Marina Hyde on Trump, tech bros and Taylor Swift

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:07Today, a wild ride through the mind of Marina Hyde.

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1:34I won't make a song and dance about it, so let's just get straight to the conversation. We're talking to Marina Hyde, a star for The Guardian and winner of many, many awards for her columns, which are more original, much smarter and far funnier than political writing deserves to be. How do you stay sane writing about a world that isn't? From The Guardian, I'm Noshin Iqbal. Today in Focus, Marina Hyde on what a time to be alive.

2:13Marina Hyde, welcome to Today in Focus. Now, I don't think anyone really needs an introduction, but you have been, I guess, documenting the life and times we live in three times a week for The Guardian for 25 plus years. Oh my God, it's almost half my life. It's a long time. It's a long time. I don't want to bury the lead, but you are leaving us. And so, you know, we'll come on to that. But you've had an incredible run and you've got this new book, which is a collection of your columns over the last, I think, three years. Last four years. Last four years. Yeah, four prime ministers. In four years.

2:50Well, yeah, naturally. Naturally. This is the UK. Yeah. It's the content mill. We live in a content mill. Well, OK, well, let's talk about that then a bit. I'm going to start not at home. Let's start abroad with the year in Trump. Traffic generator in chief. What have you most enjoyed or been most appalled by Trump term two? Well, I mean, there's a lot to be appalled by, isn't there? In terms of what have I most enjoyed? The least malevolent things, although they are quite malevolent. I have enjoyed the series of kind of home improvements to Washington, D.C. I am obsessed with the ballroom. The New York Times got some pictures of the ballroom.

3:34And it's like you'd given an AI prompt of something the ballroom designs, but they hadn't ever been to a ballroom. So they've got all these steps, but then there's no door. I don't know if they've changed those plans, but all the loos, I think, were down the side of the inside of the ballroom. I'm obsessed with the pool guy. Needless to say, he's a Trump donor who Trump got to do the Lincoln reflecting pool. He's found the one pool guy that no one's wife would want to fuck. I'm obsessed. And then when all the water went wrong and the guy was saying the people who'd done it had never done a pool before.

4:07And they were saying, but this is the same kind of water that would be in like a lake or in a river. And it's like, you know, I believe it's H2O. You're just you're naming a compound now. I've enjoyed that. I mean, it was quite a thing having a UFC fight on the White House lawn. It's the fripperies of Trump then, really. Yeah, no, I prefer it when he does that than like annexes a country or, you know, allegedly behaves in corrupt fashion. When it comes to Trump's base, one of the issues that really has turned them against him is his wars. You know, Trump on the international stage promising no more forever wars.

4:47And yet here we are. I mean, can you even count how many interventions? Yeah, it's really odd that it is strange. But then I always felt that his relationship with the base is so odd because there were even even during the last presidency during Covid, you know, there was a bit where, you know, they're conspiracists about everything. And they believe that, you know, the state and the man is lying to them and all of these things. And it's like, no, but this guy, your guy really is lying to you. And he is involved with all these things. And yet they just the one conspiracy in some ways. And, you know, he is, as we can see, personally enriching himself in completely unprecedented ways from the office of the presidency.

5:31And yet for so long, it just wasn't sort of acknowledged or seen. I mean, some people will just remain diehard Trumpists no matter what he does. And I find that sort of fascinating from a human behaviour point of view. I think increasingly the way to survive the news is to say things like, I find it fascinating from a human behaviour point of view. It's like a firewall against actually thinking, my God, I mean, what are we living through? How do you think MAGA will morph without him then? And, you know, do you think J.D. Vance is a credible follow-up? Oh, my God, he's like the worst replacement.

6:03It's not like getting Nigella into Bake Off, is it? No, it is not like he, there's nobody like him. There's something absolutely extraordinary about Trump. and you have to take your hat off to it in a sort of wearing your hazmat gloves because he totally sort of understands something intrinsic about showbiz and spectacle and he is a kind of extraordinary figure. You can't feel that way about J.D. Vance, not at all. Not all like Hexit. I mean, come on. These are just complete third-level henchmen.

6:46you write about the villains a lot in terms of big tech you know you're very good on musk mark zuckerberg jeff bezos sam altman what is it about those characters that fascinates you so much well it's interesting the tech guys for so long were written about and interviewed for so many years as though they were these kind of um adorable inventors or there was something eccentric about them they were weird they were sort of amazing and you know geeks inheriting the earth yeah there were there were points where you know i think some of the stuff that elon musk has done is maybe a net gain was like you're thinking oh well he obviously has a lot of drawbacks but he's like a net gain for humanity i've passed that point now right but there were times back there and there were could you remind us of a few of those net gains for humanity it's very hard i I think, you know, I think sort of trying to make electric vehicles a whole, you know, you forget how advanced he was on all those sorts of things.

7:41I don't care about the Mars commune. I now desperately want him to go and live on it and feel free not to come back. But yeah, all of those guys for a long time were written about like they were not as though they were politicians. And actually what's become clear over the last few years is that they're far superior to politicians. Politicians are sort of like junior personnel to these guys. They're sort of front of house type people. And actually, these people are so, they're as powerful as nation states, these huge firms. And they're sort of completely unregulated. And so, yeah, it's much better to write about them, I think, as villains than to do what for a long time they were just treated as kind of slightly fascinating kind of creators.

8:29one thing I always wanted to do although I can't drive so I realized it would be compete points I always wanted to go and write about Silicon Valley and I read this really interesting article it was a long time ago now but saying how all the tech bros sent their children to this Steiner school in the valley and there's one and they all like knit their own textbooks and obviously nobody sees a screen yeah ever because crack dealers don't use their own product right I really thought it would be so fun to cover them as a sort of social class and to almost write about them as as a society columnist about them but I can't drive and I think it's kind of crucial out there driverless cars out there big thing well now now they've finally invented them they just want to keep you on the platforms longer um Marina we've just had another wave of AI workers binning their own industry which you kind of wonder like could have maybe thought about this a bit earlier before you joined in um they claim it could end humanity if the industry doesn't slow down how do you feel about the imminent AI apocalypse?

9:29I'm talking about the end of humanity. I'm very relaxed about it, Nasheen. I am very relaxed about it. How seriously are you taking it? I try to take it seriously, but I mean, obviously there are masses of benefits for this technology and I'm excited for the diagnostic stuff. And it seems that actually there was a, I read something yesterday saying that actually lots of, it's creating more jobs at the moment. I feel that will, that will, yeah, no, I know. just because it hasn't happened in the last two months doesn't mean that long term yeah well I mean I feel like everyone does about it you know there's nothing they can do about it that it's possibly coming for them but they just do want to spend quite a lot of time on it saying why won't this guy text me back that's why it's so hot this summer it was just people saying why won't you call me what could I do to check to your PT can you form me a response all of them

10:32We need to take things slightly closer to home, although obviously the apocalypse comes for us all. How many prime ministers were you able to capture this time around in the book and which has been your favourite party leader to watch? Oh my God, there were three prime ministers. I could tell you the second I sent off, you know, the introduction to the book, that it was absolutely guaranteed that I'd be rewriting it because there would be four. So there's four prime ministers in the book. The best one, what was the best one of those to cover? I mean, Liz Truss burned so briefly, but what a comet.

11:09So that was fun. I mean, they all had sort of hilarious points at different times. And I mean, the Sunak election in the rain, the announcement of the election in the rain, all of them had their highs and lows. I mean, did they have any highs? We'll see. But I don't know. The constant change of personnel has been, you know, I always say very, very, very good for business. And I don't mean by that for business, but I do mean for my business. As a political satirist. I think historians will judge that to have been the main thing. I mean, I was going to ask you a question about Starmer, and yet I can't believe it feels almost irrelevant to do so.

11:54But I feel we should. Something happened. God, can I say this? I went to a restaurant on Monday and, God, I don't know if I should say this. I'm not going to say which restaurant it was. I went to a restaurant on Monday and I got this amazing corner table, me and my husband, it was his birthday, and I was like, wow, we're in the absolutely apex table here. and then this guy comes in and there's a table that is genuinely the kitchen door is flapping this way and that I was like they've not actually put Keir Starmer in that seat he's not only at the table that's the worst table but the seat was like the door is flapping like this and I just thought and I was like was he Prime Minister like six weeks ago it was brutal it was like watching something brutal happen in kind of 1980s Hollywood and I just thought oh my god I mean, that is showbiz.

12:44That's deeply, deeply unrelaxing. Yeah. I had a clear eyeline to this the whole night. It was mesmerising. You don't seem, correct me if I'm wrong, you don't seem particularly energised by Burnham mania. It's as if, like, he can't flutter his eyelashes enough for you to be convinced by the energy that he's brought to office. I have to deal in realities, and I think you just, you know, you can't fight the fundamentals. So it's, you know, people, this is the problem, is that no one has really worked out how to be a good prime minister in a time of no money. And, you know, if they could just do that, then lots of these guys and maybe some ladies could be excellent too.

13:21But I fundamentally think he faces too many difficulties to overcome it with the sort of things he's suggesting. I think you just need to do enormous things. But three years, quite hard to do enormous, enormous things. Yeah, so, yeah, that's why I failed to sort of... But listen, all the best, all the best to all prime ministers of all parties. You were asked by Guardian readers about who you'd pick as prime minister and tongue maybe somewhat in cheek, but you did pick J.K. Rowling. Can I ask why? Well, you know, I originally put Connor's story from Heated Rivalry because he's so amazing in the sex scenes in that.

13:57And then I just thought, like, come on, can you be, you know. So I thought I would, in fact, choose somebody who I think is strategic and principled and brave. but I do think Conor would make an incredible deputy. No more further elaboration on Rowling's credentials. I don't feel like I need to just get into a whole thing but yeah, I mean Conor would be good but anyway, I've chosen now. You went for a drink with Nigel Farage in 2013 and wrote it up for The Guardian which is a highly recommended read. If you went for a drink with him now, what would you ask him? I couldn't do it now. I mean, they made me do that.

14:39I can't remember why. I remember writing a column about like, you know, he's the sort of person that people want to go for a drink with. And that's his entire selling point. Yeah, this is a long time. You know, it's kind of a crass and boring thing that people say about politicians. And then I think the features desk said, will you go for a drink with him? And I was like, really? I don't know. I was on the features desk then. And I was on holiday at the time. It wasn't me. It wasn't you. It wasn't me. I can't remember who it was. And I said, okay, fine. I will go for a drink with him. So then I actually ended up doing it.

15:10Yeah. No, I don't think I can handle it now. Even for the journalistic exercise? Hmm? Oh, yeah, you should always go and do all these things with people. People are very odd about, you know, you shouldn't speak to any of these people. The great thing about being a journalist is that you should speak to absolutely everybody and that there should be, you know, but actually one of the questions that I don't think I had time to answer from the readers was, you know, like, who would you invite to your dinner party? And it would have to be, for me, like, why would I not have, like, Trump and Putin and Xi?

15:36because you want the market leaders, right? Just saying, oh, I'd like to have Miriam Margulies, although I don't think anyone wants her now after recent events. But saying all that, it's like, no, I kind of feel like you want to have the kind of monsters of the age in some way and you want to kind of get close to them. How would you get a word in edgeways? Yeah, well, I mean, I would just hopefully be writing it all down in my notebook like normal. Yeah, I don't, that sort of thing, you don't want to meet these people, you don't want to interact with them I mean, you don't, I'm afraid you just can't do journalism like that.

16:06And lots of people, you just have to kind of go and see people and find out what they're like. You know, you don't have to love them. But when it comes to Farage and the particular impact that he's had on this country. Well, it does say something about the country, isn't it? That such a sort of small person, and I think sort of morally small, has been such a large figure in our politics. I really do think he's completely psychologically not up to the job I think he's mentally weak I think it's very significant I always think go on about this but you know I remember the night of the referendum and he conceded then he unconceded then he reconceded and then he unconceded I think he would go to pieces in the top job I think genuinely look at him now like sort of shouting he's got his two big donations and maybe he thinks that puts a fair wind in his sails I think that will unravel in a very different way given where they've come from but I genuinely think he is a mentally not up to it person who cannot turn up and he doesn't turn up for the big events.

17:08He'll pit one murder to talk about, you know, the murder of Henry Novak and then there are other things. He's got nothing to say about Joe Cox. He's got nothing to say about Sarah Everard apart from it's one bad apple. Well, I'm so sorry. You don't get to show up to just the ones that you think count. If you want to be a leader of people, then you should find the words for all of these moments And all of those were moments of incredible national kind of horror and soul searching. And he turned up for one of them because it suited him. And I really do think he is a kind of weak person. And I don't think he has the kind of moral heft or most particularly the psychiatric strength to be in the top job.

17:50I think he would absolutely go to pieces. I think it would be extraordinary.

17:57Coming up, what did she get wrong? Marina Hyde and the things she's changed her mind about.

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19:57marina what's your favorite celebrity plot line of the year been some of the fun things that i thought happened i found it hilarious the more i heard from people who'd actually gone to taylor swiss wedding that they had things like they had like a raffle and a giveaway they like were giving away cars and stuff it was so basic and hilarious i loved that i know someone had to stand in a queue for a pasta salad next to steven spielberg yeah that kind of like remarkably weird stuff genuinely hilarious everything about that um but i think the beckhams has to be god it's such a sort of cautionary tale and it's so shakespearean and it's so you know windsor aligned and for so long when they kind of exploded in the 90s and everyone said they were an alternative royal family it's so weird to watch the kind of errant son plot lines kind of converge I mean really so extraordinary and desperately sad you know I feel incredibly sad for them but to they epitomize so much about how people live and how people put their children all over social media you know and how they it's impossible I think for them to think of living in any other way well they are they are they are human they're brands as themselves as humans they're the business so that's that and And yet they do obviously completely love their children.

21:15I mean, it's like sort of succession or anything, isn't it? I mean, it's like all of these things. It's just a sort of horrible, tragic thing. And you can see it condemned to repeat itself. So I think it was a sort of really shocking moment, the Brooklyn Beckham kind of diatribe. And awful for them, but a cautionary tale for the way lots of people live. Was there any moment when you were looking back at the collection of columns that have been collected for this book that either made you wince or laugh at yourself or perhaps even like you might have changed your mind. Oh my God, I'll be wrong about a load of stuff in this book for sure.

21:51I mean, I just, sometimes you want to keep them in to keep the story because you want to sort of have, you want the book to cohere in a way so that people work out what happened within the politics. And you're like, oh, I've got to put this instance of me being very wrong in here. In general, I try not to make predictions because I think so much of journalism has come about saying what might happen rather than analysing what just has happened because it's very compelling that to say, you know, tomorrow we're going to be doing this. And we live in this kind of, as I say, high-octane way with lots of news cycles a day.

22:23So I try not to make predictions, but I don't always succeed. Yeah, I like to put all my mistakes in, and I didn't keep anything out. I'm wearing a mistake. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, my God, there's loads in every column. Give me one. No, there'll be loads in every column. I mean, when I was reading out the audio book, an activity that apparently has a carve out from the Geneva Convention, I was reading this stuff and thinking, oh my God, I mean, this is a form of torture, like being in a room on your own for five or six days with your own thoughts from four years ago. This is going to be a pleasure for a lot of people.

23:00Your personal torture. I actually had to go back and redo the first 35 pages because I finally understood the assignment. I had to do them at the end. But then I was more jolly. But yeah, I'm wrong about millions of things. But, you know, and I might think something different to what I write in a column, honestly, the next morning. I might just, you know, it's kind of like a moment in time. But it feels like you write with such conviction and such persuasion and, you know, so many good jokes. No, no, just like... But I can, yeah, no, I might change my mind even later that week. But that was the thing about journalism.

23:33It always used to just be a moment in time. And then, you know, famously it was chip paper or budgie cage liner. And now it's like, you know, it's forever preserved on the internet and I have put it into a book. So please come and buy this book of my mistakes. Brilliant writing. Just get a highlighter and put a line through every mistake and you'll be run out by page 35, I'm sure. I don't think so. I wonder if there's, and this is kind of a ridiculous question to ask, I know you've had your head completely in it, but if there was a word to describe what this book reveals of the age that we live in, word a sentence how would you describe it when you looked back at it all well it has been you know it's boring to keep going back to chaos doesn't it isn't it but um I suppose it has been chaotic and there's never been a through line that can last for that can hold for much longer than two years or something I mean and that's so we've got we've cycled through so many kind of leaders and so many different plot lines that there's never a point where you think, I suppose what we've let go of completely is the idea of an even keel and that there's something that reality corrects to, which now seems like an idea almost from the last century, millennium.

24:54I suppose we've let go of the idea of that. Everyone thinks that anything can happen all the time and you get up in the morning and you see that, you know, Trump's threatened to annex a country and it's just like, OK. And I mean, these things just didn't happen before and now they happen all the time. Marina, you have been writing a column pretty much three times a week on politics, sports, celebrity for 20 plus years. You've entertained us. It is an absolute joy to read your coffee. What's next and why stop now? God, you know what? It's difficult. it's it's 24 yeah 25 years it's nearly half my life um and it's a it's a big thing i have the thing i would like the people i'd like to thank by a million miles i mean i want to thank the people in the guardian who have got my articles out who've sent me to world cups and olympics and like 900 general elections i'm thanking you a bit i but what i the people i really have to thank are the readers i was thinking the other day you know i've only had this one email address I didn't have a gmail or at least I didn't oh my god and so for all of this time I've only had you know marina.hyde at theguardian.com so people have been able to write to me for good and for real you know and often not threaten to kill me I'm joking there's only a few um and to have that relationship with readers and to have such an engaged audience has meant absolutely everything and you get so many ideas from them and they make you reflect and they inspire you and to have had that audience, you know, ultimately, as I say, you know, we're in the audience business for sure.

26:33And to have been able to kind of serve that one has been such a privilege and an education for me. So it's a big thing to go. It's a very politician's way of not answering the question, though. Why stop now? I guess this, I just need to try something new. I need to do more of my own thing, maybe. And I, the thing I said to you before we started this interview was that all the way through The Guardian, and I've changed all the time and done different things. And then I've added things outside, screenwriting or podcasting or whatever it might be. And the reason I've done those things is to feel scared again and to feel that I'm not in a comfort zone and to be challenged.