But, like, if we're really gonna get this thing done, what are some, like, realistic things that have to happen in order for that next step?

Well, Donald Trump commands the most powerful military in the history of the world, and he has said, um, 53 times something to the effect of, uh, "The Ukraine war must end," or, you know, "Putin must stop." And, you know, again, and this, this, uh, energy ceasefire was the most recent one.

And, you know, Vladimir Putin has ignored him every time, you know? And they've, and they've spoken about peace, uh, 15 times on the phone and one time in person, and on each of those days that Donald Trump spoke to Putin, uh, about peace, Putin sent about on average 190 drones and missiles into Ukraine.

So again, Vladimir Putin doesn't care what Donald Trump has to say.

And, you know, uh, we've tried a lot of carrots in this deal.

We need to try a stick.

And, and, um, the most recent thing that, that the president has done is he is dismantling this Lindsey Graham sanctions bill.

It's not a very strong foreign policy for the United States there.

What are your thoughts?

Well, I'll tell you this.

Um, you know, Vladimir Putin has been supplying Iran with weapons.

Uh, the Iranian Shahed drones were first licensed to, uh, Russia.

Russia has been producing them for years.

They've hit 70,000 targets inside Ukraine with these Shahed drones, and they've improved them, made them faster, quieter, and carrying a heavy pay- heavier payload, uh, so that they can be more destructive.

They've given that technology back to the Iranians.

What, what kind of reactions have you heard coming from the Ukrainian people from that?

I love your take as CEO, talking to other CEOs, other leaders, kind of what is interesting when we think about applying AI to the operations of a hotel business?

Yeah.

So I think there's lots of places you can go with that.

There's lots of opportunities.

So I talked about the always on nature of insights.

There's budgeting and forecasting accuracy, which helps you plan better, helps you schedule better.

There's execution efficiency.

How do you think about this unique moment now?

Okay.

Great question.

And I think there is a lot of philosophical to go into, and it's interesting.

The headline is AI will transform everything, including hospitality.

So some of the things that we're doing, I mean, we're looking at it in a couple of different ways.

The most exciting thing we have is Altitude.

So you're a VP of operations, you're in an airport lounge, you're about to get on a flight, your owner asks you a question.

So where is all of this going to be headed? Where is this going? Ultimately, where do you hope this technology is going to take you so your customers could find more success?

yeah

yeah you know this is putin responding because there's moscow has been on fire four times in may and earlier in may there was 300 ukrainian drones that went into moscow and took out a bunch of military targets because the ukrainians hit military targets and the russians hit civilian targets and i uh and so um Yeah, and now the thing that I find frustrating is I had like 20 people at least reach out to me after those things in Kiev.

I didn't find that frustrating.

I love to hear from my friends.

What I found frustrating was that everybody knew about it.

And I said, well, did you hear about when Moscow was on fire four times in May? Oh, really? And so this is what the media is doing, man.

I don't know what it is, but for the media, like...

Comments on that unique and growing burgeoning relationship.

How do you get involved in the programme in the end?

I did a program called Going for a Song, which kind of came back with sort of like a panel game with Michael Aspel as the chairman.

Sorry, not Michael Aspel, Michael Parkinson, I should say, as the chairman.

And Eric Knowles became a friend of mine.

And I basically said to Eric, you know, how do you go on the Antiques Roadshow? And he said, oh, I'll introduce you to somebody.

So that was in 1997.

And they kind of tried me once and then never tried me again.

There's a lovely history of the humble dining fork while we're on the subject.

And so what is the real history of tea, Stephen?

Of tea? Oh, goodness me.

Where do you want to start? How long have you got? I know Irish people like the tea, as do I.

Well, tea came from China.

But when tea came from China, it came to Europe really in the second part of the 17th century.

But it was actually a big shock.

It was more popular in France than it was in Britain and Ireland at the time.

We're all dying to hear, Stephen.

(laughs)

So, you know, sometimes it's how you look at it.

And then the reason I can say with a high degree of confidence it's gonna happen is 'cause it has to happen.

You know, we can't allow taxes to go up $4 trillion next year.

Um, but, uh, look, I think this was Elon Musk just saying, "Where is the Doge savings in this budget," 'cause they aren't there.

And I'm a f- I am someone who wants to see the government downsize.

I want to see, uh, movement towards a balanced budget, um, but there are just, you know, the- the federal government will spend, was supposed to spend $87 trillion over the next 10 years.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, Steven, what do you make of how the president's carrying out his tariff policy? Do you think he's being careful enough in some of these instances to get what- what he says he wants which are these deals done with other countries?

Did your heart flutter last night, Steven, when you heard the first glimmer of what might be hope of a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia? Or do you think the whole thing has got a long, long way to go?

Yeah, I think this is a longer process than anyone might imagine.

I think that probably the, the Russians and Ukrainians know how long this process is gonna be.

I went to Ukraine on day five of the war.

Uh, I still live there, although clearly I'm not there now.

And you know what I've seen at the front, I've been to the front like 50 times, and we've talked to soldiers, we've talked to people that live there, and what's happened is there's like 25 peace agreements that Putin has broken.

We spoke to one soldier in 2014 during the Minsk agreements.

So if he wears a suit and becomes a businessman, doesn't he then lose so much credibility in the eyes of his Ukrainian people? Because he has come there to tell the story that Ukraine is the front line between Russia and the rest of Europe, not to fix a minerals deal for the US.