398. Question Time: Trump’s Plan to Overhaul US Diplomacy

0:00Thanks for listening to The Restless Politics. Sign up to The Restless Politics plus to enjoy ad -free listening and receive a weekly newsletter. Join our members' chat room again early access to live show tickets. Just go to TheRestlessPolitics .com. That's TheRestlessPolitics .com. The Restless Politics is, as ever, powered by our friends at Fuse Energy. And when you switch to Fuse, you will receive a trick -plus membership with all the perks completely free of charge. That means exclusive in -depth bonus episodes, you know, like our in -few with the Danish Prime Minister and new episodes we're making on niche subjects, ad -free listening, early access to our question time episodes, pre -sale tickets for our live shows and much more.

0:38Just go to GetFuse .com .slashpolitics and use the referral code Politics when signing up. Fuse is offering fixed electricity rates well below the April cap, with typical households saving nearly £150 on both 12 and 18 months tariffs, as of the time we're recording. And fixing your rate now means you'll protect from furtherises, which is a rare bit of financial certainty in these very uncertain times. It's a straightforward way to take control of your bills and receive a few podcast bonuses while you're at it. And one bit of policy we can all agree on, cheaper power and podcast perks thrown in.

1:13So download the app, sign up with the code Politics and visit GetFuse .com .slashpolitics for full terms and more information.

1:27Welcome to the Restless Politics question time with me, Rory Stewart. And we meet Mr. Campbell. And I'll start very, very large number of questions this week focusing on Israel, on the red crescent, on the killing of 15 rescue workers, darser in general. But I wanted to ask you this one, in particular, from Francis. Who or what do you think is stifling debate on Israel's war crimes? As one example among many, on Radio 4 last week, statements that Asad had committed war crimes went unchallenged. But as soon as the guests tried to discuss Netanyahu's possible war crimes, the reporter silenced him saying Netanyahu was not present to defend himself.

2:07War, interesting, interesting. I guess the fact that Asad has done a runner and is somewhere in Russia with nobody really knowing where, living under Putin's protection, maybe makes broadcasts just think they can get away with saying more than if they're talking about somebody who's a current Israeli leader. That being said, I said on the main podcast that had the Pope not died, we were going to talk about Israel and Netanyahu on the main podcast. And as you say, we've got loads of questions about it this week. And there's so much going on that, again, Trump takes so much of the oxygen out of the debate, and we've had the Pope dying.

2:45But Israel, I've been looking at Harris, the Israeli newspaper, and a couple of other Israeli media analysts. There's so much going on at the moment. You had the Red Crescent where the government has finally admitted that they made some pretty bad mistakes. And I think it's fair to say that a deputy head is going to roll. You've got the Chief of Israel's domestic security agency, Shin Bet, who has made this really remarkable statement about Netanyahu and an affidavit, essentially saying that he was Netanyahu asked him to spy on Israeli citizens, who were involved in anti -government protests, that he asked him to put personal loyalty above the rulings of the Supreme Court, Netanyahu, and he just says, as dismissed it.

3:30And in Britain as well, Rory, I mean, this did get a fair bit of coverage, though maybe not as much as it might have done, a very substantial group of the British board of deputies of British Jews, publishes open letter in the financial times, very, very critical of the Netanyahu government, very critical in the interviews around it, particularly of Ben Gavir and Smotrich. I'll just give you one line from it. Israel's soul has been ripped out and we members of the board of deputy of British Jews fear for the future of the Israel we love and have such close ties to. And then going through some of the other stuff that's going on.

4:04Obviously, you've got Messin Sainte -San Frontier, one of the big medical organizations there, they said that Gaza has been, quotes, turned into a mass grave of Palestinians. We're witnessing the real destruction and forced displacement of the entire population. That's from their emergency coordinator. And I just think that another one, a piece in the in -harrots, the situation, Gaza no longer a war, but an unrestrained assault on civilians, air -hoed El -Al -Mert, Israel is closer to civil war than ever. Amos Harrell, these are all commentators. Among things to resume in the Gaza war, Israeli army strives to conceal its confusion, editorial Netanyahu is considering a limited strike on Iran.

4:46This is complete insanity. You're getting to something really interesting, but there's another side of this story too. So I'm in the States the moment and I was talking to someone who on the basis of this letter said that they thought almost nobody was still defending Israel's bombing campaigns and Gaza, that people who've been sympathetic a few months ago were finding it now in defense when they quoted that letter. Are you sure about people in Israel or people around the world? People around the world. So I think they were saying nobody who doesn't feel a very close connection is really defending what Israel's doing at the moment, but it was then questioned.

5:22Somebody else said, no, that's not true. If you look at the American Senate in Congress, they are almost unanimously supportive of what Israel's doing. There's no question from Republicans or Democrats in any way of the actions that are a society has invited Ben Gavir to speak. So Ben Gavir is this really a very, very unpleasant troubled person with connections to far -right nationalist groups and crime, who's a member of Netanyahu's government is being invited here to speak on the campus. So we're still far from a sort of uniform story here to clean the US. No, and also don't forget, you just had Donald Trump hosting Netanyahu.

6:08Although Netanyahu didn't get all that he wanted, he certainly has still, I think, a lot of political support. I'm just reading this book. I'm going to plug yet another foreign language book, which I think should be translated into English. It's a book by Guy called Mikhail Ludus, and he's he very much comes from the left wing perspective. He's a he's a senior member of the party named after Zara Vagenknecht, the kind of Corbin plus figure in Germany. He was a candidate at the last election, but it's called Creek Own Ender War Without End. And the subtitles says why we have to change our attitude to Israel if we're ever going to get peace in the Middle East.

6:48And it is, yes, I say it's written from a particular perspective, but he's unbelievably critical of Britain in relation to our role in the history and this sort of session of sers and urls and lords and fight cats who sort of, you know, paved the way to very critical of the Balford Declaration, felt it was all done in a very cavalier fashion, set up the NACBUR when they're sort of half the Palestinian population were forced from there from their homes. Very critical of Germany, essentially saying that Germany has made it a sort of, you know, he has his phrase, Staatsrezon, that it has, it's a reason for the state of Germany is to protect the security of Israel because of the the Holocaust and that has then led to a stasis in policy development, very, very critical of America.

7:36But essentially as you go through it, he's painting a picture which does lead you to the place where we are now where you have people like Ben Giver and Smotritch who are absolutely open about thinking, no, there's no such thing as a two -state solution, there is a greater Israel. And that includes the West Bank and includes Gaza. And so it's a difficult read, it's a troubling read and the point he's making actually goes to the point you just made that actually Israel has phenomenal support around the world and especially in those places where it needs it most which you see is as America. It quotes David Ben Gure and Israel's first prime minister at one point is saying, listen, we don't need to worry too much about Britain and the Labour Party, the British Empire is gone, the Labour Party doesn't have many Jews in it and they're in government, the focus has got to be on American and American politicians.

8:26And as you say, it's very rare that you'll find somebody in an American senior political position who doesn't instinctively automatically say, I stand by Israel. And what this guy argues, what this guy, Ludas argues is that Israel's right to exist, which you and I would support and which I suspect most of our listeners support has been taken by people like Ben Gure and Smotich and their supporters around the world to mean we have the right to do whatever we want and we don't have to be judged in the same way as other countries because we can say we are the quotes only democracy in the region. So they are British publishers, it's a very, very interesting read and it's worth getting into English.

9:11Good. But should we go to Harvard? How far is Harvard from Yale? It's not that far, it's up at Boston. You're in Kinesi, where are you? In New Haven, Connecticut. And yeah, as you say, a bit, but in the news that Manit Harvard, is it sort of Oxford Cambridge? They see each other as their rival, they say, no, we're the top dog now we are. We definitely would see it as that, but it is true that Harvard is now increasingly the big famous international brand. I mean, it's become like ESA or something, it's become my lord, not that bad. Well, poppy Fleming, poppy Fleming wants to know, how significant is Harvard President Alan Garbus push back on Trump's demands?

9:46Is it naive to see this as a sign of hope? What does it say more broadly about the conservative relationship to academia? So just step back for a second, one of the things that Trump is doing is attacking universities along with many, many other things. And in the case of Harvard, they wrote Harvard and they said we're going to withhold over two billion dollars worth of federal grants, and they've threatened to strip its tax exemption. And they've demanded that Harvard report international students, they accuse them of anti -Semitism, and they want an outside overseer of points to make sure there are diverse viewpoints at Harvard.

10:27So from the point of view of the mega -cultural warriors, these universities are seen as left -wing, woke, anti -Semitic places which receive far too much federal money and have too much wealth. And it's not just Harvard. I mean, Columbia has had its money taken away as we talked about, I've been moved to Wisconsin also West, and there's something also happening at the state university level that we know talk much about. So I was at Ohio's state in Columbus, Ohio, two weeks ago, and there the state government is also trying to get involved in what can and can't be taught, trying to challenge workers and trying to set up centers to bring in diverse viewpoints.

11:06Just on that route, they don't really mean diverse viewpoints, do they? I mean, Trump, when he means diverse viewpoints, because he means he wants the universities basically to be full of people who support him. And JD Vance has talked about all bands' success in Taiming the University. Yeah, this is the basic theme, isn't it? That what they say, if you say it quickly, they might have a bit of a point. So it's obviously true that universities tend to be pretty left -wing. And 90 % of professors are left -wing, not right -wing. And it is true that I have had colleagues who feel that there's a sort of left -wing censorship going on, and it's very difficult.

11:42For example, we talked in the last podcast about transgenderist use, and obviously Kathleen Stock in the UK would be an example of somebody who feels that her career was completely blighted because she tried to say things openly about biological sex and gender, and that universities don't welcome that, and they cancel you, and that it's very intimidating environment. Yeah, you've just said that Ben Gavir is on campus today. Yeah, so it's a bit unclear. It's not something the university is celebrating. It seems to be a sort of group associated with the university around the university itself, but yeah, this is right at the heart of the culture war, though.

12:16And in the case of Harvard, Larry Summers, the previous president of Harvard said there was genuine anti -Semitism at Harvard and supported the sacking of an Ottoman scholar, scholar of 18th century Ottoman government, who was the director of the Middle East Center at Harvard, who I knew lost their job. Anyway, in the middle of all this, and this is where you're absolutely right, there may be a point about universities being pretty lefty and right -wing views not being welcomed, but Trump is not doing it in a spirit of sort of good faith and trying to encourage diversity. He basically wants to shut down anyone and discrease them.

12:47So I used to be at Harvard. I used to teach at Harvard. I used to run a central Harvard, and one of the things I used to do is raise money for Harvard. So the first problem raising money for Harvard and getting any sympathy for Harvard is Harvard is unbelievably wealthy. I mean, it's sitting on an endowment of $54 billion, $54 ,000 million, and in some figures, well into the 60s. It's total wealth if you take its land and debts into account. But, and this is what I discovered. I ran something called the Car Center for Human Rights Policy at the Kennedy School. A Car Center. A Car Center, yeah.

13:18We remember it. Two -ass. Two -ass. Every center has a certain its own buckets, and fattening endowments broken into 11 ,000 separate restricted endowments, you know, 80 % of the money is restricted. So you can't move it around very easily between bits. And 300 million of these cuts has fallen on the medical research side, and that's a problem here for Yale too. So Yale is supporting, I think, about 37 ,000 patients and different trials around the New Haven area. A lot of that funded with federal money. So federal money stops, and they're also going off to visas. So they're also saying that they're not going to allow visas for foreign students to come to these universities unless they choose.

13:57Gerber has chosen to stand up. Columbia didn't. Columbia basically caved. Got frightened by the money in caved. Gerber has said, okay, we'll stand up. But we're now getting into some of these questions that you're quite interested in because fundamentally Harvard's private and tax exempt and gets government money. So you get some of the grumbles that you get from that you had about private schools in the UK, you know, why they tax exempt, why they're getting all this stuff. They spend $6 billion a year, and these universities are the kind of crown jewel of the United States. In America, as we've often said, doesn't have very good public education, doesn't have very good public infrastructure.

14:33But one of the few things it does have is these universities. And most of these great tech geniuses go briefly to places like Harvard or Yale often dropping out after a year and a half or two, and Bill Gates went out for a bit and then dropped out. So it's a high of a rubit drop town. They are a loss of what makes America extraordinary. They're very wealthy and they can get the very best academics in the world because it's not just that you can get a big salary. It's also that they'll pay for your research assistance, your laboratories, your kit, your investment if you're a scientist. And so just to finish, on the one hand, yes, it's true.

15:06These universities are insanely wealthy and their endowments are mad. And so at some moods when I was at Harvard in 2008, I thought this was a bit like the monasteries before the reformation, like, you know, we as professors were like fat habits sitting around in these monastic institutions, eating fine food and wearing fine clothes, which wasn't what these things were supposed to be set up for. On the other hand, they're actually the goose that lays the golden egg for lots of America services, exports, technology, the American economy, and American status in the world is based on having the best universities in the world.

15:39And that's what Trump seems destined to kill. I mean, it does seem strange. It reminds me a little bit of elements of the last government and their constant undermining of the BBC. I think the BBC is a whatever complaints I might have had with it from time to time. I think it's a very, very big part of our global reputation and it's worth protecting for that alone. And it seems weird that when, as you say, one thing that America has got is this reputation for a, you know, a sizable number of really top quality universities. When you look at the list of Nobel Prize winners from these top Ivy League universities, and it's quite phenomenal.

16:15And yet they want to seem to undermine it. And just before we started recording, I was watching a thing at one of these town halls, there's a Republican politician, a commenter's name, and somebody in the audience worked for one of these universities and said, as a result of the decisions that the Trump administration and the doge has made, we are having to end a programme which was making progress in scientific development of a programme to treat Parkinson's. And you could sort of feel in the audience is sort of, whoa, oh, like, you know, not necessarily relating the way the debate is going. So the line of the White House, when Harvard, who have now announced an answer they're taking legal action against the administration for the demands that they're making.

17:01And the line from the White House, when this follows, the gravy train of federal assistance to institutes like Harvard, which enriched their grossly overpay bureaucrats with tax dollars from struggling American families is coming to an end. Taxpayer funds are a privilege. Harvard fails to meet the basic conditions required to access that privilege. So it's full on, you know, we're with the people struggling American families against you who are just there to value your own nests. And that is I'm afraid populism in a nutshell. A bit like Taken USAID and we've got this leading interview with Atel Goanday coming, he's a Harvard professor in medical science who talks about the real impact for real people from this.

17:41But politically, it is something Trump and Vance probably can get away with because these particular targets overseas development aid professors that Ivy League universities are not exactly the most popular thing with a voter in Daytona, higher. No, but they're doing a lot of damage to their soft power. And maybe they just don't do that matters. But I think if you look at their reputation around the world as measuring all sorts of different ways, but you know, look at the tourism numbers. There's a piece in one of the French papers the other day. It's absolutely American boom at the moment on the south of France.

18:12And one of the reasons is I just don't want to be an American wall. This is going on. Maybe just before we go to the Great Royal. This is a really good one. Staying in the in the States, Emily M. I hope that's not the presenter of a rival podcast. It's just below as a chart. Can you please explain what an earth Trump is doing to the US State Department and its embassies are broad. This relates to what we just been talking about. Yeah, amazing story. So this was leaked by the New York Times. It's still a proposal and the State Department is vigorously denying it. But the proposal is basically to shut down all the full bright scholarships with a few very limited exceptions, shut down all the attempts to get access into the state pumps as an attempt to make American diplomats more diverse by encouraging people from minority backgrounds to join the State Department, which is exactly what should be happening than the administration wants to shut that down.

19:07But then also closing embassies. Talk about closing a lot of their embassies in Africa. It's a very, very odd thing to do if you're the global superparadid time when China and others and Russia are reaching into Africa doing more and more in Africa. So as you know, we're both very big fans of the New York Times and things are pretty good newspaper. The Trump administration clearly hates it. But what was your sense of that story? So they run the story, people speaking on condition of anonymity, etc. And then the administration flat out denies it. Where did that leave you at the end of reading? Well, so the theory that I got, I talked to a senior State Department official yesterday about this and they think that what's happening is that the administration's rolling the pitch, seeing how people respond and will probably come out in the next 24 hours with a slightly milder evisceration of the State Department.

20:01But because it's not quite as big as it sounded, they'll get away with it. Is that a kind of playbook? Is that something people sometimes do in politics? They're now something very big and then see how it plays in the industry a bit smaller? Yeah, I mean, I can't think of any examples, obviously, but yeah. Is it, is we've learned to happen from time to time? What about, listen, I have a quick yes or no before we go to the break. Pete Hexath, the Secretary of State of the Defense, will he survive? Yes or no. It's all about loyalty. I think if he shows loyalty, he can be pretty incompetent and survive, but there is briefing against him starting isn't there?

20:39Yeah, yeah. I'm a no, I think he's toast. Final quick one for you, Julia Ren. There were lots of reports on how Zelensky's approval rating spiked after a shouting match with Trump jumping from 57 % of Ukrainians, trust and slaski, to 68%. Where is this now? And how much slip matter? Well, last time I looked, his ratings were good. And there was a spike after the shouting match in the in the Oval Office. And listen, I've got no doubt at all. Zelensky would wish that had not happened. But one of the things I think makes him a very effective campaigner, communicator, politician, strategist, if you like, is that he's very good at using things that go badly to his benefit.

21:17And I think what he did on the back of that was to do a renewed blitz around the world, getting promises of money and political support. He's still doing these nightmare messages, putting out his message out there. So his ratings are good. And no matter how many times Putin and Trump and Wicoff echo the Putin talking points, which they do now as a matter of course, I think Zelensky remains very, very popular. I've got to say, we're one of the high points of the week was Wicoff in the Ilezae Palace comparing the day core to Mar -a -Lago and saying saying, in fact, Jonathan Powers in the genre, Jonathan was sort of nodding with this sort of, you know, what the fuck is going on now?

22:06And he basically said, and the thing is Jonathan, you go to Mar -a -Lago and like the president himself, he designs all that, you know. And anyway, have you seen the White House recently in the Oval Office? It looks like a sort of bizarre. It's just got all these bits of bling everywhere. The mantle pieces covered with all these bits of bling. So yeah, I don't know when the Ilezae Palace was built, but I suspect it was built before the United States existed. And he's now basically comparing Mar -a -Lago to the Ilezae Palace, anyway. Okay. Now, the rest of politics, as everyone knows, is powered by fused energy.

22:41And we've got a question from Brian. So Brian asks, the UK seems to be finally gaining some momentum on EV rollout. That's, I guess, electric vehicles catching up with the US. But government policy is still lagging behind in terms of promoting use of electric vehicles. Our government subsidies sufficient in the face of Trump's tariffs. Any views on electric vehicles? Do you have an electric vehicle? Do you have friends with electric vehicles? I have a hybrid. The only time I really use my car is when we drive through France. And I tell you what we did notice on our last drive through France through a couple of towns, was actually this mention of BYD, the Chinese car.

23:18I haven't really noticed that many of them in Britain, I don't know if you have, but I've noticed more of them in Europe this time that I've been here. And I think what's happening with the the Chinese in relation to tariffs, and they've got these massive tariffs on them, 145%. So they are now going to be trying to get into other markets. And I think that's important. I mean, last time I was in Norway, I was really struck by just how many fully electric cars you see around the place and also just how much of a system that they have. So I think the infrastructure is still something that we have to crack.

23:51And China, which is incredible, the number of electric vehicles now going. So you're right, BYD. The Chinese did something, which is a sort of miracle. I mean, we talked about Chinese industrial policy before that they decided they wanted to be a leader in electric vehicles. And then they have this odd combination of massive state subsidies and then massive competition. So there were sort of thousands of little electric vehicle companies competing with each other, which eventually ended up with a lot of innovation and three giants. And BYD can basically sell a really good electric vehicle for about 40 % cheaper than any of the American or European competitors.

24:26And so that's a really good thing if these governments want to let people on low incomes get electric vehicles, which is the central concern Britain that was meant to be by Rishu Sunei to 2035, then charges, as you've pointed out, when I was the environment minister and DEFRA, I think we reckon we needed about 300 ,000 charges. I think we've only got about 55 ,000 in place at the moment. Big problems trying to get them into rural areas and central urban areas. They're easier to put in a kind of spread out suburban context. And still quite a lot of people don't really like electric vehicles. You know, is BWD able to deal with people's anxiety about range and time it takes to charge other forms of technology?

25:11Yeah. We had Ezra Klein on the podcast recently on leading. And I listened to an interview he did the other day. He was interviewing his colleague at the New York Times Thomas Frieden who just got back from China. He was really praising the BYD product as it were. And you know, I did on the back of that. I did take a look. Now I would much prefer to buy British. We're back to the the Pope and the order of love here. I'd like to buy British and even not British European. As I said recently, I've never been that impressed by American cars. Sorry. But I think I would take on a BWD. Will I be accused of being young patriotic?