big fiscal events or two big British budget events a year to one. And this was Rachel Reeves, great announcement. And there was general applause because it was going to give us more policy stability.

35:07And instead of everything lurching around every six months, the government would say what it was doing once a year. However, she ran into a bit of a problem. And the problem is that she set herself a very strict fiscal rule and gave herself very little wiggle room. So her fiscal rule, which is about getting how much she borrows, how much she spends. She only left 10 billion pounds out of what's projected to be nearly 1 ,500 billion pounds worth of government spending within a couple of years. And not actually that surprisingly. The Office of Budget Responsibility, looking at what's happening around the world, has revised its forecasts.

35:48And she now looks as though she's going to be in real trouble. So to put it in context, it looks like she's going to have to borrow 23 billion pounds more than forecast. And remember, she'd already was borrowing a lot more. This is 151 billion against the 87 billion, which was forecast before she came in. So nearly 63 billion pounds higher overall terms. And that leaves her with three choices. Either choice number one, she just puts ahead in the sand, pretends nothing's happening. Hope the world may change the next six months and return to the whole thing in the budget in the autumn. Option number two is she reduces borrowing or increases taxes or cut spending in order to sit within her fiscal rule.

36:28So she does something dramatic to make sure that she's not borrowing and spending too much. Third option is she changes her fiscal rule again and says, actually, I want a more flexible fiscal rule to make it through it over you. Oh, she could just on that one. She could, for example, do something similar to what the Germans have just done, which is, which is tweak it by taking defense and security out of it. And but that people would very, very quickly see that what that was doing. But I think she could maybe tweak it in relation to this broader security situation. Before we get on to which she's going to do just from a, let's set aside the technocratic economics from a political comms perspective.

37:08What are the advantages to disadvantages? And number one, saying, well, I don't want to react to quickly figures change. Let's wait till the autumn or option two, I'm going to show that I believe in my fiscal rule and I'm going to cut or option three, I'm going to go down the German option or I'm going to re -describe my fiscal rule in some way so that I have more headroom. Which, what are the pros and cons of each? I mean, I'm pretty sure which one she's going to do. And it's not that, it's not the last one. I think she's going to, she's going to state her guns. And the pros of that are showing strength, commitment, stability.

37:48She'll think that the markets will respond reasonably well to that. The cons of that, I think, are the extent to which the political and the economic story are starting to intertwine in a way that is not great for the government. I think she will want in her statement to project all lots of this sort of progress that has been made, for example, in waiting lists and, you know, real wages and interest rate cuts and what have you. But I think in terms of how people are feeling about the politics of the economy right now, it's not great. And I think that interesting, just to call me a bit sad, but as part of the preparation for this, I went back and listened to the chat that we did with her last year before she was elected, which if you remember, got quite sparky between between you and her.

38:36It was also, I completely forgot, and this was the, this was the place where you revealed your predilection of a very expensive pots because you were explaining that you were explaining the the, the huge cost, the additional costs of you are getting your thousand pounds pots into the country from the, from the Netherlands. But a couple of things really interesting went listening back to it now. The first is the extent to which cuts under the conservatives drove her into politics in the first place, motivated her in terms of her political career. She was very, very clear that her politicization, it's really interesting, she was born in 1979 in the year that she came to power and her first vote was in 1997, the year that Labour came to power.

39:22And she's very much of that generation that felt growing up, thatcher's Britain was not good for people like her. So cuts, really sort of visceral about the Tories not spending enough on schools, not spending enough on textbooks. Her mum essentially losing her job as a special educational needs teacher and so forth. And then her, her analysis of the, of the last government and their inability to, as it were, stand up for people like, like me. So that's why I think this stuff with welfare cuts, the huge welfare cuts that we talked about last week, I think it should be fine in that very, very difficult.

39:57Small sort of side note on that. So that, that I thought was really interesting in terms of trying to understand her because normally what you'd expect is you'd say the problem with the Tories is cuts and austerity. And therefore what we're going to do is we're going to be much more social democratic. We're going to try to make a state that feels a bit more Scandinavian. It's going to be much more about generous welfare payments, much more about thinking about a quality, maybe much more ambitious green agenda, much more big investment in I don't know roads, super computers. And we're going to turn the whole economic model around from a very kind of tight, worry about the markets, cut expenditure, saturate state to a more generous state that borrows more, spends more and invests more and welfare in the future, is that right?

40:50Yeah, that may sense. And I think that one of the reasons why politically things would become quite difficult for her is this feeling that, you know, we had this in a question last week about, you know, what is the difference between some of the things that conservatives did in the past, or that conservatives talk about now, it's always quite uncomfortable for labor activists when they hear Tories saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, she's going even further than we would have done on welfare and so forth. And but the other thing that I thought was really interesting that came through in the interview, and bear in mind, you know, she's in opposition.

41:23So we all know the game that was being played at that time. There were fairly cautious, didn't want to make the states, didn't want to make promises that were going to come back to all of them. But with pressure of a bit on whether she was actually comfortable with the basic core institutions of economic management. And she was, bank of independence, the work of the Office of Budget Responsibility. Now one of the things you've got to say about the Office of Budget Responsibility, which is George Osborne's creation, is essentially we've we've now given it almost godlike status when it comes out tomorrow and gives the revised growth fork.

41:58That is going to be as big as anything that she, that she says. And I think that one thing I think that's that you hear from, and this is bound to happen because things haven't been going that well. Just to, you know, give you one sort of anecdotal sort of factor in relation to this, I sent you the the Labour equivalent of conservative home, who's up, who's down. This is this Labour list thing, but you know, who's the most popular member of the cabinet, who's the least popular. Ed Miliband and Angela Reiner are far out in front. And Rachel Reeves and Liskendle are right down at the bottom with negative approval ratings, Keir Starmer, West Streetings pretty low down.

42:40Now what that's saying is that the ones who are giving the difficult messages are the ones who are getting hit quite hard in terms of their popularity within the party. But that becomes a problem. And the thing is that this, we've got to keep reminding people, this is a Labour government and Labour governments who expected to do Labour things. Two things Gordon Brown never lost sight of. One is the Chancellor has to drive the Treasury. Don't let the Treasury drive the Treasury. The Chancellor has to drive the Treasury. And that means being very, very clear about what you wanted to do for you. And the second thing is never, ever, ever forget that you're that you're Labour.

43:18Now we talked a lot in the podcast about her understanding of Labour history and her commitment to Labour history. What's been difficult is this, she's desperately trying to avoid this being called austerity mark too. But once you get into some of the numbers that we're going to see in the spending round to meet this fiscal rule, it's going to be tough. It's going to be tough. I mean, she's inherited a big problem. And the big problem is much more than any government. And she didn't really want to acknowledge that I felt in the interview, which is Britain's aging. We want growth, but a lot of the public doesn't want immigration.

43:53We want more houses, but a lot of the time we don't want the environmental costs or the neighbourhood costs of building those houses. We want services, but we don't want to pay higher taxes. So she's inherited this big problem and our growth is kind of anemic, but she didn't help herself because she has a tendency, I think, unnecessarily, to tie her hands behind her back. The first big example of this was she ruled out 75 % of the tax rises by saying that she wasn't going to raise corporation tax national insurance or VIT. And I think it's tax. Incomplex. Yeah. The second mistake she's made is she's committed to this fiscal rule and left herself a very, very tiny headroom.

44:33And once she's made those commitments, she somehow feels that she can never get out of them. So she said, you know, we're not going to come back with more tax rises. She just said it again to the Treasury Select Committee. And she has been given opportunities, which the Germans took to say, security situations completely changed. We're going to change our fiscal rules or we're going to raise more taxes. She won't do that. That then means that she's basically stuck in the austerity light world. The growth is not coming. And she's committed to not raising taxes and not borrowing anymore. So she don't have any money.

45:08She has to cut. And there everything comes down to something that my friend who you know Felix Martin wrote a rather good article in Reuters about, which is whether labor is going to be able to deliver on what at least for some people seems to be the most exciting potential path to growth, which is that you get a lot of statements out of Kirstauma and increasing the out of West reading, saying the way we're going to create growth is not by borrowing and spending more. We're going to create growth through efficiency. We're going to get rid of regulations. We're going to get rid of red tape. We're going to bring productivity into the NHS.

45:44We're going to get rid of quangos. So there was this thing about sacking the chair of the competition market sorority. And there the hope, I guess, from Felix and others is that although all that stuff sounds quite Tory, it's only labour that actually has the political capital to really make the tough decisions to bring efficiency into government, bring productivity into the NHS, that getting rid of NHS England, which we haven't discussed in a lot of detail, is part of this movement. So be a vision of a much more efficient, much more accountable government. Do you think that can fly? Well, I think it has to fly in reality, but I think it's going to be very difficult.

46:23So the scrapping of NHS England, interestingly, I've spoken to people who work in the National Health Service who are not as alarmed by that as I thought they might be because they actually say there is massive duplication and is very, very confusing to work at the front line with all these different misceives coming down. I think that the idea of these huge civil service cuts, and I'm always very suspicious when people say we're just going to affect the back room. I always want to know, I mean, I think I was deemed to work in a back room, I guess, but where are all these back rooms in government?

46:57And I always think we're the efficiency. I mean, we've got the whole dodge thing going on with Musk, which is on a different scale. But there's always a part of me with the things, well, why do we, are we saying we've always been incredibly inefficient? And why are we sort of having to admit that? I think it doesn't hit the scale of the problem they're talking about. And I think the other thing that we need to acknowledge is the cost of borrowing. The reason why she's so, one of the reasons she's so wedded to this fiscal rule is because the cost of government borrowing is now astronomical. The money that we are paying to service the debt is on a par with anything else that government is doing.

47:39And the cost is going up, the cost of government borrowing is represented by bond yields. It's gone up to 4 .6%. Well, that's kind of, we're now, we're talking, I don't want to make any other comparison with Trust Quarting, but, you know, we're talking that level and a hundred, hundred billion pounds a year, isn't that now? Exactly. A hundred billion pounds. And this is something that, you know, there's two things that you'll hear from Rachel Reeves and all her, the other Labour ministers, when they're on the airways and then it's a couple of days and they won't be wrong. One is we inherited a terrible mess and we're still trying to work, trying to fix it.

48:09That's true, even if the public get bored hearing it. And the second is that these, there are international factors here that have made our life more difficult. Both of those things are true. However, when you look at the, the numbers, I'm just looking at a graph that somebody sent me, debt stock as percentage of GDP, Gordon Brown, 37%, George Osborne, 65%, then we're into the 90s through Quarting. We're now at 98. Debt payments as percentage of revenue, again, you go back to Gordon Brown, was fairly high, but Rachel Reeves is even higher. So these are trends that she will be very, very worried about.

48:49Now, as to what she does, I, and you were saying here, the sort of pros and cons of, I guess the pros and cons of doing little things or big things. In the end, I don't think you've got any choice. I think we're going to have to do big things on the economy. I don't even think you have to say single market customs union. I've got a new acronym, Rory. It's called AFTA, AFTA, the alliance of frictionless trade associates, something like that. Frictionless trade, okay? So it could be the association of frictionless trade allies. It could be anything. But that is, I think, that reform is one thing, and I think you and I both agree that public services do need reform.

49:32That's fine. But unless we sort this trade relationship with Europe, unless we do get back to some sort of frictionless trade, I think we're just going to be going from, and remember, remember one of the things that Kirsta Amas said is we're going to put an end to sticking class to the politics. There is a danger that we just could have go from budget, spring statement, budget to spring statement. We have the same debate every time. Are we going to put up a bit of tax? Are we going to cut more spending? And where is the growth going to come from? Because don't forget, this is something else she said several times in our interview.

50:03Without growth, we do not get the funding for our public services. Well, right now, yes, we talked to Peter Karl recently about AI, and you can see maybe there's a part of a growth strategy there. You can see it may be in relation to the planning, but as you said, there are a lot of problems related to that, political problems. But in terms of an overall plan for growth of the economy, I still feel that they're struggling to articulate it because actually they don't have that many levers right now. Unless they did very, very radical things, obviously if you were a Tory listening to this, you'd say maybe we need to rethink the whole of the NHS.

50:38The NHS is now absorbing so much more of our budget all the time and that there are other systems around the world, which you could look at, etc. But you can imagine the total allergic reaction, which would happen as soon as you hear that kind of stuff. That's the forage position though. I'm just finished with a thought, which you've just inspired me, which is we just did this interview with Peter Kyle for members, the second interview, taking members questions. I thought that was if you were really looking for a detailed way of understanding why the government's such a mess, what Peter Kyle explains really beautifully is the trade -offs.

51:10On the one hand, he really wants Britain to be an AI superpower. He's talking very much in the kind of language that almost a Thatcherite would talk about. He's regulation, changing copyright rules, more risk capital, tax breaks for American companies, generating much more energy to run these huge data centers that are going to use half the power of Los Angeles, driving more productivity and businesses, loosening the planning laws to get these energies facilities built, bringing US firms and technology. And then on the other hand, he's having to balance that with, well, yeah, but on the other hand, if we change a copyright rules, what's that going to mean for the creative industry in Britain at Synccoms?

51:53And if we suddenly loosen up all the pension funds, what risks is that going to mean for people's pensions? And we bring all these tax breaks to the economy and maybe get these big companies to come here, but that suddenly means that we're very, very vulnerable in the way that Ireland is on our income to these US tax companies. We're going to do these big energy things, but what's that going to mean for climate? And we're going to do productivity, but what happens for all these companies when everybody loses their jobs? And what's going to happen to everybody lose their jobs as the productivity comes?

52:20And finally, how does this all work in our geo -strategic calculation? I mean, we don't really want a world run by musk and Zuckerberg. And that's when Peter then starts saying, well, yes, of course, we want more productivity, but we're going to force these companies to make sure that they invest more in retraining the staff when they lay them off because they're making bigger profits. They have to invest more. And yes, we want these companies to come, but they have to commit to putting in green energy investments in order to make sure that everything we're doing is renewable. This is the stuff, I guess, that Rachel Reeves and Kirsten are struggling with all the time, which is how do you get a clear message on which side of this ultimately are you on, because we can all do the on the one hand or the other, but Labour's big decision is, is it going for growth or is it going to be going endlessly for, well, we don't want to be like the Tories.

53:06We're going to have put in regulations in place, incentives in place, conditions in place to make sure that we don't end up with people losing out of the other end. Well, they've said they're going for growth and it will be a very, very big thing for them to change that approach now. Our friend Peter Kellner wrote a very interesting piece yesterday, I think I saw it, and he was drawing comparisons with Labour in the past. And the comparisons aren't exact, but he made a very, very interesting observation. His view and devaluation of sterling is an argument that sort of ran through several Labour governments in the past, and his view very strongly is that the Labour government that came in after a long period of Tory power in 1964 should have had a dreadful inheritance like the Labour government now and should have devalued.

53:55Okay, but because Atley had done that, somewhat against his will having been pushed into it back in 1949, I think it was Jim Callahan as Chancellor didn't want to say, well, we mustn't become known as the party of devaluation. So put it off and put it off and put it off. Then ran, had another election two years later, won it, got a bigger majority, but then the core problems came back, run on the pound, and instead of going for devaluation, they went for spending cuts, went for freezon wages and other taxes, booze and petrol and what have you. And then, lo and behold, forced devalued 14 % I think it was.

54:31And the point that Peter's making is that Labour today feel like they're being pushed towards something that may be in their hearts, they know they should be doing. And it won't be surprising to know that he had both degree that that relates to this relationship with Europe and that the arrival of Trump and the new security environment, these are the Putin, these are the Ukraine, but particularly now with the new American administration is actually an opportunity for the Labour government to stand up and do a major reset. And that reset may involve just as they've broken the manifesto promise in relation to international aid to pay for the extra defense spending, which people seem to accept.

55:13Actually, there may be other manifesto commitments that have to be broken to to acknowledge this. So for example, everybody knows that even though Kierstheim has got some political credit for saying we have to increase defense spending, it's going to have to go even further. Now, how's that going to get paid for? And if that's where they think they're going to get pushed to, do it now. Don't get pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed. This is the important thing, isn't it? If you can see in advance that the tax rules that you've set yourself, the fiscal rules that you're simply not compatible with where you need to go, which is maybe spending 3 % of GDP on defense or your commitments on the customs union are not compatible with the new world.

55:50Get out there, make the argument now. If you can see the, you know, the train coming at you down the tunnel, do something about it, that the risk is that they're going to try to tinker technically around the edges and the other risk I suppose is that Morgan McSweeney, this key figure who seems to be very focused on the red wall is going to say all that matters to my red wall voters is you never raise tax and you never do anything that sounds like being nice to Europe and you never do anything that allows too many immigrants to come in. And if they, if Morgan McSweeney wins that argument, they're not going to be able to achieve their growth objectives.

56:21Well, there you go. So that's the big argument that probably, and I don't know if that argument is raging within government. And look, this, this is, she was clear at the start, again, something she said in the interview that she didn't want to get to a place where you have these huge fiscal events coming around every few months, but it's a danger that that's happening, whether she likes it or not. And I always say, I think she's still in that place where we're still less than a year into the, the labor government. There's still in that place where there's just about enough goodwill left. There's just about enough sort of, I think there's quite a lot of credibility still.

56:56And I think here's enhanced credibility in terms of the way that he's handled the foreign stuff. But I think that sense of the overseas scenario gives him an opportunity to build on the success that he's had in that personally and politically and to match that now alongside a domestic economic agenda that is about signaling big changes. Because I think if we just this feels a little bit like we're beginning to kind of, you call it tinkering or limping or whatever it might be, but the one thing that we're not feeling is that the boost, the growth boost of rockets is sort of somehow, you know, waiting for his round the corner.

57:30Well, thank you on that. I said, good thing to close on. See, for question time, we should talk about lots of the things we didn't talk about today because of all the other things that we're going on, not least the ridiculousness of the American administration. I want to talk about Mexico, actually. I think Claudia Schaienbaum, very, very interesting woman. And I think we could also talk a little bit about adolescence, the amazing new Netflix series that's on the line. Thanks a lot, and I'll see you tomorrow for Paul Johnson.

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