Putin's the big winner in Trump's betrayal

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1:54So a visual signal that we are, you know, shoulder to shoulder with you, as ever. But an extraordinary interview President Zelensky gave with Piers Morgan, in which, you know, Piers, whatever you think of him, he asks the right questions at the right time. He certainly does. A great interviewer, technically brilliant interviewer, and said to Zelensky, the salient point, do you feel betrayed by America? Because the technology, Elon Musk's Starlink technology that Ukraine's drone defense depends on, is being eroded. And no one knows, is it Musk? Is it Trump? Well, Zelensky's got a pretty clear idea and responded to peers.

2:46Yeah, I feel betrayed. I feel betrayed. Yeah, absolutely. It is. I mean, on the Burnham situation, I mean, it was very interesting yesterday, Wednesday, that I felt for the first time Burnham, who, you know, not through their fault of his own, doesn't have any particular foreign policy experience, really stepped up by saying this will have been difficult in front of his party and a lot of other people as well. You know, I have to kind of be careful what I say, because I want to be able to work behind the scenes to keep Trump in some sort of same position. Now, as we've said before, this may exaggerate the extent to which Britain can be an honest broker.

3:29But I have to admire Burnham in that respect that he said in public. You know, that's that's the best thing I can do right now is to try and pull back Trump from the brink. because I think this is the brink. And funnily enough, I was thinking back to, you know, just before the 2024 presidential election, we did a podcast in which we talked at some length about what would happen if Trump won for Ukraine. And we both agreed that, you know, it would be very, very bad. And what's interesting is that it's taken quite a long time to get to this point. It's been not a linear direction. I mean, you know, Zelensky was monstered in the Oval Office last February, I think it was.

4:13And there was a period where Trump was very down on Putin. But but I think what has really changed is the Iranian war has put enormous pressure on Trump. And of course, the midterms are coming. And he did this deal with Putin last Friday, which is a basically massive relaxation of sanctions in return for Russian diesel exports. and then he but which by the way will make no difference to margin anything i mean just to give a sense of what it is it's 300 000 metric tons of diesel now that's about half a that's about half a day's use in america and um in any case it won't do anything to the global price which is what really matters so it's purely performative essentially in return for as things stand uh withdrawing American support from Ukraine after more than four years, which is, you know, obscene.

5:14Zelensky condemns the arrangements then and carries on attacking Russian oil refineries. And then Musk on the 10th Saturday says Zelensky has gone too far. Trump says Ukraine needs a new war president. and on Sunday he Trump announces a non-existent deal between Russia and Ukraine on not attacking energy infrastructure and as you say Matt so what we've got is this situation where at minimum Starlink which is Musk's low orbit satellite internet service and its defense sister service star shield is not really working properly for ukraine and um that of course is is a disaster because it leaves them you know naked in terms of certainly in terms of defense and overnight there was some very bad attacks on ukraine and um abominably america is withholding intelligence from ukraine yeah and this is all to do with um trump's boredom i think he wants this he's He was bored before he became president again, but also specifically the political context of the next few weeks before the midterm.

6:31So there's something. I mean, when I saw that interview with Piers and I agree with you, it was it was a terrific interview. Hats off to Piers. I did think that Zelensky is one of the few truly great statesmen alive today. You know what he has been through and what and his determination still is phenomenal, I think. really i mean he has displayed incredible defiance in extraordinary both domestically and um and in terms of his dealings with the war because he's not i mean he's not uncontroversial within ukraine you know i mean no but then no one everyone is i mean of course it's a very very troubled country of course hundreds of years um it's i mean you don't have to join the dots too far before this picture of a grinning Putin emerges on the page you know I mean there's only one big winner in this as you say you know gas prices are not going to plunge in in the states he has he has basically betrayed Ukraine for one press conference you know for one press announcement and and that won't even add up to anything um it's it is quite um the question about you know is this technically can Can you be betrayed by somebody who you were fairly certain would always pull the rug from under your feet?

7:49And that's my question on this. It's a good way of framing it, actually. I mean, I suppose you can in the sense that I mean, we I don't regard it as betrayal because I've always thought that he was going to betray Ukraine. And by the way, because as I've always thought, we always betray Ukraine. Yeah, always. I've said this repeatedly. It's just, you know, going back to the 1994 memorandum when we promised them securities, they gave up their nukes and then we didn't and many other instances. So this is just Trump sort of turbocharging a long existing tendency. But I suppose where Zelensky is entitled to feel let down is that after the February beating up in the Oval Office with Trump and Vance, you know, the you've got no cards incident.

8:37There was a very strange period where Trump went cool on Putin and Trump and Zelensky met at the Vatican. and, you know, there were moments of cordiality and Trump saying some quite explicit things about how angry and, quote, pissed off he was with crude Putin. And then, of course, as always happens, he got back together because he is, you know, he is bedazzled and mesmerized by Putin's strength. I mean, that's what he likes. And so they meet in Alaska in August, he and Trump, Putin and Trump. And I think since then, if I'm honest, I think that was it. It's taken this August 25. And now here we are in October 26.

9:27And Putin, who knows a moment to strike, has obviously realised that this is Trump at his politically weakest, maybe with the possible exception of after January the 6th. But certainly he's he's in desperate trouble. And this was a good moment to try and press his advantage. And he has. Yeah. The terrible thing. I mean, Zelensky quite rightly said, you know, people will die because of this decision. And they already have. I mean, a lot of people have already died in this this war and will continue to do so. But where the real crime to me, you know, putting that front and center of our thoughts, obviously, the human side of it, is that does this sense, and I know we're going to discuss this in our Sunday Q &A, because there's a question come in about, is there a dichotomy between this persistent standing shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine?

10:21Yes. But on the other hand, trying to negotiate a peace to end it all. And I do think that what Trump's done and what Burnham has conspicuously not done is he's given Putin the ammo for the beneficial negotiation when it does end. Because if Trump can't see beyond a point where, however this thing comes to some form of conclusion, and they're sitting down, if America is not standing four square behind Ukraine, Trump will get the Donbass, will get these areas that they've occupied. And Zelensky will just be enfeebled. And that's that's what's happening is the enfeebling of Zelensky. The other thing which I think there's a Trump, of course, we always mock Trump for and rightly so for being obsessed with the deal.

11:22But in this, he is not alone. because one of the deformities of modern statecraft is the assumption that every single conflict has at its end a deal rather than a victory and i think the problem with this is i can understand you know because attention spans in the west have declined so sharply people are fed up with it they think it's a waste of money especially in america you know it's cost an enormous amount and there's a lot of watch tapping and come on you know enough already but the problem is I understand that there's been a terrible loss of life but the problem is this and this is where those who are sort of let's negotiate and get it over with camp I think it's so wrong-headed is that there is no deal with Putin he wants all of Ukraine So for him, if he goes for the Donbass, Crimea and a couple of other territories, which is what he's asked for, that will be a staging post.

12:24You will have to have a massive, some form of peacekeeping force in what will be the Ukrainian equivalent of the 38th parallel. So it means a massive deployment. Where from? Who knows? I mean, I remember in February 25, Starmer, you know, offered to deploy British troops to this force. There was a moment where it looked like there might be a deal. There was a very strong recoil from that. What do you mean British troops going there? So when people talk about peace, what they're really talking about in this case is a frozen conflict. That's it. You know, Putin is never going to. he's never going to obviously we know already and i think the americans have made it clear they're not going to let this happen and again it's a betrayal of ukraine that they're never going to allow um ukraine to be a member of nato in spite of the fact that nato has made endless statements saying ukraine was on a quote irreversible path to nato membership and the eu has made similar promises i don't think either are going to happen in the near future and um i mean ukraine was recently turned down for associate status of the eu let alone full membership so what you're going to end up with if if the negotiations happen which if things persist on the direction they are now they will is putin winning a famous victory um whilst actually being in many respects on the back foot and having suffered twice as many casualties as ukraine um he'll get a bad quarter of the landmass of Ukraine, have a chance to rebuild his infrastructure and armaments, and then at the time of his choosing, resume operations.

14:05And it will have been a very successful war, which has lasted, you know, it didn't start in 22. It started essentially with Crimea and steadily with the ratchet effect. He is getting exactly what he wants, which is the resumption of greater Russia as an entity. That's exactly it. I mean, it's looking, I've got no doubt that we go one or two ways and a lot so much depends on America's attitude in this. But in 50 years time, we could very easily be looking back at the Donbass as we look back at the Sudetenland. Exactly. You know, as this was just a stepping stone towards a greater ambition. And, you know, I found the Polish angle in all of this very interesting for a couple of reasons.

14:48One is, obviously, the Poles are literally on the front line of this. They absolutely are. With Russia and rightly, absolutely fearful of Putin's broader ambitions. But it's the Poles who pay Elon Musk directly for the Starlink system. They paid something like$80 million for Starlink. And they do that as part of their war effort in the defense of Ukraine. And it should be pointed out, by the way, just in case people are in any doubt, this technology is purely defensive it's the yes uh ukraine has no access to the starling system outside of its own territorial borders so it's purely defensive and the polls pay musk directly and the polish foreign minister yesterday um having um uh had a bit of a row with musk back in march over musk's threat to turn off starling musk said you know if i turn it off um the whole front line in Ukraine collapses and the Poles stepped up and said well you can't turn it off mate because we've got the receipt we're paid for it's contractual and yesterday the Polish foreign minister tweeted are you trying to play politics with your products again big boy says to Elon Musk yeah yeah named so there is a direct and Musk obviously is there saying nothing to do with me folks you know I don't know yeah that's it absolute bullshit absolute bullshit of course it's bullshit and and also that tweet uh he he posted on uh last night october the 14th that starshield systems are owned and controlled by the u.s government um in other words that the defense contractors uh only and not involved in operational decisions i don't believe that you know i i i think that the part of the problem here is that the there is no in this case there is no difference between musk and trump yeah and um uh his musk's desperate attempts to acquit himself of any serious involvement in this is i don't buy it it's ridiculous it does raise a bigger issue which is um the globe's dependency on the the capricious whim of one man or indeed one president and you know if this so let's circle back and say okay has Donald Trump explicitly exposed an existential weakness in European defense yes he has done he has I mean he has done it vocally and correctly by saying you're not paying enough for your own defense through NATO but technologically as well the fact that we don't have anything I can do this that's right That's a huge problem.

17:32I mean, there have been there have been various attempts over that. I mean, what, you know, on this question, and this is sort of for those of us as of the New World, you know, who care deeply about Europe's future. This is this is absolutely at the heart of it, which is. we we are you know i mean if we let let's say we in europe because i i'm hoping that that will be real rather than just uh imaginary quite relatively soon we are much better at regulating than we are innovating and spending on defense and at the moment our equivalent of um starlink it's called one web and i bet that's because there's one there's one and as we've got 600 satellites compared to musk's 10 000 okay just to give you an idea now the answer that the sort of single transferable question answer to the question when you say what about what about that is this um irs iris 2 iris 2 which is the prospective eu version of this yeah um but that is not going to come on stream until officially 2030 at the late at the latest which means 2040 so in fact we're nowhere and actually there is a culpability there because there was nothing secret about starlink i mean starlink was part of the musk plan for quite a long time and it's obvious defensive defense security applications were clear from the start and we we in you know we hadn't left the eu by then we should have been all over this like a cheap suit but we were greedy and we were lazy and we weren't and i'm afraid you know that that it's all come back to haunt us this and it doesn't just end with trump and it doesn't just end with putin you know this is a bigger issue about if uk plus eu let's describe it as that it perhaps plus Canada is to be a significant block in the affairs of the world.

19:37It has to really put its big boy pants on, you know, and this is just not win you friends in all quarters of, so to speak, you know, the centrist world, you know, because people say, well, yes, but, you know, there can't be any cuts here. There can't be any cuts there. Well, I agree. I don't want cuts. But the first duty of any community in any nation and any group of countries, which is really the only thing that matters in defense questions is secure is national security and we live now in a world where you know invasions happen you know it's no longer ridiculous to think that taiwan may be at risk yeah or i mean it's already where it's absolutely ridiculous and totally delusory to think that putin hasn't got a 10-year plan that involves of course an invasion of a european country wouldn't wouldn't you i mean you've what have you done you know if you're putin you think well what have i got i've probably if i'm if i play my cards right uh in the next six months i'll i'll be able to put about a quarter of ukraine's landmass into my back pocket i've weakened nato um i have a madman in the the white house until january the 20th 29 at the you You know, well, let's let's hope he doesn't go on beyond that.

20:59Let's see if he goes. Let's say a Democrat comes in, President AOC, President Newsom, President Ossoff, whoever their first, you know, their first priority. They'll all they'll whoever wins. If a Democrat wins in 28, they will tour the world, as Biden did, saying the America's back. We love you. We love internationalism. But their priorities, and this is understandable, will be to will be to, you know, work out how to mend what Trump has done at home. You know, it won't be. Yeah. Here's some more money. And Matt, let's spell it out as well. They will also blame Trump for convenient savings that they will then.

21:42Of course. Yes. You know, no one will be going back saying, do you know what? Europe, relax. Go back to 2.8%. Here's your pension. You know, go over your pension. We're going to cover it. You know, from an American point of view, Trump is absolutely right about that. You know, the culpability is all on us. Yes. We've been so bloody complacent for decades about our security and our defense that we have allowed this situation to arise. And, you know, when you look at the Chinese, the way the Chinese plan generationally. Yes. And they can do that because they are existing under an authoritarian state.

22:21You know, there's a dictator there. And we simply have not got it's what's really terrifying, I think, is that has Europe got the capacity to get beyond its national politics? And then the flotsam and jetsam of week to week, month to month issues to plan generationally. That's the big question that will decide. Well, I mean, not to make it too domestic, but, you know, I was interested and slightly concerned to hear on this day program this morning, various discussions about how it looks now as if john healy's first budget will be a steady as she goes budget no no no you know this this is burnham and healy's big opportunity to i mean the the one thing that burnham hasn't done yet in a very well i regard as a very impressive first you know a couple of months plus um is he hasn't really taken on his party he hasn't said no i know you don't want this defense spending you know at the you know at the expense of all the other things but we're going to have to do it you know if you want britain to be a strong player the fact that he and healy are are already tempering what was clearly a deal that they had when healy came into the treasury and saying well you know it might be we might actually have to defer some of these decisions to a spending review at some point and he keeps using this phrase burnham pulling off the plaster you know yeah sooner rather than later is always better well yes yes i mean it is it's complicated isn't it i mean well though but at some point it has to be not complicated yes no i agree and i do hope and pray that um that the plaster ripping off is still firmly from the center of his mind and this is just a question of political logistics that are You know, the calculus he's wrestling with is how do I keep hold of enough of a majority to have impact in a second once I've won a general election?

24:29When does that general election take place in that case? How do I get to that point without alienating a big proportion of the parliamentary Labour Party who will know that they will lose their seats? So there's a lot of aggravation inside and outside. It's true. But but you see, within two minutes, we've moved for we were you know, we went we were very small minded to we mustn't upset the PLP. You know, this is but this is yes, but this is and listen, I mean, I am totally cognizant of that. And as you are and totally, totally in agreement with your position that it's and I do think sooner than later, I think the country is actually ready to hear.

25:07I agree. What about the country? well also the plp i mean this is what blair was right where blair was right and i think there are lots of things blair was wrong on and he shouldn't be treated as a model partly because it's so long since you know nearly 20 years since he left office for christ's sake but one of the things that i really think blair was good at was always thinking what is right for the country rather than oh no you know will i upset this union or that bit of the plp now in the end it cost him you know They hated him and they got rid of him. And he knew that would happen. Ten years of progress.

25:40Ten years because, you know, if you govern in the modern, volatile, capricious world that you started by describing that in hock, you know, but bond markets aren't the only thing you can be in hock to. Yeah, yeah. No, totally. Totally. And by the way, I think that there's a there's a really compelling argument to say that not only is the public receptive to the idea of a plaster being ripped off, they bloody want it ripped off. Yes. And that not to rip it off will will erode his sense of authority. Yes. Because that's all he's got right now is the promise of change and of radical change. Right.

26:21And the question that's all he's got. He hasn't got a democratic man. No, no, he hasn't. He's flown in and he's promised this stuff. He needs to really follow through and deliver. But is, you know, the question that, you know, I think he will he can win the majority of the next election. But to do that, he has to show that he is the tribune of the country rather than the primus interpare's chair of a sort of coalition of NGOs. Right. He can't be that. You know, but I have to go back to my people in the PLP. Yeah. Yeah. I sorry to be blunt. I don't care what the PLP say. I know he has to. But in terms of standing outside and judging it and the the stakes in this terrible populist world in which we're living, the there is too much pearl clutching in the PLP.

27:12They are not a they're not a future facing party and the stakes are too high to give a toss about that. I agree. I mean, so I'd soften it slightly and say that I would rather he was thinking these things through logistically and thinking there is. I mean, we've both said there's got to be a sequence to get to this point where. Yes, true. True. So but but still, when you think back to the the urgency and the robustness of those first years of the Blair government with Alistair running down, shouting the odds and with these, you know, it was great bulldozer ministers, you know, saying, hey, it's all change, folks.

27:52Now, Andy Burnham has delivered a cent. Well, he's delivered the rhetoric of that change. Yes, he has. And he's and he's look, you know, I'm four square behind what he's done so far in terms of the indications and the signals he's sending and some of the practical changes he's making and the obsession around cost of living, because that will bring a country with him when the plaster does get ripped off. But if you ask me, do I feel like this Labour government has had a rocket put up its arse and is on absolute boosters to the same degree that the Blair government was when they came in? The answer is no, maybe 60 percent.

28:31Well, I mean, that's why I say the first thing, the thing that's lacking is the big moment of, if you like, tribal treachery. You know, Blair did his before he was in office. I mean, clause four was really saying, I mean, no one understood outside the Labour Party quite how important it was. But clause four was saying, you're all wrong about almost everything. Right. And they bought it because they saw it as a winner. Now, I remember David Blunkett, who I used to see quite a lot of when I was reporting on New Labour, used to say, get your betrayals in early. And I think, you know, that's really good advice because a year from now, two years from now, it will look so different.

29:10the landscape yeah you know well i mean look let's give him the he has talked the talk you know so let's see a healy's healy's budget um back in the next week isn't it um that's 28th yeah the 28th yes sorry 30 a couple the week after next couple of that will that will be um a real indicator of intent and yeah if it's just a steady if she goes one i will be very depressed i want to see some big strokes yeah we must do it we'll do a special podcast oh yeah yeah yeah because if not now when you know i mean what's the argument for delay i suppose the argument for delay is um there ain't no money but um make some money yeah yeah tax some money yeah yeah well tax some money you know do the big the bold stuff yeah well i would as you know i would love them to say the hell with this we call the general election we'll put a new mandate to people and we'll get i mean i agree i always agree if the daily telegraph uh has got and i repeat the daily telegraph is carrying yes gold goldman sachs report today that rejoining the single market would put 150 million 150 billion yeah back into the economy you know these are not small numbers these are big big numbers so these you know there are consequential decisions you know putting on the table four square that we are on a route to rejoin the single roadmap you know is a bloody big that is part of the plaster ripping you know so yes no absolutely and he's already said the point is he's already said a lot of these things in in terms of people are starting to assume they're going to happen or or begin to happen so they better begin to happen yeah i mean the other thing that i'm you know fascinated with and we've touched on it and we'll sort of talk more about it in another podcast is this idea that he's hinted at about Britain's place in the world you know this I mean yeah let's put the honest broker thing to one side but I am really I'd be so curious to speak to Andy Burnham and to understand where does he think in 20 years time Britain fits into into the planet and in so many different ways and economically socially culturally what are we what is this what is this country and i think the more he fleshes that out the more um uh leeway he'll buy with the voter you know what they can see okay i know where we're going you know i can see it a bit of enthusiasm coursing through our veins about britain yes you know that would be great you know i you you were talking the other day about him and carney uh supporting Everton right no but it seriously one of the first things I would do if I was him is invite Carney over and and go to Everton and make a big deal of that associate you know that he not only sees Britain at top table in Europe but with a sort of transatlantic alliance with Canada in this new big association there's a block there there's a future there well same head of state by the way you know that's not nothing it isn't nothing and um it it it makes it that much easier because you can build in a visit to you know fair play to the king you know he saw zelensky yesterday he has done he's been really good on ukraine so you know and i should mention everson currently fifth in the table liverpool ninth so reversals that's all about yeah anything is possible right listen enough of enough of that i don't want to dwell on that we'll come back folks in a moment about, well, another extraordinary Trump moment.

32:46I mean, it defies belief, really, except it's Trump land. So, of course, anyway, join us in a moment.

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36:28So Matt, how do you feel, where do you stand on the sort of public execution of paraplegic mass killers, it should be said? Yeah. Are we up for live streaming this guy? Well, I'm, as you know, an old fashioned and staid character. How old fashioned, though? Do you go back to the 1700s or something? No, I curiously enough don't. Because if I'm old fashioned in that sense, then I'd be down for it. No, I'm and I hope you'll, you know, bear with me and I'll explain why. I'm against the live streaming of executions, Rose. I mean, I did warn you, I'd be I'd say my I'd speak my mind on this. And you've written your mind brilliantly in the cover piece with, well, it's a great essay about what this means, which is what we're going to talk about in the next 15 minutes or so.

37:20But also a great cover illustrated by Martin Rosen, the great Martin Rosen, a blindfolded Statue of Liberty in front of a firing squad with it. And the headline is from your intro, which is your intro is let's call this what it is. It's snuff politics. So, yes, it is. Explain that. OK, well, I mean, it's just for people who haven't sort of caught up to speed on this story. It's October the 8th. Pete Hegseth, the self-styled U.S. war secretary, is on board the USS Abraham Lincoln. And he brings on a truly appalling far right conspiracy theorist, a streamer called Jack Sobik, who has a show on Real America's Voice, and announces the first state-sanctioned public execution in America for 90 years, which is that as things stand, and we can talk about whether it will actually happen, but as things stand today, Thursday, on December 3rd, Nidal Malik Hassan, who's a former army major and psychiatrist and self-described soldier of Allah, who was found guilty of killing 13 people and injuring 32 others that fought with Texas in November 2009, will we put to death by firing squad um and um he will this will be live streamed and hegseth was emphatic about that and the pentagon um said yes trump also initially said yes he's given himself some wiggle room say saying there's two schools of thought showed don't show it so you know typical trump in that respect but i think that even the fact that it is and has now been for a week, the official policy of the United States government, that they're going to live stream a an execution is is quite extraordinary.

39:04And I think that we need to be very clear about what this primarily is a story about, because there's lots of it's very easy to leap to the secondary in this kind of story. So it's not a story about the death penalty appalling as that is. And we've just had this terrible case of Krista Pike in, you know, Tennessee, who survived two injections of lethal supposedly lethal poison and is now recovered and the question is will she be brought back to health for another go you know this is grotesque and obscene but it's also not and i think this is uh important because it's become too much the reason people say this is a bad idea it's not a bad idea to primarily a bad idea to live stream a public execution because it's quotes a recruiting sergeant for those jihadis now it may well be right but most things are okay so if you make that the test then you know you have to do almost nothing it's a bad idea even if the jihadis sent us you know a message saying yeah fine we don't care you know this is just a terrible thing for the world's most powerful notionally free nation to be proposing irrespective of its potential to enhance morale amongst terror groups, which, by the way, I'm sure it would, you know, but I just think that you need to be on this sort of thing.

40:28You need to really look hard at yourself as a sort of civilization and ask what the hell has gone wrong. You used the phrase, which I thought was terrific, the convergence of ancestral barbarism with hyper-modern entertainment culture. That's Trump. That is Trump all over, isn't it? And when I first saw all of this, I thought, well, this is just Hegseth, who is an absolute dickhead and doesn't seem to be very smart, but just going off on one. And then, of course, it was has Trump agreed it? Yeah. But then there are clues in Trump's thinking back in the Boston Marathon. Yeah. 2013. 2013 trump's first reaction was should be publicly executed you know no two ways about it publicly executed so this is this kind of visceral right let's do it all up front and live stream it and get dana white to sell box office tickets yeah exactly i mean that is the logical conclusion it really is it it really does it it says something also about us doesn't it as a people that this is even feasible i mean i can remember this topic i might have mentioned this once on the podcast but when i was a much younger um uh journalist on the daily record in glasgow this a video came out when it was still video vhs sets and it was of um it was something called executions right and it was treated as you know something that had broken a taboo you know yes it was video films of people being executed and being watched as uh this documentary but it was i mean i can't remember how long it was but i remember i was told to watch it and there's a report about it and i swear to god this is true for about 10 years after that i had these horrific sort of flashbacks of these dreadful scenes of people being executed and in all sorts of you know appalling circumstances and then i thought my god this is five minutes on twitter these days if you want it oh yeah no and our children are watching this shit and are becoming totally immune to the yes so to the to the natural abhorrence that we should feel when we see these things and so the fact that um trump and hegseth can even throw this into the conversation is i think it's a it's a there's a bigger picture of yes of a long-term sickening of our minds that's right because while we all you know it's been appalling to watch the spread of extremely violent content available on online and interestingly when people do surveys of this it it shows that overwhelmingly the people who first encounter it don't do so because they're looking for it the algorithm drives it which is even more vile and disgusting but you know having the seal of the federal government put on this practice is just even as a proposition even if it doesn't happen is is is a terrible thing and i think that what you're observing in the second trump term and why you know we all hope that he gets a kicking in the midterms on november the third and then he the Republicans lose the White House in November 2028.

43:56But I think one of the things that we discussed this first and you were spot on, you know, it's very important to emphasize that there's going to be kind of cellular damage to the American Republic. And to a certain extent, the West, long after Trump has gone, long after he's dead. And I, you know, I quote in the piece a some some very disturbing research done by extremely distinguished political scientist called Robert Pape, who's at the University of Chicago. And he's one of those guys that has been a sort of go to figure on political violence by many governments and successive American administrations.

44:36And his surveys show that and I'm just reading out some of the quickly, some of the figures, 44 percent of Democrats, 65 million Americans equivalent now believe that political violence may be acceptable in order to stop Trump. Sixteen percent of all Americans, almost all of them Republicans, equivalent to 40 million people would support the president using the military to suppress democratic protests. protests now there might be some overlap but what pape's saying is that you're looking at about 100 million people now telling pollsters yeah that they support the use of brute force to achieve political ends and you know before pape did his work i was i dug this i was really shocked perhaps naively by the level of support amongst republicans for the let's call it what it was the on-street murder of renee nicole good by ice agents in minneapolis in january and then the even more explicit you know street murder of alex pretty in the same city said 17 days later and you know 77 of republicans in the case of nicole good renee nicole good 55 in the case of alex pretty i mean these are this is you know video footage of people being quite clearly just shot to death yes for no reason yes uh or no no justifiable reason uh by federal agents yeah and they're being backed and you know i i think that there is a there is an analog at least on the left in the online celebration of the assassination of charlie kirk and the lionization of luigi mangioni and there was a poll in 2024 which showed that 48 of college students thought that you know the killing of allegedly by Luigi Mangione of Brian Thompson, this health care executive, was justified.

46:25And, you know, Hassan Piker, who's a massive influencer on the far left in America, you know, has said regularly called for violence and back violence. So there's a coarsening in these times, which will be very hard to roll back because barbarism is part. I mean, one of the lessons of the the trump populist era is that barbarism is a chronic condition rather than something you just cure and forget about it's always there and you always need to keep it under tabs and it's so easy to bring it back and i i i think i fear probably very hard to get back into the box yeah there was a great quote you uh you put into the piece from michelle foucault about and it's important to know when the quote was it was in 1977 and yeah foucault wrote that the great spectacle of physical punishment had disappeared and the age of sobriety in punishment has begun and i thought well that may have been true in 1977 yes it certainly isn't true today fast forward 17 18 years from there and you get the invention of the world wide web and suddenly yes that literally a platform of spectacle and a platform of spectacle our appetite for it is you know we live these um lives where we have notions of decency but it's true like hobbes would say you know you don't have to scratch very far until the brutality is revealed you know that's right and and and indeed you know one of the the reasons for the change that foucault chronicles is that um as governments in the west became more complex and technocratic and you know broadly speaking enlightenment driven they became more and more alarmed by the passions that were um uh that were released by public executions you know and we have great descriptions by dickens and others of what it was like at tyburn and newgate and you know the gillard around the guillotine there were you know uh cabaret des guillotines and and and souvenir shops and people selling their balconies for renting off their balcony so that the rich could have comfortable spots to watch the beheadings and and and great you know great fun and games and and the last uh public execution in in in america in 1936 just in kentucky of a of a black man um there were 22 000 people amazing we've got the photograph of it yeah yeah piece it's a it's an astonishing photograph um and the faces the The Observer picked out exactly the same photo and zoomed in on some of the faces.

49:01People looking. These people and they're the same faces of today, you know, except we're just doing it on a screen. Yeah. I mean, what basically Hegsseff is proposing is to put the the the seal of the eagle holding the olive branch and the arrows on the spirit of lynching. because you know um the whole point of the rule of law is that you drain out of the system all the reasons so for example i imagine that everyone sane really feels some terrible thoughts about hassan right i mean he gunned down uh he killed 13 people and injured 32 others and amongst the people he killed was a pregnant mother who died as did her unborn child you know and of course anyone normal will feel full of rage.

49:53Right. But the reason we have a justice system is because that's a terrible way of deciding how to punish people. You know, you don't you don't you don't equate justice to personal vindictiveness and kind of visceral response. You actually do go through what can be an extremely frustrating process of due process and so on. But that that is one of the foundations of modern civilization and one of the reasons that you know and not just in a criminal justice but that people can trade and do business because the rule of law applies now once you start to re-release these processes to the sort of to the mob and now you have a mob that's hyper-connected to everyone um you change everything it's not a small thing they i mean the The way that Iranian regime strings up homosexuals on the bottom of cranes and is rightly called out as abhorrent and an indication of their barbarity and lack of right to hold sway over a nation.

51:08Right. This is one of the key things that's used as evidence. Their moral illegitimacy. And then moral illegitimacy to hold sway. And then yet now you have the Secretary of Defense of the United States of America proposing exactly the same spectacle. To me, even worse, even the Iranians don't fucking live stream it. You know, like the videos you see are covert videos taken at great risk by people. It's what the Hegseth is describing and proposing is even worse than the mullahs in Iran. It is. And what's interesting is how many of the streamers have have yet to say that they won't. So the only two as of today, the Thursday, the 15th, who have said we definitely won't are TikTok and unexpectedly Newsmax, which is a great, very right wing channel.

52:05So YouTube's hat's still in the ring. meta youtube and x are uh just saying drawing people's attention to their content rules which standards which which uh theoretically would make this impossible but they haven't said we won't and i my guess is that meta won't um youtube won't but x will yeah and then you've got rumble truth social and a bunch of other smaller platforms so and the truth is that once one streams it you're away right the idea the idea that our global sense of of um civilization is dependent upon the community standards of x is exactly is beyond chilling as anybody who has ever innocently searched for any word basically these days on x and been greeted with the most terrific kind of content spot on and and i mean one example of of the kind of high moral standards on x um which we're all by which we're all justly excited um there was a truly appalling film called citizen vigilante starring the disgraced american actor army hammer which which was doing the rounds around the summer um couldn't find basically it was a vigilante killer in an unnamed european city just blowing away muslim families awful just horrendous um musk put it up on live on x for free for 48 hours 48 hours in which time it got 15 million views now that so do you think elon musk is going to turn down the opportunity to um to live if it happens it might not happen but it's amazing how quickly things sort of degenerate so there was a sort of iteration of this which is now widely forgotten when timothy mcveigh who people will remember was responsible for the oklahoma city bombing was going to be executed the bush administration was presented with a problem which was that because so many had died there was a demand for a much broader transmission of his execution for the purposes of witnessing for the purposes of witnessing and and interestingly a very i think they were essentially a porn company sued the entertainment networking they were called sued um the uh the prison in indiana on first amendment rights that it had the right to um to stream or uh mcveigh's execution on its platform now the courts threw that out but more interestingly was Jeffrey Ashcroft, who was the attorney general at the time.

54:52And by the way, no liberal, right? I mean, you know, we're not talking about a bleeding heart here. Just said, no, absolutely. And we're not going to have any of this. He said, look, I get it. Because of the scale of the deaths in Oklahoma City, I will make sure that there are close circuit access to the relatives. So there were about 150, I think, who got to see it, which is much more than usual. He said, but, you know, the rules are quite clear. We are not going to put this onto any form of public stream. And it never got out. Yeah. You know, it's just now this is. But remember, but remember what we were.

55:27The reason I mentioned it is because remember what we all thought about Bush. Right. Great. Crazy Christian, you know, end of the world. It can't get any worse than this. You know, and then when it was Obama, thank God that's all over. Right. Cut. Smash cut to 2026. And, you know, we now look back on Bush Jr. as kind of Pericles. You know, it's sort of ridiculous how these things have it is very, very. I mean, I find it just, of course, it's in and of itself horrendous. But I also think that you are seeing brought much further afield, a kind of coarsening of, you know, public discourse. And it's become much more, much more common on online and elsewhere for people to call for death and to, you know, it's just it's something that I think is a sign of the times.

56:16And this is sort of is it this is the apex of it, isn't it? But it's good. It's a but that's not the only example at all. Well, I mean, look, we had an office meeting the other day in our lovely new office in Kings Cross. And, you know, you made the point. We're talking about AI, which is going to be a big theme for the new world. Obviously, we're going to get deep into all of the extraordinary challenges that AI presents. But you said, you know, we we completely screwed up social media. You know, we we may well be about to screw up AI as well. But, well, I don't think just as, you know, cigarettes we didn't really understand for 20, 25 years after we knew that they were carcinogenic.

56:59I don't think maybe it won't be in our lifetimes, but the net result of the pathology of the human race because of social media and the negative consequences of what our children are gawping at day in, day out and sharing just as as though it was normal. And that's the point that there's a huge normalization has taken place. It's some stuff that you and I, if we if we came across it, we would look at furtively and with guilt or and feel soiled by it is now being passed around as though it was clips from Blue Peter. Well, I mean, it's astonishing. the the the obvious example is pornography which until the advent of um of broadband really i mean there was uh you know the dot-com era the analog you know the sort of um down the line era was was was there was plenty of it but it was high speed broadband that turned it into the biggest industry in the world so pornography went from being you know something that was in shady shops in soho and mysteriously magazines found in fields never quite understood why that was the case why was it like i mean i suppose it's obvious but this is a strange kind of folkloric you know kind of ritual of being a teenager it's very odd um but now you know every single owner of a smartphone which is everyone has access in their pocket to the most unspeakable spectacles of horror and degradation and you know to call it misogyny doesn't cover it you know um but without having to get through any form of um taboo break any taboos get through any gates you know it's all there it's amazing and and and one of the and just to bring this whole conversation completely full circle the worst of it on a platform owned wholly owned by the same man who is eroding as far as anyone can tell Ukraine's ability to defend itself from Vladimir Putin that's where we are folks it's and I think I think that it is I don't think because I've always there's a there's a old Marxian uh dictum that not all conspiracies are conscious which I think is a great line um and I think that I'm not saying they all got together in a room and decided this but I I think what all the tech tycoons understand is that in order to really own the world, their biggest enemy is shared reality.

59:36Right. So if we all agree on broadly, and it's always contested and that's what the press is for and the media is for and, you know, three cheers. But there is an argument that we grew up with, which is, well, what's true? What's the news? What's going on? What's leading the news? what what is the information we need in order to make informed decisions and that's what they want to kill and the first iteration was social media and the next is ai yeah okay fascinating times dark times in so many ways um there's a lot we fight back we fight back there is yeah and i was gonna you know there's a lot of light as well to be shed on all of these topics and um much of it in the new world magazine so if you don't subscribe already do subscribe it is full of conversations like this in print form it really is it drops through your letterbox or you get it online and you spend the whole week at your leisure enjoying some of these arguments and also loads of amazing fantastic cultural content and philosophy and science it's quite a unique magazine there's nothing else really is quite like it so please support what we do and subscribe by going to thenewworld.co.uk forward slash two mats.

1:00:49That's the number two, M-A-T-T-S. And guess what? If you do it now, you get a free signed copy of Alistair Campbell's new bestseller, Percivillians. Right? While stocks last. So sign up to the New World and get our editor at large, Alistair Campbell's new bestseller, Percivillians. So you know where to go. Thenewworld.co.uk forward slash two mats. Now, I know some of these topics we'll be revisiting for sure because we've already had questions on them in Sunday's Q &A. But if you want to send in your question for consideration for Sunday's Q &A, please email us at 2mats, that's the number 2, M-A-T-T-S, at tnepublishing.com.

1:01:312mats at tnepublishing.com. Come and see Alistair and come and see Matt Dancona and come and see me, Matt Kelly, in the flesh at Cadogan Hall on October the 22nd. Handful of tickets left. Go to Cadogan Hall's website and see the listing on October the 22nd, where Alistair will be talking all about the new book, Percivillians. With the great Michelle Hussain. Did I not mention that? I'm sorry. With Bloomberg's amazing Michelle Hussain of the Michelle Hussain podcast, who's going to be grilling Alistair about why has he invented this word? What's he on about? What is he on about? And having read the book, he's on to a great thing.

1:02:10He's on to some age. Yeah, definitely. Thank you as ever to Matt Withers, the third Matt, for producing the show. Thanks, Matt. And until Sunday. It's goodbye from me. Goodbye from him. Goodbye. Goodbye.

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