Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2: Welcome to voter Nomics, where politics and markets collide. This year,
Speaker 2: voters around the world have the ability to affect markets, countries,
Speaker 2: and whole economies like never before, so we've created this
Speaker 2: series to help you make sense of it all. I'm
Speaker 2: Stephanie Flanders.
Speaker 3: I'm made Room Woodridge, and I'm alegra Stratton.
Speaker 2: So I think I lost track at some point, but
Speaker 2: I think our last two episodes were on the ground
Speaker 2: in the UK and France on the day after very
Speaker 2: different elections, two countries where garnering around a third of
Speaker 2: the vote produced very different outcomes for Sirkir Starmer's Labor
Speaker 2: Party and Marine Le Penz Rassan Lemont National. France has
Speaker 2: been a mess since then, as predicted, but the new
Speaker 2: UK government has been a hive of active In the
Speaker 2: lead up to the vote, we said there was no
Speaker 2: options for anybody. Everything was locked in. The economic situation
Speaker 2: was terrible, and suddenly it feels like horizons are opening up.
Speaker 2: But we're going to ignore all that because the focus
Speaker 2: hasn't It has irrevocably shifted in the last few days.
Speaker 3: Well, we've had a failed assassination to attempt on Donald Trump,
Speaker 3: which was an extraordinary piece of news. We've had what
Speaker 3: looks as though it was a failed attempt to ease
Speaker 3: Biden out of the nomination. So Biden looks as though
Speaker 3: he will be the nominee, increasingly as though he will
Speaker 3: be the nominee. And now we've got the Republican Convention
Speaker 3: with all the rasmatas entails.
Speaker 1: You're talking about failed attempts, but you haven't included the
Speaker 1: euros for England. I didn't want about that, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't It is interesting. I looked at that my news
Speaker 1: feed this morning and a British government story was sort
Speaker 1: of item number seven. And given we've had what are
Speaker 1: we what are we like? Ten days in now maybe
Speaker 1: two weeks into the new government, that is amazing.
Speaker 2: It's been very striking in President Trump is named Senator
Speaker 2: JD Vance as his running mate in November. So not
Speaker 2: someone who would necessarily be reaching out to new potential
Speaker 2: Republican voters very much, someone who is if not a
Speaker 2: mini Meed, then someone someone who certainly is can follow
Speaker 2: the Maga tradition. And we've also seen sort of struck
Speaker 2: by some sympathetic business leaders, including Elon Musk and Bill
Speaker 2: Lackman now taking the excuse to publicly throw their support
Speaker 2: behind Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: Yes, and I think that made partly partly because it
Speaker 3: does look as Joe Biden and the Democrats are fading,
Speaker 3: and you will always back a winner if you're a
Speaker 3: sensible business person. But I think there's more to it
Speaker 3: than that. Both both Musk and Atmen are very sensitive
Speaker 3: on the culture wars issue. They're very angry about what's
Speaker 3: happened to the left and the wokification of the left,
Speaker 3: and quite frankly, they want, you know, a guy who's
Speaker 3: going to probably low their taxes and low their corporate taxes.
Speaker 1: But from the perspectives of the labor government. David Lammy,
Speaker 1: who's the Foreign Secretory, has been very busy in the
Speaker 1: six months before the election making friends with the guests
Speaker 1: We're going to talk to you later, Elbridge, Colby, but
Speaker 1: also jd Vance, So he has met jd Vance this morning,
Speaker 1: this morning or yesterday. It was slightly troubled that relationship
Speaker 1: when a footage emerged of jd Vance seeming to mock
Speaker 1: the UK's new government. I don't know the extent to
Speaker 1: which we should take the video that seriously whether or
Speaker 1: not it was off the cuff or a joke, but
Speaker 1: I think it probably does speak to some kind of
Speaker 1: beneath the surface of an apparently very strong relationship between
Speaker 1: the labor government and people in the Trump team. Some ambiguity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so okay. So in a week where it does
Speaker 2: seem as though Donald Trump has more momentum than ever,
Speaker 2: certainly the Republicans have more momentum than ever going into November,
Speaker 2: we wanted to take a look at what a second
Speaker 2: Trump administration could look like, both domestically and internationally, and
Speaker 2: how his policies could shape market and the world economy.
Speaker 2: To provide an international perspective, we'll speak with Elbridge Colby,
Speaker 2: who's a former member of the first Trump administration and
Speaker 2: a co founder and principle of the Maratha Initiative, nonprofit
Speaker 2: focused on national security issues, and later we're also going
Speaker 2: to have a conversation about the lessons for Republicans in
Speaker 2: the Conservative's demise in the UK with Bloomberg editor in
Speaker 2: chief John Micklethwaite. But first we're going to go to
Speaker 2: our on the ground voice for the week, senior reporter
Speaker 2: Nancy Cook, who joins us from where Else the Republican
Speaker 2: National Convention in Milwaukee. Nancy, I think you've had the
Speaker 2: pleasure of attending a few Republican National conventions. But from
Speaker 2: those of us who we certainly will have heard Night
Speaker 2: one and night two, seen some of the pageantry there,
Speaker 2: the feeling triumphant return of Donald Trump. But how's it
Speaker 2: felt felt for you?
Speaker 4: Well, I would say this security is very, very tight
Speaker 4: after the assassination attempt, which is no surprise. I mean
Speaker 4: it is like Milwaukee, Wisconsin is like a fortress, the
Speaker 4: downtown area. And then you know, I was on the
Speaker 4: mention floor on Monday night when Trump appeared in public
Speaker 4: for the first time after he was shot at, and
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 1: Just with his bandage.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you could see his big white bandage on his ear.
Speaker 4: He didn't actually speak, but he sat through the last
Speaker 4: hour or so of the programming, and you know, he
Speaker 4: still is just so popular among Republican primary voters. I
Speaker 4: mean you could just see it was almost like God
Speaker 4: had shown up there. People sort of had guessed that
Speaker 4: he was coming, So people were starting to line up
Speaker 4: at the entrance where they knew he was going to
Speaker 4: walk in about an hour ahead of time. There was
Speaker 4: like a huge crunch of people, similar to the indictment
Speaker 4: or the two impeachments. You know, him getting shot really
Speaker 4: just galvanized the republic his Republican primary voters even more,
Speaker 4: and they're sort of even more amped up and excited
Speaker 4: about his candidacy.
Speaker 1: Now it's a different feeling than Nancy. It does feel different,
Speaker 1: does it.
Speaker 4: It feels different. And it also just feels like this
Speaker 4: is a moment when both parties in the US, Democrats
Speaker 4: and Republicans are really showing a lot of sympathy for him,
Speaker 4: and people feel horrible about what happened, and I think
Speaker 4: his campaign is really going to try to capitalize on
Speaker 4: that by bringing new voters into the Republican tent. You know,
Speaker 4: white suburban women who they've had problems with, or you know,
Speaker 4: black men who they've been trying to court, or Hispanic men.
Speaker 4: You know, they're really trying to take this moment to
Speaker 4: a portray the Republican Party as sort of a party
Speaker 4: for all people. And so I think the tone of
Speaker 4: the convention moving forward is going to be a bit
Speaker 4: different than it would have been a week ago, when
Speaker 4: it just would have been you know, very anti Biden
Speaker 4: and very dark.
Speaker 3: Do you get the sense that these are people who
Speaker 3: are pretty confident of winning in November.
Speaker 4: I think the Trump people are extremely confident of winning
Speaker 4: in November. And you know, you saw with the selection
Speaker 4: of Senator JD. Vance as the vice presidential pick, that's
Speaker 4: really an effort on their part to lock up the
Speaker 4: three states that really help win the election, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin,
Speaker 4: and Michigan. But I mean, the Trump people that I
Speaker 4: talk to you feel like at this point there's so
Speaker 4: many paths to victory to them, not just through like
Speaker 4: sort of the eight swing states, but that they could
Speaker 4: even expand the map and turn states that have not
Speaker 4: voted Republican in the past to Republicans. So they're looking
Speaker 4: now at could they get New Hampshire, Virginia, Minnesota. I mean,
Speaker 4: the people I talked to think that there's going to
Speaker 4: be a huge electoral blowout for Republicans in November now,
Speaker 4: both given the assassination attempt, Trump's popularity with his base
Speaker 4: and also just concerns about Biden's age. But they are
Speaker 4: just anticipating potentially huge electoral win and also that gives
Speaker 4: them a ton of advantages with down ballot races. The
Speaker 4: Senate is really up for grabs and the House too.
Speaker 2: I mean that is so interesting though, because of course,
Speaker 2: and you now start talking about enormous coattails, as they say,
Speaker 2: for the presidents bringing along with him whoever in a
Speaker 2: given place, whoever is the person or the congressional candidate.
Speaker 2: I mean, that is the exact opposite of twenty twenty
Speaker 2: two exactly. See when you were going We went into
Speaker 2: the midterms, and actually it felt very much as though
Speaker 2: the candidates who were closest to Trump were the ones
Speaker 2: who did worse that in that surprisingly positive result for Democrats.
Speaker 2: So it's such a short time that this has changed.
Speaker 4: I think part of it, though, is also the quality
Speaker 4: of the candidate. I think last time in the midterms,
Speaker 4: you know, Trump backed a number of candidates, so I
Speaker 4: think voters just felt like we're too extreme or too fringy.
Speaker 4: I think a lot of the Republican senatorial candidates this
Speaker 4: time are you know, a bit more centrist, you know,
Speaker 4: a bit more appealing to like a wider swath of voter.
Speaker 4: So they've picked better candidates. But also, you know, right,
Speaker 4: you're right, it's just really riding the cotails. And I
Speaker 4: can't overstate that voters here are just not here in Wisconsin,
Speaker 4: but just like across the country in the US are
Speaker 4: just really not enthusiastic about Biden. They have deep concerns
Speaker 4: about his age that the party has you know, sort
Speaker 4: of glossed over for months, and you sort of can't
Speaker 4: get slight people on that.
Speaker 2: Senator Vance though, I mean, if you were looking, you
Speaker 2: talked about sort of broadening the numerous paths to victory
Speaker 2: and broadening out to states that have traditioned have for
Speaker 2: many years voted Democrat. You know, we had been led
Speaker 2: to think that maybe that would mean a different kind
Speaker 2: of pick for vice president, a woman potentially, or someone
Speaker 2: who or someone like Marco Rubio who would be reaching
Speaker 2: out to the sort of non white, non core voter.
Speaker 2: So that's a bit of a surprise, right. This is
Speaker 2: a very core voter candidate.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, And I think it's interesting because it's also really
Speaker 4: setting up Senator Vance as the heir apparent to the
Speaker 4: MAGA movement when Trump, you know, he can only serve
Speaker 4: for one term. I think that there was you know,
Speaker 4: people inside the Trump campaign, including Trump's campaign manager, who
Speaker 4: is a woman from Florida, who really wanted him to
Speaker 4: pick Rubio for that reason. You know, Rubio speaks Spanish
Speaker 4: to appeal to Hispanic voters. But I think that Rubio
Speaker 4: and Trump sort of never had the chemistry that the
Speaker 4: Trump had with Governor Bergham or with Senator Vance, and
Speaker 4: I think that does matter. And Senator Vance also had
Speaker 4: really powerful backers in the Trump family, including his son
Speaker 4: Don Junior, who was really pushing for him, and I
Speaker 4: think that helped as well.
Speaker 1: If you can step away from where you are right now,
Speaker 1: what do you think is going to happen regarding Biden
Speaker 1: and the back and forth over whether or not he
Speaker 1: lasts all the way through to November.
Speaker 4: Well, I think that there's a huge chance that Biden
Speaker 4: just stays in the race. Now. I mean the past week,
Speaker 4: the conversation has really changed so that, you know, people
Speaker 4: aren't really talking about Biden dropping out of the race
Speaker 4: anymore since the assassination attempt, you know, all the focus
Speaker 4: has been on Trump, and that has bought Biden more time.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think his strategy was always to kind
Speaker 4: of run out the clock till the convention and sort
Speaker 4: of not step down. I don't think he thinks he
Speaker 4: needs to step down, and that's what we're seeing.
Speaker 3: Them do and at the convention of people pretty happy
Speaker 3: with the Vance choice.
Speaker 4: Yeah, people at the convention seemed happy. I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: there were some advisors in Trump world who wanted different candidates,
Speaker 4: but everyone will get in line. And I think people
Speaker 4: are also very excited about the idea of Senator Vance,
Speaker 4: you know, who is a very articulate person and extremely
Speaker 4: good at debating people and appearing on TV. I think
Speaker 4: people are really excited about, you know, how he will
Speaker 4: debate Vice President Kamala Harris.
Speaker 3: Another trend for Yale Law School.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Nazi, I did want to mention that you were
Speaker 2: one of the people who sat down with the editor
Speaker 2: of BusinessWeek and head of our White House team in
Speaker 2: Mara Lago with former President Donald Trump a couple of
Speaker 2: weeks ago, and that interview is coming out in BusinessWeek.
Speaker 2: I think will have just come out when this goes out.
Speaker 2: You know, everything's gone pretty well for former President Trump
Speaker 2: since you had that interview. But he was already looking
Speaker 2: like a had a very strong chance when we did it.
Speaker 2: For those wanting to think about now, very focused very clearly,
Speaker 2: particularly outside the US, on what a Trump two point
Speaker 2: administration will be like. What did you really take away
Speaker 2: from that sit.
Speaker 4: Down, Well, we spent about ninety minutes with him, and
Speaker 4: I think that one of the most interesting global things
Speaker 4: he said that surprise me was just that he is
Speaker 4: very cool to the idea of supporting Taiwan and having
Speaker 4: the US sort of continue to defend Taiwan. He talked
Speaker 4: at one point about how he didn't really understand why
Speaker 4: the US is the insurance policy for Taiwan, and he
Speaker 4: felt like, you know, Taiwan had taken away a lot
Speaker 4: of the US chips business and he didn't really see
Speaker 4: the need to protect them. And I just thought that
Speaker 4: was an incredible foreshadowing of the way that he could
Speaker 4: really change the global order and also just US's approached
Speaker 4: to foreign policy if he wins reelection.
Speaker 2: In terms of his style of leadership. The other thing
Speaker 2: that struck me when I was looking at the transcript
Speaker 2: was just how much he's talking in terms of personal
Speaker 2: relationships and one on one relationships and the weather. You know,
Speaker 2: so and so business leader has a problem with tariffs.
Speaker 2: You know, they should just come and talk to me.
Speaker 2: I mean, there was no fa to disguise that this
Speaker 2: is going to be a very personal, very transactional approach
Speaker 2: to leading.
Speaker 4: It will be. And he told us a story when
Speaker 4: we were there about how Tim Cook of Apple was
Speaker 4: upset about some tariffs, and he complimented Tim Cook. He
Speaker 4: said he thought Tim Cook was a great business leader
Speaker 4: because rather than sort of hire an army of lobbyists
Speaker 4: to try to influence the people around Trump, Tim Cook
Speaker 4: just called Trump directly and said may I come see you,
Speaker 4: which also flattered him, I think, and Tim Cook came
Speaker 4: to the White House and they had a discussion, the
Speaker 4: two of them, and Trump recounted this to us as
Speaker 4: an example of like someone he thought was a good
Speaker 4: business leader. And so I do think that offers a
Speaker 4: lot of clues about how both CEOs and world leaders
Speaker 4: and the ones who are successful actually interact with him.
Speaker 2: And if you want access to Morrow Lago, you've got
Speaker 2: to pay a higher price for membership come October. Is
Speaker 2: that right?
Speaker 4: Well, he sort of let it slip in the conversation
Speaker 4: at one point that the club manager walked through and
Speaker 4: he introduced us to him, and then he was bragging
Speaker 4: about his property. How he said, it's the best location
Speaker 4: in the best house. And then he said, tell them
Speaker 4: how much it costs to get a membership, and the
Speaker 4: club manager said, well, you know, right now at seven
Speaker 4: hundred thousand dollars, and he said that's up from you know,
Speaker 4: twenty five thousand when I first started, when he first
Speaker 4: bought the club, which was many years ago. And then
Speaker 4: he said in October it's going up to a million dollars,
Speaker 4: which is interesting because that's a month before the US elections.
Speaker 2: Nancy, thank you so much for joining us, and I
Speaker 2: hope you get enough for enough sleep in the amid
Speaker 2: all the pageantry and madness in Milwaukee this week.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: So we're delighted now to welcome Elbridge Colby. He's co
Speaker 2: founder and principal of the Marathon Initiative, which is a
Speaker 2: nonprofit focused on national security issues. He's a former Deputy
Speaker 2: Assistant Sector of Defense for Strategy and Force Development during
Speaker 2: the first Trump administration, and he has been tipped to
Speaker 2: be Trump's national security advisor should there be a second administration,
Speaker 2: although he's going to tell us that he doesn't speak
Speaker 2: for the Trump administration and he doesn't know what job
Speaker 2: he's going to get. Thank you very much for joining us. Albert.
Speaker 2: We're speaking on Tuesday, just the day after the announcement
Speaker 2: of Daily Evans as vice presidential pick by Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: He is known for having what Europeans would consider to
Speaker 2: be use on your foreign policy, which Europeans would be
Speaker 2: nervous about, particularly with regard to Ukraine. So I'm just
Speaker 2: wondering how you think we should interpret the choice on
Speaker 2: the ticket.
Speaker 5: Sure well, great to be with you, Thank you. Let
Speaker 5: me just be clear upfront that I don't speak for
Speaker 5: President Trump or the Trump Vance campaign or sender Vance,
Speaker 5: and I certainly don't make any presumptions about any future
Speaker 5: role on my part, so I'm just speaking for myself.
Speaker 5: So I mean, I think on the issue of President
Speaker 5: Trump and sender Vance, I think what they're actually saying
Speaker 5: is is that we need to have a foreign policy
Speaker 5: that actually practically works for Americans' interests, that puts americans
Speaker 5: interests first, which I think is kind of an unremarkable statement.
Speaker 5: Most countries' foreign policies do try to put their people's
Speaker 5: interests first, and I think if you look at what
Speaker 5: sendor Vance, for instance, wrote in The Financial Times a
Speaker 5: few months ago around it and his remarks of the
Speaker 5: Munich Security Conference, he's calling attention to the scarcity that
Speaker 5: the United States faces in terms of our industrial capacity,
Speaker 5: in terms of the weapons and military readiness we have available.
Speaker 5: Those are facts, and I mean I think there's a
Speaker 5: lot of sort of stormone drawing on the European part,
Speaker 5: where there's a lot of resistance or sort of unhappiness
Speaker 5: about that. But again my view is that it's most
Speaker 5: important to communicate clearly to a friend an ally the
Speaker 5: reality of the situation and what can realistically be expected
Speaker 5: so they have time to move. And I think what's
Speaker 5: really interesting is that Europe is actually starting to move.
Speaker 5: If you're a European or an American who cares about
Speaker 5: an internationally area and foreign policy, the best thing is
Speaker 5: we need to sort of reboot our foreign policy to
Speaker 5: one that's more realistically like a business. Frankly, the more
Speaker 5: realistically correlates the resources we have available, what we can
Speaker 5: provide with what we can actually promise, and that's right
Speaker 5: now there's a yawning gap between those two things exacerbate
Speaker 5: under the Biden administration.
Speaker 2: All three of us are clamoring to pick some of
Speaker 2: what you just said. There's a lot there, And at
Speaker 2: the reason NATO Summit, I think all the European leaders
Speaker 2: there were recognizing the role that Donald Trump had played
Speaker 2: in forcing Europe to get to a better place on defense,
Speaker 2: the realism that we might expect in a future Trump administration,
Speaker 2: there's certainly two different parts of that. I think there
Speaker 2: is an understanding that there would be something of a
Speaker 2: pivot from Europe to Asia, which I know that you've supported,
Speaker 2: and we can get into what that means. I think
Speaker 2: specifically on Ukraine, and certainly the comments that I've heard
Speaker 2: Senator Vance make about what outcomes are feasible in any
Speaker 2: kind of resolution of the situation in Ukraine visa v Russia.
Speaker 2: What would you see as the change in a Trump
Speaker 2: administration or what would you like to see in a
Speaker 2: future Trump administration with regard to as sort of what
Speaker 2: a solution might be for Ukraine and Russia's approach to it.
Speaker 5: Sure, well, again, let me just stress that I you know,
Speaker 5: I'm not speaking for the Trump Vans campaign or so,
Speaker 5: you know, I really can't. I can give you my own,
Speaker 5: my own views and my own recommendations. I'd say first,
Speaker 5: my own view is that we do need to focus
Speaker 5: on China. Really, President Trump was was crucial, I mean
Speaker 5: historic shift in orientation towards confronting the reality of a
Speaker 5: much more greater and more ambitious and aggressive China, and
Speaker 5: I think, you know, that's a real area of broad
Speaker 5: consensus within the United States and certainly among Republicans and independents.
Speaker 5: I think, you know, Senator Vance has been one of
Speaker 5: the most articulate sort of exponents or vocalizers of the
Speaker 5: reality of the situation where we're behind in the middle
Speaker 5: balance and other respects in the Asia Pacific. I mean,
Speaker 5: I think on the on the on this sort of
Speaker 5: Ukraine issue. I know, President Trump, like Dwight Eisenower in
Speaker 5: nineteen fifty two, like Richard Nixon in ninetey sixty eight,
Speaker 5: like Ronald Reagan in nineteen eighty, in the case of
Speaker 5: Korea Vietnam and the hostage crisis, has said I want to,
Speaker 5: you know, bring peace to the situation. So I certainly
Speaker 5: support that and hope that that we're able to get
Speaker 5: to peace. I think most most people really are, and
Speaker 5: I think looking at the reality of the situation, I mean,
Speaker 5: you know, look at the reports of the New York
Speaker 5: Times recently about the reality of the situation on battlefield.
Speaker 5: You know, we're talking about a pretty stalemated situation, probably
Speaker 5: at best. So I think you know what Senator Vance
Speaker 5: has been saying, you know what President Trump has been saying,
Speaker 5: I think those are proceeding from a kind of reality
Speaker 5: about the situation. I was in Washington during the NATO summit,
Speaker 5: is that there's there's sort of this soaring rhetoric, you know,
Speaker 5: John F. Kennedy's inaugural address, from President Biden, from some
Speaker 5: European leaders, and then you kind of check the facts
Speaker 5: and it's a totally different world. I mean, one of
Speaker 5: the things that's bizarre is that Biden administration's own position
Speaker 5: is that the war will end through negotiations. So how
Speaker 5: critical can people be of the idea that we should
Speaker 5: begin negotiations to end the war. It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 5: And it's not like the Biden administration is dramatically increasing
Speaker 5: defense spending. It's not. So. Again, I don't think it's
Speaker 5: an exaggeration to say that we're on the verge of
Speaker 5: World War iie or my metaphor kind of have a
Speaker 5: titanic obsession that we're heading towards the Iceberg. Is because
Speaker 5: we're there's a very large war in Ukraine that's not
Speaker 5: going well and certainly doesn't seem on the verge of
Speaker 5: ending Putin as in the Kremlin are remilitarizing Russian the
Speaker 5: Russian economy. They seem to be pretty confident. Unfortunately, there's
Speaker 5: a war in Gaza, largest attack on the Jewish people
Speaker 5: since the Holocaust. The Hutis are still attacking shipping. Despite
Speaker 5: our having used up significant amounts of our inventory of
Speaker 5: critical missiles for a China fight. North Korea is becoming
Speaker 5: more aggressive helping Russia out. You can be sure the
Speaker 5: Russians are paying them back. And of course China. Don't
Speaker 5: take it from me. Any secretary of the Air Force
Speaker 5: in this administration, by an administration, Frank Kendall says they're
Speaker 5: preparing for war. Now. We don't know what's going to happen,
Speaker 5: but war. I mean, this is a bad situation. And
Speaker 5: at home, despite a lot of rhetoric, our defense industrial
Speaker 5: base is not fixed. It's in sorry shape. And this
Speaker 5: is why it's so important what the Republican platform is saying,
Speaker 5: we need to reindustrialize. But there's a huge discordance between
Speaker 5: rhetoric and reality, and that is an extremely dangerous situation,
Speaker 5: like it would be for a company.
Speaker 3: Given the reality of this dangerous world shouldn't you be
Speaker 3: doing more to invest in your alliances and reassure your allies,
Speaker 3: your very close allies. Surely one of America's greatest strengths,
Speaker 3: built up laboriously since the Second World War, is this
Speaker 3: web of global alliances. And you've referred twice to Ronald Reagan.
Speaker 3: I mean, Ronald Reagan believed that America needed to exercise
Speaker 3: hard power, but he also believed that he had this
Speaker 3: extraordinary reservoir of values of soft power. Shouldn't we be
Speaker 3: strengthening the Western Alliance rather than questioning it at this
Speaker 3: difficult time.
Speaker 5: Indeed, we should be strengthening. But the second word you
Speaker 5: said is not the way to do that. And we've
Speaker 5: seen that because reassuring our allies too much enables the
Speaker 5: very free riding that is not only dangerous to Americans,
Speaker 5: but is especially dangerous to Europeans. So cheap talk and
Speaker 5: high flying flying rhetoric about how great the situation and
Speaker 5: will always be there to fight for the rules based
Speaker 5: international order, that does not help you. I mean you're
Speaker 5: in London, That does not help you. If you're sitting
Speaker 5: in Poland or the Baltic States, or Finland, or South
Speaker 5: Korea or Taiwan because a Americans don't most Americans don't
Speaker 5: care know what the rules based in national order is.
Speaker 5: I don't even know what it is. It keeps changing
Speaker 5: its meaning. It tends to be tendentious and self serving.
Speaker 5: And second of all, there are limits to what Americans
Speaker 5: can do. And by the way, look, I mean, Ronald
Speaker 5: Reaguer is a great president. I'm a big fan of his,
Speaker 5: but he's not like I mean, there's a certain segment
Speaker 5: of the Republican Party that sort of wants to bring him,
Speaker 5: you know, like cryogenically unfrees him. And we're in a
Speaker 5: different situation. We need more realism. Soft power is nice,
Speaker 5: but there's too much emphasis on that talk is cheap.
Speaker 5: What we need and what deters the Putins of the world,
Speaker 5: the Hijinpings of the world, the Kim jong Uns of
Speaker 5: the world, the accomnees of the world, is hard military
Speaker 5: power in the right place at the right time. And
Speaker 5: this is why I hammer on the second point on reassurance.
Speaker 5: We actually need people who are going to get real
Speaker 5: backed the situation. And let me stress something that's really important
Speaker 5: and why I think President Trump's center vans the way
Speaker 5: they're acting is actually more consistent with the Cold War legacy,
Speaker 5: because during the Cold War we had very, very tough
Speaker 5: conversations with our allies Democrats. Lyndon Johnson, you look back
Speaker 5: at the balance of payments crisis in the nineteen sixties
Speaker 5: and the issue of the stationing of US force in
Speaker 5: West Germany. Look at what President Eisenhower was saying, President Reagan,
Speaker 5: the Plaza accords a lot of pressure on our allies
Speaker 5: because you know what, it was supposed to be a
Speaker 5: real alliance, not just a photo op, right, And that's
Speaker 5: right now. I think we're in the photo opp business,
Speaker 5: and we need to be in the real military alliance business.
Speaker 3: I'm not disdisagreeing with you about talk being cheap and
Speaker 3: hard power being absolutely essential. But isn't the fact that
Speaker 3: we're the good guys, We're the guys who stand for freedom, democracy,
Speaker 3: the rule of law, and the rest of it absolutely
Speaker 3: vital to our claim, particularly to other wavering nations against
Speaker 3: the bad guys, against Russia, against China, against North Korea
Speaker 3: and the rest of them. It's an invaluable resource, and
Speaker 3: you're in danger of undervaluing it.
Speaker 5: I think we are, you know, on the side of
Speaker 5: freedom and democracy and I think, but and I don't
Speaker 5: think we should be shy about that. And I don't
Speaker 5: think President Trump or Center Vance or the Republican Party
Speaker 5: is shy about that. What I would say is we're
Speaker 5: high on rhetoric, and at the end of the day,
Speaker 5: American forim policy, if you go back to the purpose
Speaker 5: of the Constitution, if you read the Federals papers, it's
Speaker 5: supposed to be in the practical interests. And at the
Speaker 5: other thing I would say is some of the rhetoric,
Speaker 5: especially that's attractive to Northern and Western Europeans, a lot
Speaker 5: of this rhetoric actually doesn't travel very well. It doesn't
Speaker 5: actually resonate in a lot of parts of the world.
Speaker 5: I think what you know, for instance, if you look
Speaker 5: back at what President Trump said in his Warsaw speech
Speaker 5: or in other speeches at the United Nations, a foreign
Speaker 5: policy that's based on an approach that respects the autonomy
Speaker 5: and sovereignty of other nations. India, many of the countries
Speaker 5: in Southeast Asia, Japan, for instance, et cetera. I mean,
Speaker 5: look at President Biden referring to India and Japan as
Speaker 5: xenophobic a few months ago. I think there's a there's
Speaker 5: a different approach that at least the kind of conservative
Speaker 5: realist approach that I advocate for that goes back again
Speaker 5: to President Eisenhower or Jim Baker, these kinds of things.
Speaker 5: I think actually that could resonate a lot more. It
Speaker 5: might not be as popular in Northern and Western Europe,
Speaker 5: but you know that's okay.
Speaker 1: You've mentioned realism and being realistic. Does NATO deterripute in
Speaker 1: if America is focused elsewhere?
Speaker 5: Well, it can if the Europeans step up. So that's
Speaker 5: the I mean, it's it's a numbers it's a numbers game.
Speaker 1: It's a numbers game. And you've you've talked about the
Speaker 1: Polish five GDP on defense. But in the UK we're
Speaker 1: in a debate about two point five percent and the
Speaker 1: labor of the Labor Party, which I think we'd all
Speaker 1: have to talk about your relationships with them. But Labor
Speaker 1: is saying they agree it needs to go to two
Speaker 1: point five, but they've not given us a time on that.
Speaker 1: Just talk us through. You know how quickly you're going
Speaker 1: to want to hear a time from labor than the
Speaker 1: government on the two point five And it doesn't sound
Speaker 1: to me like it's enough.
Speaker 5: There's a phrase from the Bible that I was using
Speaker 5: a lot with former Foreign Secretary Cameron, which is, remove
Speaker 5: the mote from thy own eye, friend, you know, remove
Speaker 5: the piece, you know, the obstruction from your own eye,
Speaker 5: which is.
Speaker 4: What did he say?
Speaker 1: What did you tell us?
Speaker 5: What he says? I don't know. I don't know, but
Speaker 5: the British people have spoken, so we have a different
Speaker 5: a different situation now. But the points that I'm making
Speaker 5: that I think Senator Vance was pointing to in his
Speaker 5: Minisecurity conference and FT pieces is just the reality of
Speaker 5: scarcity a couple a couple of points. Our military readiness
Speaker 5: is a historic looths, the defense industrial bases in bad shape.
Speaker 5: And moreover, defense spending again, I don't know. I can't
Speaker 5: speak for the advanced campaign or anything President Trump, but
Speaker 5: I don't see dramatic increases in defense spending as part
Speaker 5: of the political conversation here. I mean, we know the
Speaker 5: debt to GDP issue. There's pressure on the deficit. I
Speaker 5: hope there's some headroom, but it's not going to be
Speaker 5: a doubling in the defense budget, I would imagine. So,
Speaker 5: you know, a lot of this has to come from Europe,
Speaker 5: and if you go back I mean the American people,
Speaker 5: we've all been spending three three and a half percent
Speaker 5: of our income every year. So you know, Germany they've
Speaker 5: been spending one point two and they have universal health care, right,
Speaker 5: So like, I mean, there's a little bit of like really,
Speaker 5: But of course President Trump raised this issue eight years
Speaker 5: ago and there was progress, but a lot of it
Speaker 5: was kind of and right now a lot of it
Speaker 5: is sort of like, Oh, we're moving some pension funds
Speaker 5: around and we're going to get to two percent by
Speaker 5: twenty thirty five. I think if you're serious about the
Speaker 5: Russia threat. I think the Russia threat is serious, move
Speaker 5: as fast as you can. And I think the government
Speaker 5: in the UK, the new government. Again, I'm a conservative,
Speaker 5: but I think back to the point I was just saying,
Speaker 5: I think this foreign policy of common sense America first,
Speaker 5: is compatible with other countries with various political orientations as
Speaker 5: long as they're practical, self reliant, serious and focused. But
Speaker 5: I think the most important thing, again will be concrete
Speaker 5: results on not only defense spending, which is very important,
Speaker 5: but also outputs.
Speaker 2: The editor of BusinessWeek and some of our senior Washington
Speaker 2: reporters sat down with former President Trump a couple of
Speaker 2: weeks ago in Mara Lago. That interview is coming out
Speaker 2: I think will have just come out when we speak,
Speaker 2: So I apologize I'm talking about something that you haven't
Speaker 2: seen the wording of. But when we asked him about Taiwan,
Speaker 2: he said, you were dumb, quote to let Taiwan steal
Speaker 2: the US chip business, and also that the Taiwan should
Speaker 2: be paying the US for its protection like an insurance policy.
Speaker 2: He also sounded extremely sort of focused on the practical
Speaker 2: obstacles to defending Taiwan. The fact he cited how many
Speaker 2: thousands of miles the US was from Taipei versus know
Speaker 2: less than seventy miles from China. So I just wondered,
Speaker 2: I know you certainly don't speak for Donald Trump now
Speaker 2: or in terms of future policy, but it does often
Speaker 2: sound like Donald Trump is very wary of foreign entanglements
Speaker 2: and expensive commitments, whether it's Asia or anywhere else. And
Speaker 2: I just wonder if that squares with the kind of
Speaker 2: quite full, full throated pivot that we've been talking about
Speaker 2: in this from Europe to Asia, and certainly a focus
Speaker 2: on Asia and China's threat that we've been talking about here.
Speaker 5: Well, I also am very wary of foreign entanglements and
Speaker 5: expenses and costly wars. And I think George Washington was too,
Speaker 5: he talked about in his farewell address. So again, I
Speaker 5: think that's kind of common sense. I think in the
Speaker 5: case of the defensive Taiwan look present, as I understand it,
Speaker 5: President Trump has been stuck basically to the traditional strategic
Speaker 5: ambiguity policy on the question defense. My point when I
Speaker 5: was in the Pentagon and since then has been it's
Speaker 5: the job of the defense and Security establishment to give
Speaker 5: the President of United States the best possible capacity to
Speaker 5: defend Taiwan. So if you read my book, and if
Speaker 5: you go back to what I'm writing, read over the
Speaker 5: years and saying I've always I've described Taiwan as like
Speaker 5: a seventy out of one hundred value. Taiwan is very
Speaker 5: important to the United States, and it's important to the
Speaker 5: anti hed what I call the anti hegemonic coalition, but
Speaker 5: it's not existential for the United States now. If Taiwan
Speaker 5: were to fall, god forbid, to China, that would be
Speaker 5: a very serious setback for the United States position and
Speaker 5: the position of the anti hegemonic coalition in Japan, India, Australia, Philippines,
Speaker 5: South Korea, et cetera. It would actually be a worse
Speaker 5: situation for us. But what the key things that I've
Speaker 5: been arguing for the last six five or six years are, First,
Speaker 5: the United States should be husbanding its scarce resources to
Speaker 5: give us the best possible basis for defending Taiwan, to
Speaker 5: keep the costs and risks of doing so as low
Speaker 5: as possible. Unfortunately, we now have not done that, and
Speaker 5: despite the arguments of people like sender Van, we've sent
Speaker 5: a lot of the critical weapons and money and political
Speaker 5: resolve to Europe and to some extent, the Middle East.
Speaker 5: So we're now in a weaker position that President Biden
Speaker 5: is kind of leaving us with. And secondly, and critically,
Speaker 5: the Taiwanes need to step up dramatically. The points I'm
Speaker 5: saying to you about Europe are tenfold the case in Taiwan,
Speaker 5: but Taiwan spends less than three percent, and in fact,
Speaker 5: Taiwan itself has been advocating for US to send capabilities
Speaker 5: to Ukraine. So, and this is very important because I
Speaker 5: think of Republicans today and the idea of alliances is
Speaker 5: really much more about hey, how much skin do these
Speaker 5: people have in how serious are they? And this gets
Speaker 5: the kind of the bottom line, which is, I think
Speaker 5: America will be more likely to help those who help themselves.
Speaker 5: And this is very important in Taiwan, and it's very
Speaker 5: important in Europe as well.
Speaker 3: What would be some of the implications of a more
Speaker 3: sustainable defense position for the United States in terms of
Speaker 3: the industrial base of the United States providing the munitions
Speaker 3: that you need, and in terms more broadly of your
Speaker 3: economy make policy towards China.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, I'm mostly focused on the security side.
Speaker 5: I think President Trump and people like investor Lighteheiser have
Speaker 5: been very clear on the economic sort of agenda, which
Speaker 5: I support. But I think on the security side, both
Speaker 5: President Trump and Center Vance have been very clear about this.
Speaker 5: The roots, the root of the situation is fixing our
Speaker 5: industrial base, and particularly our defense industrial base. Why well,
Speaker 5: if we can produce a lot of stuff quickly at scale,
Speaker 5: then our own forces will be better equipped and more
Speaker 5: formidable and thus more likely to deter and thus more
Speaker 5: likely to preserve peace. Moreover, we can sell or give
Speaker 5: those weapons to our allies and partners who are most
Speaker 5: likely to use them. Israel, India, South Korea, Poland, et cetera.
Speaker 5: These are the kind of key countries. Others, you know,
Speaker 5: Vietnam maybe you know that are Philippines that are ready
Speaker 5: to kind of defend their own interests. That's better for
Speaker 5: us and it's better for our allies. So that's kind
Speaker 5: of the root of the situation. And so I think
Speaker 5: this in a say, if we just increase the defense
Speaker 5: budget and poured it into the current system, I don't
Speaker 5: think we'd get a very big output. But this is
Speaker 5: why the solving the defense problem is also inherently an
Speaker 5: economic issue, because we do need to reindustrialize, because we're
Speaker 5: not going to solve the defense industrial based issues without
Speaker 5: also reindustrializing because one of the problems is, for instance,
Speaker 5: we don't have enough welders to maintain our ships or
Speaker 5: build our ships. Why don't we have enough welders because
Speaker 5: we're down having a large enough industry to sustain it.
Speaker 1: In the UK, we've been developing relationships with the Pacific.
Speaker 1: We call it the Pacific tilt. So there's Orcus and
Speaker 1: then there's something called the Hiroshimira Records, which is a
Speaker 1: UK relationship with Japan. Is that helpful or is that
Speaker 1: a distraction? If you're wanting the UK to be I mean,
Speaker 1: some of the things you said about your relationship with
Speaker 1: David Lammie was that you found it refreshing to hear
Speaker 1: a UK government talking about its European relationships.
Speaker 5: First, yeah, I've been skeptical of the tilt and I
Speaker 5: told the last government that over the years. I think, look,
Speaker 5: it's obviously at a diplomatic level or in from an
Speaker 5: investment point of view, that's up to the United Kingdom.
Speaker 5: But certainly I know Defense Secretary Heally gave a very
Speaker 5: articulate and I think compelling speech on this point about
Speaker 5: a year ago, where he pointed out it doesn't make
Speaker 5: a lot of sense. I mean the United Kingdom. I
Speaker 5: mean partially thanks to the government of Prime Minister then
Speaker 5: Prime Minister Cameron, the UK military is in a pretty
Speaker 5: parless state. And I say that with respect ours is
Speaker 5: also in a lot of trouble. So I think the
Speaker 5: best thing for the UK, given its interests and its
Speaker 5: views on Russia and Ukraine and its capabilities, is to
Speaker 5: focus on much more on Europe. And I would say
Speaker 5: I think this is a general principle. I mean, I've
Speaker 5: been struck in the last kind of year or so
Speaker 5: that the Japanese government has been very much like Prime
Speaker 5: Minister Kashida came to the United States and advocated for
Speaker 5: US to pass a supplemental that was overwhelmingly oriented towards Europe.
Speaker 5: I think the Japanese government should be much more focused
Speaker 5: on making sure that it's ready to defend itself and
Speaker 5: contribute to collective defense. I mean, two percent by twenty
Speaker 5: twenty seven of the twenty twenty two budget. That's not
Speaker 5: especially impressive when you look at the scale of the
Speaker 5: Chinese build up and there's a lot of high fiving
Speaker 5: going on. And again, I think Taiwan is sort of
Speaker 5: the most stark and urgent example of a country where
Speaker 5: the level of effort is seriously below what's needed. But
Speaker 5: Japan also, and then you compare that with country like
Speaker 5: South Korea, with India some extent, with Australia, with poland
Speaker 5: certainly I think that's the kind of model that we
Speaker 5: want to encourage, which is, hey, focus on your defense
Speaker 5: in a serious, practical, more self reliant, business, hard nosed way.
Speaker 5: That's very compatible I think with an America first approach.
Speaker 5: And again, if your government's left right center, green, blah blah, blah.
Speaker 5: You know whatever, It doesn't matter as long as we can,
Speaker 5: as long as we can work in a sort of
Speaker 5: hard nosed way together on shared interests.
Speaker 2: Rich Kolby, I don't know whether he is or isn't
Speaker 2: a senior figure in the second Trump administration. We do
Speaker 2: know he is the author of the strategy of denial
Speaker 2: American defense in an age of great power conflict. Thank
Speaker 2: you very much for joining us, my pleasure. We'll joined
Speaker 2: now by John Wickthwaite, editor in chief of Bloomberg, who
Speaker 2: is on his way to Milwaukee the Republican Convention, but
Speaker 2: has just lingering on his route to chat to us.
Speaker 2: I was completely struck by a piece that you wrote
Speaker 2: with Adrian on the lessons that Republicans can learn from
Speaker 2: the British Tories' recent defeat. I mean, I have to say,
Speaker 2: when I first saw this, I thought, wow, this is
Speaker 2: just a desperate effort to still as a British journalist,
Speaker 2: to still have something relevant to say to Republicans in
Speaker 2: the convention.
Speaker 6: But I think it's obviously mainly that.
Speaker 2: But why on earth should they care about what just
Speaker 2: happened to the Duk's Tories.
Speaker 6: Well, I think there's at least two or three reasons.
Speaker 6: The first reason is there has always been a historic
Speaker 6: link between the two. They've tended to advance in lockstep.
Speaker 6: In fact, the interesting thing on that is that the
Speaker 6: Tories have tended. What's happened for the Tories has tended
Speaker 6: to happen to the Republicans. Thatcher came in just before
Speaker 6: Reagan breaks, it happened just before Trump. But the more
Speaker 6: interesting fact is that the Tories completely imploded. And I
Speaker 6: think some of the things that went wrong with the
Speaker 6: Tories are things that could now be going wrong with
Speaker 6: the Republicans, and that those are things that the Republicans
Speaker 6: should look at very hard, even if those particular chickens
Speaker 6: don't come home to roost for another four years, but
Speaker 6: maybe also if something changes on the Democratic side, they
Speaker 6: could come earlier. And it's that basic problem of committing
Speaker 6: yourself to a very kind of populist, chaotic version of government,
Speaker 6: and that seems to be the way in which the
Speaker 6: Republicans are going.
Speaker 2: Does jd.
Speaker 1: Vance's appointment or nomination does that change it in any way?
Speaker 1: Because I think we all agree that he's an intellectual
Speaker 1: vice presidential candidate. You know, he has a theory of change.
Speaker 1: He has a number of leavers he wants to pull,
Speaker 1: and he doesn't seem chaotic.
Speaker 6: I think he's less chaotic than Trump. But I think
Speaker 6: the basic core of it, you know, you go back
Speaker 6: to why the Conservatives and Republicans have been so good
Speaker 6: at winning elections, and there's sort of two reasons for it.
Speaker 6: I think fundamentally, the first is that conservatism is about competence.
Speaker 6: It's about being able to deliver things. That has always
Speaker 6: been the main sort of appeal of parties on the right.
Speaker 6: The Trump first term had moments of chaos. It feels
Speaker 6: like the second one could well go that way. You
Speaker 6: saw what happened with Johnson first and with the trusts
Speaker 6: in Britain. The Conservatives basically trash their idea of competence,
Speaker 6: and the other side of kind of modern conservative movements
Speaker 6: has been this idea of a kind of small state
Speaker 6: of keeping keeping the government off your backs. People like
Speaker 6: Vance and Trump have that to some degree. They talk
Speaker 6: about kind of burning up regulations, but fundamentally they're about
Speaker 6: increasing the debt, about pushing those things out. And I
Speaker 6: think there is a bigger and bigger contradiction which really
Speaker 6: got the Tories and could yet get the Republicans between
Speaker 6: promising one thing to the competent business side, ie, you're
Speaker 6: going to be the party that's going to make the
Speaker 6: economy work really well, you're going to open things up,
Speaker 6: you're going to compete in a global world, and on
Speaker 6: the other hand, telling a group of especially white working
Speaker 6: class voters that we are going to protect you. And
Speaker 6: there is a fundamental conflict between those two things.
Speaker 3: I think the appointment of Vance is incredibly interesting. I
Speaker 3: would qualify that by saying, if you're playing second fiddle
Speaker 3: to Trump, you're paying certain fiddle. I mean, there's no
Speaker 3: doubt that Trump is the boss, and you have to
Speaker 3: make certain that you don't try and claim credit for
Speaker 3: what he's doing. We will suffer a sort of Steeve
Speaker 3: Bannon eclipse. But Vance is more of a populist, more
Speaker 3: of a nationalist, and more of a sort of anti
Speaker 3: business person than Trump is. He's very skeptical about business.
Speaker 3: Vance very pro the working classes and the injustices that
Speaker 3: they've received, in his view, very pro protectionism. So he
Speaker 3: is deepening the sort of the populist side of the
Speaker 3: Trump coalition and also raising questions of big government because
Speaker 3: he's a big government person and raising questions of competence
Speaker 3: because he is, you know, he's very ideologically opposed to
Speaker 3: an important part of the Republican coalition, which is the
Speaker 3: business world.
Speaker 1: So if you look in the UK, I think you
Speaker 1: talk John there about the small state and so on.
Speaker 1: The person that's probably or rather during the last election
Speaker 1: that probably articulated that most clearly was Pharage. But actually
Speaker 1: Nigel Faraj and JD. Vance have different agendas. It was
Speaker 1: quite striking to hear farajhs during the last election campaign
Speaker 1: talking about slashing taxes. Was it twenty billion worth of
Speaker 1: tax carts might have been fifty billion? I lost, I
Speaker 1: lose track. So but actually, if I think about the JD.
Speaker 1: Vance portfolio, that is something that would connect with the
Speaker 1: you know, not just the colactons, but the Red Wall
Speaker 1: and so on, rather than necessarily people really like Nigel
Speaker 1: Pharage's rhetoric, but actually when you look closely at his
Speaker 1: policy platform, I don't know if it connects popular.
Speaker 3: Stature and JD. Vance is a populist Boris site in
Speaker 3: many ways, you know, appealing to the working classes, taking
Speaker 3: up the culture war. But even more deeply than Boris,
Speaker 3: Vance really doesn't like the people that he had to
Speaker 3: associate with at Yale Law School. He doesn't like the
Speaker 3: liberal elites even more than Trump. You know, there's a
Speaker 3: very deep disdain for those people.
Speaker 2: Just to push back and ask John, I mean, I
Speaker 2: think it's clearly it's a very thought provoking piece. Certainly
Speaker 2: many people have looked at what's happened to the Republican
Speaker 2: Party and it's kind of completely brought home crystallized by
Speaker 2: the convention and the way that the Republican Party and
Speaker 2: Donald Trump are more or less fused now in a
Speaker 2: way that they weren't before. So it's interesting to think
Speaker 2: about whether they've moved too far from their sort of
Speaker 2: core appeal. But I mean, you could make the argument
Speaker 2: that US is just really different and the things that
Speaker 2: are going to happen, that things that have happened in
Speaker 2: the UK will not happen in the US. For example,
Speaker 2: under the Conservatives, Britain left it the European Union, so
Speaker 2: it became more close to its biggest trading partner. That's
Speaker 2: not going to help you all the people you're trying
Speaker 2: to appeal to economically, if you're a medium sized, very
Speaker 2: open economy, very reliant on trade. Actually tariff's and a
Speaker 2: more mechantilist approach can work if you're the biggest market
Speaker 2: in the world. Equally, if you have a presidential system.
Speaker 2: There are just a lot fewer obstacles in the way
Speaker 2: of Donald Trump than there were in the way of
Speaker 2: Boris Johnson. I mean, the Party could get rid of
Speaker 2: Boris in a way that would not now be conceivable
Speaker 2: in the US because the Party has become the presidency.
Speaker 2: I mean you could argue that a more slightly more
Speaker 2: efficient version of Boris, had he been in a presidential system,
Speaker 2: might still be around and might actually have been furthering
Speaker 2: that conservative revolution.
Speaker 6: I think there's a bit of truth in that, and
Speaker 6: there is definitely a difference when we Edri and I
Speaker 6: wrote a book a long time ago called The Right Nation,
Speaker 6: which was partly about the conservative movement inside America, but
Speaker 6: also making the point that America was also to some
Speaker 6: extent a right nation on the international stage. You know,
Speaker 6: by many measures, people like Hillary Clinton were to the
Speaker 6: right of day Cameron back then. Anyway, that's part one.
Speaker 6: I would argue back on several things. Firstly, I think
Speaker 6: the Republican Party has become unusually sort of subject to
Speaker 6: one man. It's much closer to kind of Berlasconi version
Speaker 6: of a party at the moment, where a lot of
Speaker 6: policies are simply kind of Trump will fix this, you know.
Speaker 6: That applies to immigration, it applies to Gaza, applies to
Speaker 6: Ukraine and so on. I think secondly, there is this
Speaker 6: sort of misapprehension that there is something sort of different
Speaker 6: about the way in which they want to get alienating
Speaker 6: the commercial classes just doesn't really strike me as being
Speaker 6: at the core of conservatism wherever you go. And finally,
Speaker 6: I think this is the biggest problem for them is
Speaker 6: I think they are they're being lulled into a kind
Speaker 6: of false sort of positive and that is that they
Speaker 6: just like Johnson, thought that he won the election all
Speaker 6: those years ago when it becomes increasingly obvious that actually
Speaker 6: Jeremy Corbyn lost it. Jeremy Corbyn was completely unelectable. The
Speaker 6: main reason why Donald Trump is doing so well at
Speaker 6: the moment is not just things that have that he's done.
Speaker 6: And obviously there's a lot of sympathy for him the
Speaker 6: moment because what happened the weekend, but fundamentally because people
Speaker 6: do not think Biden is a good candidate and so
Speaker 6: if you know, if the Republicans were to read too
Speaker 6: much into the idea that this is Trump has got
Speaker 6: everything right, which I think is the sort of starting
Speaker 6: point of your question. I just don't think that's likely
Speaker 6: to stand up. You know, imagine that if it was
Speaker 6: somebody else other than Biden, with a more centrist Democratic Party,
Speaker 6: which seemed perhaps they's geriatric at the at the front,
Speaker 6: then I think you might have a very different battle.
Speaker 2: If Trump becomes president. What's going to stop him? I mean,
Speaker 2: what's going to stop consolidating this power, even if he's
Speaker 2: lucky to get it.
Speaker 3: One thing that can happen in America which can't happen
Speaker 3: in Britain is he can lose the Senate and he
Speaker 3: can lose the House, which.
Speaker 2: Looks very unlikely.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, I'm not I think the first time around,
Speaker 3: but after two years, the checks and balances can assert
Speaker 3: themselves very quickly and you get a paralyzed president.
Speaker 6: I think the answer is yes. You know, at the moment,
Speaker 6: it looks likely that Trump will win for lots of reasons,
Speaker 6: not least what happened at the weekend. He's got all
Speaker 6: that momentum behind him. But the big thing that comes
Speaker 6: through pole after poll after poll. At the moment is
Speaker 6: the idea that most people, really very large amount of
Speaker 6: Americans do not want either Trump or Biden. You're at
Speaker 6: seventy eighty percent. So you have to think that, notwithstanding
Speaker 6: the fact that the ruving Party is now so fully
Speaker 6: committed to Trump, that if the Democrats were to come
Speaker 6: up with someone else other than Biden, that would actually
Speaker 6: become a much more realistic battle. And it's that is
Speaker 6: quite and that I think could make a difference.
Speaker 1: Who is that person? Can you see them coming through there?
Speaker 1: I mean, the time scale being talked about here is
Speaker 1: in the next two to four years. Who would come
Speaker 1: through that would make the Trump vance double ticket unravel?
Speaker 6: I think it has to be someone from the kind
Speaker 6: of pragmatic center. And one of the strange, strange ironies
Speaker 6: about what's happened over the past few days is on
Speaker 6: the obviously the sort of failed assassination Tempters strengthened Trump.
Speaker 6: The other thing is it's given Biden a little bit
Speaker 6: of a breathing space as well, because as we were
Speaker 6: going into that and so you could end up with
Speaker 6: almost the best possible scenario from the point of your
Speaker 6: Trump whereby he is strengthened and Biden is weakened, but
Speaker 6: not so much as to as to be moved on.
Speaker 6: In my looking at it, I think there is still
Speaker 6: quite a lot of support for the idea of a
Speaker 6: fresh face coming through. That's something that many many people want.
Speaker 6: But I think it would be a mistake of the Republicans,
Speaker 6: and it may not be very obvious that this precise
Speaker 6: moment is certainly not going to be obvious in Milwaukee.
Speaker 6: It would be a mistake to sort of regard everything
Speaker 6: that's happening at the moment is pro Trump, when in
Speaker 6: fact there's a lot of people who are against Biden.
Speaker 6: There's a lot of people don't want either of them,
Speaker 6: and that is that's that is. That is not the
Speaker 6: same as having the same kind of revolution that happened
Speaker 6: when Thatcher and Reagan came in.
Speaker 1: The evidence in the UK and the evidence in the US,
Speaker 1: though I'm sure you can correct me. Possibly why he
Speaker 1: chose Jodie Vance is that people do want that big
Speaker 1: a state. They wanted it in the UK election, So
Speaker 1: I suppose.
Speaker 3: They don't want to pay for it.
Speaker 1: No, no, But the question I.
Speaker 2: Have planning to pay for it either put into.
Speaker 1: One side the old fashioned question of how you pay
Speaker 1: for something. Is the Republican Party under Trump, Trump and
Speaker 1: Vance moving that way because it is quote unquote you
Speaker 1: know what the people want.
Speaker 6: You could bring all these things together. You could say,
Speaker 6: look around the world, and you've got people like Maloney,
Speaker 6: you had Johnson again was a little bit in the thing.
Speaker 6: You've got people who are saying that, you know, the
Speaker 6: modern conservatism is about slightly bigger. Yes, we want to
Speaker 6: provide more services, we want to protect our people. We're
Speaker 6: not just about free markets and free trade and government
Speaker 6: of your back. But there's no doubt that one part
Speaker 6: of conservatism has always been talking to the business classes
Speaker 6: and saying, look, we you know, we are the efficient people.
Speaker 6: We're going to deliver government that works. We're going to
Speaker 6: do it cheaply and without causing you too much difficulty.
Speaker 6: And there is a very big contradiction between those and
Speaker 6: the difficulty about trying to pursue both those aims. As
Speaker 6: the Conservatives discovered in Britain's you often end up delivering neither.
Speaker 6: You end up neither shrinking the state in a way
Speaker 6: that business people think might be great, nor, on the
Speaker 6: other hand, delivering the services that people want, and on
Speaker 6: things like immigration, you get yourself into the most almighty mess.
Speaker 6: What I think we're saying is, look, the Republicans definitely
Speaker 6: look as if they're in the ascendency at the moment,
Speaker 6: and that has only been reinforced by what happened over
Speaker 6: the weekend and by all the problems to do with
Speaker 6: Joe Biden. But look underneath it, and they could have
Speaker 6: exactly the same thing as happened to the British Conservatives
Speaker 6: going on underneath.
Speaker 3: I think the most important consequence of the failed assassination
Speaker 3: attempt will not be in the long term to strengthen Trump,
Speaker 3: because as we saw with Reagan, you get a bounce
Speaker 3: and then that bounce goes down. It will be to
Speaker 3: give Biden the breathing room that he needs to remain
Speaker 3: as the candidate. I think there was enough momentum building
Speaker 3: up perhaps two for them to have changed. I think
Speaker 3: that that window is now very rapidly closing, and I
Speaker 3: think he will be the candidates. The election will be
Speaker 3: a referendum on Biden rather than the referendum on Trump,
Speaker 3: and a referendum Biden is something that Biden loses.
Speaker 2: What Republicans can learn from the Tories. I'm fascinated to
Speaker 2: hear later in the week how that note of caution
Speaker 2: goes down when John Wickfaitt tries to explain it to
Speaker 2: all the Republicans in Milwaukie. But thank you very much,
Speaker 2: thank you, thanks for listening to this week's voter nomics
Speaker 2: from Bloomberg. This episode was hosted by Me Stephanie Flanders,
Speaker 2: with a leg of Stratton and Adrian Waldrich. Was produced
Speaker 2: by Samasadi with booking support from Chris martinloom production support
Speaker 2: and sound design by Moses and am Brendan Francis Newnham
Speaker 2: is our executive producer. Sage Bowman is Head of Podcasts
Speaker 2: and special thanks to Elbridge Colby, John mcothwaite and Nancy Cook.
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Speaker 4: Listen to it.