How do you see it, pal?

Well, I think I remember 2022, as I'm sure you do, the midterms then, and there was a lot of talk about a Republican red wave that was going to sweep across the nation.

It didn't really happen.

It turned into the red ripple, it was called.

I think we might be in a similar situation now with the Democrats.

I do think...

You know, all the wins are in their favor.

Did she marry her brother to get into the United States, do we think?

What was your take, buddy?

Well, I think, I mean, foreign policy was always going to be Burnham's problem in many ways.

He's never really shown that much interest in it throughout his career.

And I think everybody was right.

He looked a bit nervous, a bit fidgety.

Clearly a bit daunted to be sitting next to the kind of international news semi-god that is Donald Trump.

And on Chagos, yeah, I think everybody's over-reading into it.

What's your take?

Up first, Freddy Gray.

When it comes to foreign policy, Donald Trump is neither hawk nor dove.

He's a dealmaker who plays differing sides off each other.

In so doing, he ends up disappointing warmongers and peaceniks in equal measure.

On the 28th of February, when he launched Operation Epic Fury, Trump's more dovish supporters felt betrayed.

The president who had campaigned against regime change wars began a new conflict by channeling George W. Bush.

To the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom has at hand, he said.

of later

I don't think it's radical.

No, I don't think it's offensive.

And about two years ago now, almost, JD Vance gave a speech at the Munich Security Conference in which he outlined his concerns and the State Department's concerns and the US government's concerns about free speech in the UK.

And this is definitely something the Trump administration is really worried about.

And they regard it, rightly or wrongly, they regard it as something they want to do.

They want to help Britain restore its liberties, restore its sense of civilizational purpose.

And I don't think that is necessarily wrong or wrongheaded.

I don't think we can get all grand on who and who can't opine.

Mm.

But with our energy costs as they are, it's not going to happen.

This is very high energy intensive stuff that we're talking about, and Britain just cannot do it unless we get our energy prices under control.

And nothing the Labor government is doing, with E- Ed Miliband driving the energy agenda, is going to correct that.

So that is a, that's a really important point that I think the, the Trump administration understands.

I mean, they're drill, baby, drill, but not just drill, baby, drill.

Any energy policy that will help produce more energy.

Mm.

When the Labor Party is looking at where they stand in the nation as a whole right now, are they saying, "Let's tr- let's, you know, move to the left to win over those voters? Or should we move to the center to stop Nigel Farage from continuing to surge in the polls?"

Well, the Labor Party is in a, in a, an extremely peculiar and bad position, considering what a position of strength it was in just a year ago.

They won a huge majority, uh, but they won a huge majority in a rather sort of freakish election because you had Reform on the right doing very well, and the Conservatives doing pretty badly.

I mean, historically the worst the Conservatives have ever done.

But the right vote was espe- was pretty much split, and so therefore Labor got a huge majority with actually not that big a share of the electorate, and they have had a disastrous year.

Uh, I think it's objectively fair to say, you talk to Labor people they would admit that it's been a disastrous year.

And what happened to the Conservative Party is, uh, it seems going to happen to Labor, which is a threat, an insurgent threat from the extreme end of the party, the left in this case, which is Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, who are these two...

What is the actual mood of the country?

Freddie, do you think Trump sees things this way, that negotiations are still open?

I don't think Trump thinks about negotiations so much.

As, as he says about trade, uh, "It's complicated and it's not complicated." Um, so I think as far as he's concerned, uh, they've got an agreement over the line, and it's for the minions and ministers to sort out the detail.

Um, I, I think it seems as though, judging from his appearance outside Turnberry, uh, just now, uh, it seems as though he's understood that the British government is keen to press him on Gaza.

Just before they went in, he turned to the cameras, he said, "We are going to talk about Gaza," because he'd slightly fobbed off questions.

Whether he sees eye to eye with, uh, Keir Starmer on, on that question is, is another matter.

Uh, I suspect probably not, judging from that.

Do you know where the president sort tends to stand now on this Israel and Gaza conflict?

Sure.

But they are, they are a, a legal anomaly, and, uh, I think that they're not ideal in many ways.

What this story really makes me think about is the sort of legacy of the war on terror.

Steve Saylor called it "invade the world, invite the world," and I think he was right.

It was a controversial thing to say when he said it, but, uh, this story very much ties into that.

After the war on terror, we started getting involved in a number of countries in ways that we shouldn't have done, military invent- interventions, uh, which backfired catastrophically, and we faced a population migration backlash from that, and this is a classic example of it.

And this, the fact that it's been covered up for so long speaks to how institutions, authorities knew that they had made big mistakes, um, and we're still living with the consequences.

Yeah.