70. The Trump Bump: What’s Behind His Record Approval Ratings?

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Hello everyone, welcome to the Rest is Politics US live stream on this

Monday, lunchtime in Europe, early morning in America.

I'm Catty Kaye, and this is where I would hand over to Anthony, and he would say, and I'm Anthony Scaramucci,

but

we're having quite a little bit of technical difficulties getting Anthony hooked up.

So I'm afraid you've just got me for the moment.

And I want to run through these

extraordinary popularity numbers that Donald Trump had in a poll over the weekend, and then take a bunch of your questions.

Thank you so much again, all of you, for being founding members.

We have people from everywhere, all over the States, Sweden, the UK, Australia.

Lovely to have you with us.

Keep those questions coming, because what I'm going to do, since Anthony is not here and therefore won't be talking as much as he might normally, I'm going to try and get through as many of your questions as I can today.

This is going to be like a quiz for me.

But first, let's talk about those approval ratings because they are pretty stunning.

Donald Trump is at a record high approval rating at the moment.

He is at 47% approval.

He's never been that high.

And I guess the question is why?

Because particularly, maybe I'm feeling this being in Europe this week, which has been very interesting, the amount of antipathy, obviously, towards Donald Trump and fear in Europe about what he's doing to the transatlantic relationship.

But I think you can break down this popularity pretty easily.

And if you look at this poll, which is an NBC News poll, and then I've kind of gone through a bunch of other polls that have come out in the last week or so.

And broadly, Trump is getting positive marks for obviously the border and immigration, getting tough on immigration, getting tough on the border.

He is getting positive marks for cutting government spending.

This is proving very popular.

There's a bit of nuance here and I'll get into that.

But the idea when you ask people, do you want to cut government spending in America, that seems to be popular.

Remember that government spending, the government budget in the United States has gone up by 50% since before COVID, which is pretty stunning.

And I guess when a pollster comes along and says, hey, do you want to cut government spending?

A lot of Americans are saying yes, they like that idea.

Cutting the international development aid, also popular.

That will be disappointing to all of those who support the notion that America's aid around the world is actually a force for good, not just for the people who are receiving it.

And there was a really interesting article, by the way, guys.

Look it up.

Nicholas Kristoff in the New York Times has documented cases of people who have died since the US aid budget was cut.

And I know that Elon Musk has said that nobody has died since the aid budget was cut.

Nicholas Kristoff is coming up with the evidence that actually some people have died in Africa, mostly because they haven't been getting their HIV drugs.

So that's worth a read for you.

His position on transgender people, that executive order that he signed, that is popular.

The plans to expand oil and gas production, also popular.

So that's the kind of bucket of things that are popular.

Here are the things that are not popular that he's doing at the moment.

The economy.

And I think that is where the biggest threat lies for the White House, that he is not polling as well as he has wanted to.

Americans tend to feel he's not focused enough on the economy.

Some of the weirder stuff, maybe this shouldn't come of a surprise, taking over Panama, not apparently particularly popular, according to the Marquette poll.

Renaming the Gulf of Mexico, not massively popular.

Pardoning the January the 6th rioters, really not popular.

That is one where I think about 70% of Americans, and it depends which poll you're looking at, say that they didn't like that idea.

Elon Musk, so this is where the Doge stuff comes in.

The concept of Doge, of cutting government, is popular.

Elon Musk himself, not particularly popular.

And Anthony and I, when we get him back on Wednesday, I promise I haven't done anything to Anthony.

I really promise I haven't scared him away.

I don't think he's gone into hiding in an undisclosed location, but we are having problems with his technology.

When we get that sorted, and he may join us in this episode,

we will talk about Elon Musk, I promise you,

on Wednesday when we get together again.

They don't like the way that he's doing it, basically.

They don't, and they also, polls suggest that people don't like his influence.

They think he has too much influence in the White House.

I think that's important to note.

And then actually, this is interesting to me too.

Another thing that is not popular is removing the reference to climate change, Martin Luther King Day, Black History Month.

Americans seem to be a little dubious about whether that's a great idea.

So although we have seen polls, and I've talked about them before, for Democrats showing that climate change as a policy is something that is very difficult for Democrats to run on successfully, people don't necessarily like the fact that it's blanket being removed from all of these federal agencies' websites and that there's this kind of a cull going on.

So that's a kind of broad run through of the things that seem to be popular or unpopular.

I kind of frame it why when you ask why do Americans

broadly seem to like what Donald Trump is doing and particularly Republicans, there is a huge divide.

Maybe that's not a surprise.

90% of Republicans approve of what Donald Trump is doing and only 4% of Democrats approve of what Donald Trump is doing and there has never been such a big gap between one party and another in terms of approval.

I think the most interesting number there is that only 10% of Republicans say they don't approve.

So the idea that there is a

groundswell of silent country club Reaganite Republicans out there who don't like what Donald Trump is doing, as there was in the first term, that just doesn't seem to be true at the moment.

The Republican Party is very much in the MAGA camp at the moment.

If Democrats are looking for some good news, and this poll is shocking for Democrats, I mean, Democrats are at their lowest approval rating, as we spoke about on our podcast on Friday this week.

Democrats are at their lowest approval rating in decades.

I think in one poll, though, they're at their lowest approval rating ever.

So, Democrats have a ton of soul-searching to do and a ton of outreach to do.

And first of all, they need to get their own act together.

And we saw that over the course of the last few days, even in the House, House, when the Senate approved of the stopgap funding bill, causing an outcry amongst younger members of the Democratic Party who feel that the party is not doing nearly enough to fight back against Trump.

And I think that's kind of where this civil war is taking place.

Those who feel that the party needs to do a lot more to fight Trump and those who feel they need to accommodate.

So, not much good news for the Democrats.

But, okay, if you were to phrase this polling differently,

more Americans say that America is on the right track than the wrong track, and that is the first time in 20 years, another thing that Democrats are not liking the look of.

But it's still a minority of Americans who feel the country is on the right track.

44%.

I feel like I'm sort of

kind of giving some numbers to what Anthony was talking about, about the things that he's feeling more positive about in terms of a pushback against Donald Trump and some of his actions.

Still a minority of Americans, 44%, feel the country's on the right track.

Donald Trump, less popular at this stage of his presidency than every single president since John F.

Kennedy.

The only president that he is more popular than, any guesses out there, that's himself in his first term.

So at this stage in his first term, he had 46% approval rating.

He now has a 47% approval rating.

But you go, I mean, Barack Obama was 10% more popular, 10 points more popular than he is at the moment, 57 points.

I mean,

he is historically still very unpopular.

I think why people have really latched on to this poll, though, is the kind of fact that after all of this

tumult of the last,

what are we in now?

I can't even remember, guys.

What are we in?

Seven weeks?

Of his presidency, people might, particularly from abroad, might have thought he would be very unpopular, but he clearly isn't.

Here's my little moniker for how I phrased it.

If you want to kind of understand why he's unpopular and why he's not unpopular, it's CAS, CAS.

For those people who like what he's doing, he represents change, action, and strength.

But Democrats might see that same CAS as chaos, aggression, and subversion, subversion of a democracy.

And I think it's interesting how the same attributes that are seen as positive by one group of the country are seen negatively by another group of the country.

So I think, you know,

it was interesting for me to dive into those polls a little bit and see what is going on.

The thing that Democrats need to focus on, I think, still is the economy.

The thing that is the biggest liability for Donald Trump is the economy.

At the moment, Americans are giving Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt.

or

more Americans are giving Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt over inflation than are critical of him.

They're prepared to give him a bit of time to enact what is a kind of revolution in the American economy that we've spoken about so many times.

But let's see how long that lasts.

Inflation, of course, killed the Democrats in the last election.

Let's see what happens to it in this election, see how much

time Americans are prepared to give him.

Okay, we're going to take a quick break and come back with your questions.

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This is from Robin Hadley.

Love this question, Robin.

Hey, KNA, how long can Trump et al.

ignore court rulings, re-deportations, etc.?

I think, Robin, you're referring to the story that's kind of come up over the weekend, actually just last night, of these Venezuelan

alleged gang members who were deported to El Salvador despite

a last-minute judge's ruling saying that they couldn't be deported, and if the planes had taken off, they had to be sent back again.

You're right that there is a big concern amongst constitutional lawyers today, kind of as we're speaking, I've been in touch with some of them

who are saying that if we are looking for evidence that Donald Trump is going to challenge the rule of the courts, this is the first time that we've seen it.

So, a judge specifically said the planes couldn't take off, and if they had taken taken off, they had to turn back again.

The White House apparently had a conversation, the reporting is, about whether they should comply with that judge's ruling, and then they decided to go ahead.

The argument the White House is putting out is that the planes were in international water, and therefore the judge's ruling didn't apply.

Lots of people who are much more savvy about tracking flights than I am are debating whether that is actually the case.

Were the planes actually in international water?

And one of the big things that's blowing up online this morning is actually all these plane tracking services and where were the planes and were they international waters or were they in American waters anyway the White House decided that it could go ahead and I think the decision the political decision the White House made was that they would not lose many popularity points from deporting a whole load of guys with tattoos so there's two questions due process do we know that these were gang members and violent people or were they just associated in some way because they had these tattoos and so the White House was reading into it when actually some of them may have been forced to get their tattoos.

We don't know any of this because there's no due process for these guys.

They haven't been through a court procedure.

Are all of them illegal?

Again, what was the due process?

How do we know who these people actually are?

But the one that is concerning constitutional scholars the most, and I have spoken to previously to constitutional scholars on the right who are very conservative, who are also watching this, is the question of the rule of law.

Is this White House going to defy a court ruling?

And this is the first test case we've had of that.

So let's see what happens with this one and how much it plays out and whether they carry on defying court rulings.

The big one will be if it goes to the Supreme Court and the court rulings are defied by the White House, that is when I think a lot of people will say, yes, America is officially in a constitutional crisis, whatever.

That means practically, we'll have to see.

Okay, so a question.

Last Trump term, there was an alliance of democratic states on climate primarily.

Is there any chance of that kind of alliance?

Now that's that's coming from Daniel von Siddo.

Daniel, I hope I pronounced that right.

I don't see a breakdown.

We've spoken, right, about the split in the Democratic Party between

progressives and centrists.

That is more of a fault line than between states.

I do think the governors of the Democratic states, although several of them are going to run for the presidency, so let's see how long the harmony lasts, right, guys?

They might start start attacking each other at some point.

But I think that is more of a

split between centrists and progressive than it is between states.

The Democratic states are all pretty much aligned in wanting to oppose Donald Trump.

It's just a question of how they do it.

And you'll see Democratic states standing up to more or less of a degree on issues like immigration, on giving safe harbor to immigrants, for example, on social security and Medicaid if those things start to come under attack, welfare states.

Okay, let's do another one.

Could you explain how President Trump is able to make significant policy decisions without obtaining approval from Congress or the Senate?

If the executive branch can bypass them, then what is their purpose?

This is from Caro Greenhow.

Caro, you're asking exactly the question that a lot of Americans ask about Congress.

What is the point of Congress?

Which is probably why Congress has approval ratings at what, I think, even lower than the Democratic Party.

It was at about 12% last time I looked.

People really don't like their members of Congress.

Unfortunately, they like journalists even less.

That's a bit sad, but they really don't like members of Congress.

And partly because they don't see Congress as doing very much.

They just see them as spending money.

Well, the reason he's been able to do it is because of what we've seen with these executive orders: that Donald Trump, the president, and I wish we had Anthony here because he would be able to give you chapter and verse on this as a lawyer and historian.

The president has the right to pass executive orders, and he can do it on a range of issues,

and he can do it without the blessing of Congress.

And he has used those executive orders to enormous effect this time round.

But we're also seeing, and I think the deportation of the Venezuelans is another indication of this, that he used an obscure 1700s law that has only been used in the First World War and the Second World War

to

deport these people.

And if the President wants to kind of cherry-pick

laws that may have been controversial, may have been very old, may have been hardly ever used,

he can do.

And he can expand his powers along with the executive orders by invoking these acts that have already been passed.

Now, I think the biggest thing that we're learning, and we learned it with Donald Trump in his first term, but we're learning it again this time around, is that democracy is made up partly of rules and partly partly of customs and norms.

And if you have a president who is prepared to shed customs and norms, as Donald Trump has always been,

he has an enormous amount of power and can expand the power of the presidency in the way that most presidents don't, because they stick to the customs and norms, because they don't invoke this Aliens Act to deport Venezuelans.

They stick to the process of the due process of law.

And if a judge says you can't do something, then they don't do it.

And I think Donald Trump is really testing the limits of the system.

And that's how he's able to do it.

So it's executive orders and using laws that are on the books

and waiting to see if he gets challenged on them and just saying, okay, well, when the courts act, then

we'll do something about it.

But we're not going to respond

until we actually get really pushed.

Okay.

Let's see.

Can this is from Wendy Logan.

And I think Anthony is just joining us, which is very exciting.

So hold tight, everybody, and we'll get a few minutes with Anthony, too.

Oh,

first of all, I'm so sorry, Caddy, okay?

Well, I'm very glad you're here because I think everyone's very bored of me wittering on.

No, I am obviously not bored of you.

I was debating whether I should even come on, you know, last night at 3 a.m.

from a pouring tornado, thunderstorm, and so forth.

So I know there's no alibi, but I'm late.

So

I'd rather not tell people like the cat died or something like that.

I literally overslept.

You overslept.

Yes, I did.

You overslept.

But, you know, do you know who Wally Pipp is?

See, you probably don't know.

The Europeans don't know who Wally Pipp is.

Do you know who he is?

No, go ahead.

Okay, so Wally Pipp was the first baseman for the New York Yankees.

He got sick, and so they put Lou Gehrig in.

You may know who Lou Gehrig is, Lou Gehrig's disease, right?

The first baseman for the Yankees.

So he came in and he played 2,138 games and Wally Pipp never played again.

So are you replacing me?

Is this a solo podcast now or am I still out of job?

I'd like to say, having just cleaned up.

Claire says Anthony looks like he slept in.

Anthony slept in, Claire.

Okay, Anthony slept in.

And no one's made him coffee yet.

But you know, I always found like when I was in school and I was trying to get out of trouble, I would tell the truth.

Or like when I have a parking ticket.

That much better.

Right.

Or I mean a speeding ticket.

I said, look, I'm sorry.

You know, I overslept.

I'm sorry.

I feel terrible anyway we were chatting

I'm quite enjoying the fact that you overslept and you're feeling clearly a little embarrassed

also also

there they're Victoria there was no time to moisturize and you can tell I am missing my hair products right now okay I'm missing hair products so

yeah it's a rough it's it's rough

the only thing that's upsetting about this whole thing is how much Katie Kay is loving the fact that I overslept that's

I am kind of loving it, yeah.

I do think that everybody's very happy to have you here, though, now.

Although, Jenny, thank you very much.

Well done, Katty.

You've done really well holding on and answered the questions perfectly.

Well, I don't know if perfect is the answer.

I'm Wally Pibb, Jenny.

Can I just say, I have what I have learned, even though I did quite enjoy that, was

the there's your alarm finally going off.

Oh my gosh.

I sent the alarm for 8:30.

I thought this was 9 o'clock.

I'm really out of sorts right now.

I would have had time to moisturize if this was a nine o'clock live stream.

It's fine.

This is a lot more fun when you're with me.

So I'm glad that you've joined me.

Thank you.

Okay, do you okay?

Why don't you take some questions now, by the way?

I have earned our questions.

I don't know which ones you're taking.

Okay, can Europe and other players leave NATO and set up a new group?

Yeah, they could definitely do that.

I think they're probably like the U.S., there's probably some constitutional issues.

There could be parliamentarian things in Europe.

In the United States, for the United States to actually leave NATO, they'd have to petition the Senate.

And the Senate would then have to vote to revoke the treaty.

For those of you that remember your history from World War II, we signed the League of Nations Treaty.

We signed the Versailles Treaty, but it was never ratified by the U.S.

Senate.

So the Senate would have to pull us out.

I don't know what the laws are in Europe, but I would assume there'd have to be something like that.

I don't think it could unilaterally be done by a leader on his own.

Anthony, aren't I right right that Marco Rubio about a year and a half ago managed to slip

a

ruling through the Senate that made it harder for a future president to pull America out of NATO?

And I bet he was doing it

knowing that Donald Trump was going to be elected.

Now, of course, he's

increased the threshold number for the senators.

I think it's a 60 as opposed to a 51.

I'd have to go back and look, but but I think that, you know, John Bolton knows this stuff better than me, and I'm friends with John.

He's the former National Security Advisor.

John was very explicit about this.

Donald Trump told John Bolton, if I win a second term, I will figure out a way to pull us out of NATO.

And so

the response was, well, you can't do it without the Congress.

And Trump went back to him and said, yeah, but I'm the commander-in-chief.

I could do it through executive action.

In other words, I could just, if you were my Secretary of the Navy or Secretary of the Army, I could say, Caddy, stand down.

And he has the right.

He is the leader of the military forces.

He's civilian leader of the military forces.

You know, everything was excellently planned by these founders, except they didn't expect the arrival of Donald Trump 250 years after the Declaration of Independence.

And so now you have this weird situation.

And by the way, Caddy, I don't know if anybody brought this up to you,

but

the New York Post, which is one of our tablets here

in the U.S., is saying, and the NBC poll, this is an NBC poll.

This is what we were talking about at the beginning when you said that.

Okay, yeah.

So, I mean, maybe it's already been brought in up, but

I think people need to know that there's a good part of America that believes in disengagement.

Donald Trump has been on the disengagement chant for almost nine years now.

And so, you know, if we're going to restore America's engagement, we've got to get a leader in place that can actually explain to America the value of that engagement.

One of the reasons why I'm late this morning is I spoke last night in West Palm Beach to maybe 250 people at a country club.

And it was mixed.

It was 50-50.

If you said to people, should America be engaged, it was 50-50.

And these are, you know, very educated people, very, you know, high net worth people, as we would say, in my industry.

So I worry about that, frankly, if it was just being brutally honest with our viewers and listeners, that there's a if I'm a year, if I was a European leader, it's like, okay, America is actually split down the middle on whether or not it should be this big pillar in the post-World War II order, even right now.

And I speak for myself, and I think you agree with me.

I think you and I both think it's important for America to be

in that position and maintained its pillar status.

I would say it's actually important for America as much as possible.

It's very, very important for America.

It's very important for our dollar, very important for our engagement.

President Trump's going to watch international flow of capital diminish.

But then I asked a follow-up question.

It was 50-50 on that question, 250 people.

Then I asked the follow-up question.

So if this meant there would be more nuclear proliferation,

or or as George W.

Bush said, nuclear, nuclear.

Nuclear.

Remember how you said it?

Yeah, that was great.

But then it was 80-20.

So the cursor.

So they didn't like more nuclear.

The cursor thing is disengagement.

Interesting.

The secondary question is: okay, well, wait a minute, if that's what it really means, then maybe we don't want that.

But Anthony, we know that's what it can mean because the South Koreans, the Japanese, even the Polish, have already started talking about the need for their own nuclear security umbrella.

And I think most of the national security experts that I speak to, I mean, unless this White House thinks they're bluffing, but there's a significant number of national security experts who will say, no, this is what will happen.

And you start with a country like, and Poland's already said it outright, right?

We have to now think about having, so has South Korea.

So I don't think it's impossible to do.

I worry about it, but I have to take James Leeson's question.

Is that okay?

Because it's a market-based question.

Yes.

And I showed up late.

So, James, thank you for coming to Drury Lane.

That's me and Dominic.

The rest is assassinations.

Thank you for doing that.

The 10-year bond is nudging upwards.

Markets are off 7%, 8%.

What's the number that creates the black swan?

Okay, so I don't necessarily know if it's a number, James.

Wait, Anthony, for people who are listening who aren't market people, explain James's question.

Okay, so

basically James's question.

So basically the 10-year bond, which is the U.S., this is basically how the U.S.

finances its deficit.

And so that bond is an important number for the U.S.

As an example, if I've got to borrow $7 trillion, which the U.S.

effectively has to do in the ensuing months, over the next six to eight months, the U.S.

is going to borrow, it's going to roll over its debt.

Think of yourself in a mortgage or a credit card or something like that.

So the U.S.

has to roll $7 trillion of debt in the next six to eight months.

And if it's rolling it at 5% interest, let's use that number, $7 trillion, it's $350 billion of annual interest.

So obviously the U.S.

would like to roll it at a 4%

number, which would be less interest, right?

$280 billion.

And so

what James is saying is that Trump is causing havoc in the marketplace and he's getting the 10-year bond to go up in value.

Interest rates are actually going down a little if you look at the 10-year.

And so, what James is saying is, you know, he's taken the market down, but he's also taken interest rates down.

There are some people that think that's slightly better for U.S.

government borrowing.

But is there some kind of catastrophe coming?

So, what is a black swan?

A black swan is: we usually see white swans in nature.

Nassim Teleb, about 15 years ago,

wrote a book called The Black Swan.

And what does that mean?

That's something that happens outside of our realm.

It happens once in a while.

It's the white deer, like in Game of Thrones, or the black swan is something that happens once in a while.

A black swan would be the housing crisis in 2008, as an example.

A black swan would be the great margin pressure and sell-off in the 1929 stock market crash.

And so, what's the number that creates the black swan?

And I think what James is saying is if the market goes down 10 or 15 percent, will it trigger that sort of cascade global financial crisis?

I don't think 10 or 15 percent is enough, James.

It would probably have to be 20 or 25.

But what could trigger that is some type of additional inter-theater warfare in Ukraine.

If you said to me that the French are coming in there, if you said to me that the Poles feel like that

they feel threatened, I think additional warfare in that theater could really touch off a broad-based market sell-off.

Aaron Powell, that's interesting that you say that, Anthony, because I remember when war broke out in Ukraine

and the markets actually didn't flinch, and there was a lot of speculation about the degree to which you had geopolitical events around the world.

Actually, it wasn't just Ukraine, but in the Middle East uncertainty in other areas, and markets for a while just seemed to say, fine, we'll price geopolitics into

our rise, and we're just going to keep on rising, notwithstanding.

And I think a lot of us, given the impact what we thought that

it would have on energy prices, that we thought that would have might potentially have on food prices

and fertilizer, and

it didn't seem to do that.

So, what makes you think this time around

it would be Ukraine and French and British troops being in there that could trigger that?

Okay, because of the lack of stability and the lack of predictability in the American government.

Again, Joe Brown.

It's the lack of stability here in the U.S.

Yeah, it would be the unpredictability.

So remember, what markets hate is unpredictability.

So if you're going to war in February of 2022 and Joe Biden is fortifying NATO, He's bringing the Lions together and you're putting U.S.

troops, 101st airborne is in Poland.

People are like, okay,

this is going to be a inter-theater European war.

We don't like it.

The market did sell off a little, but the alliance is holding and the Americans are letting you know that they're going to be there to try to force a peaceful settlement and a quote-unquote predictable outcome, as predictable as something can be in war.

But if you're telling me that something else is going to happen, okay, then it becomes like a guns of August situation.

And that, of course, was the Archduke of Ferdinand's assassination.

There was a lot of different haywire reactions to that, which touched off a much broader war.

And so that, you know, it's a great question, James.

I think it would have to be a 25% sell-off.

Remember,

the other thing that we have in the U.S.

is where rates are right now, you could see 50, 100 basis point cut in rates to try to stabilize the markets.

But, Caddy, anybody listening that is a market participant knows that the on-again, off-again tariffs, the capricious nature of what Trump is saying, and then his minions like Besent and Rubio and Luttnick running around, and you could see it in their faces, they don't believe anything that he's doing, but they're running around trying to catch the water as it's coming through the roof.

That's stuff that markets don't like.

Yeah, I watched Percent this weekend on Meet the Press, and I didn't think he was particularly convincing.

And I think his arguments saying, Oh, well,

when he was asked about whether people should be concerned about the downtick in the markets, and obviously, if that's your retirement savings and you were on the edge of retiring or you are retired, then that is worrying.

But he didn't seem to have much empathy for those folks.

Prior to my arrival, was this like an incredibly optimistic broadcast with the question and answers?

Am I like throwing a wet blanket on it?

Because if I am, I don't mean to be.

I'm just trying to answer the question.

Because Luis Bowling Thunder 250.

She's coming in with some great questions here about

this, you know.

Yeah, this is a very good thread, and it's been bubbling during the chat.

So before we go, let's just talk about that because you talked about Ukraine.

And there is clearly, Louise is saying, I believe that the Chinese Navy warships circuit.

This, wait a minute, because the question is, we talk a lot about US and Europe, but

what about the US and the Pacific?

Is there a good relationship between the US and Australia and New Zealand to be willing to help if, God forbid, China tries something?

And then Louise Boyling jumped in.

I believe that the Chinese Navy warships circumnavigated Australia in the last week.

What does that tell us about the Pacific?

Linked to Thunder two hundred fifty's question.

And I think actually you talked about Ukraine.

I think we're not paying enough attention to what's happening in the Pacific.

I mentioned how the Japanese and the South Koreans

I know, they're having discussions about whether they need to beef up their own security umbrellas and look at the possibility of having nuclear weapons themselves.

You're right, there were Chinese warships and submarines off the coast of Australia in the last week.

We all remember the deal that was done between the UK and the US and the Australians on nuclear submarines.

That the Biden administration, I think, actually was one of the things they did very well was they focused a lot on those Pacific allies, on tightening the ties with South Korea, Japan, Philippines, Australia, even though it pissed off the French.

And there is a feeling now in Asia as well.

I mean, we've been talking so much about Europe, and I'm in Vienna talking to you at the moment, Austria, where Trump, guess what, Anthony, only subject of conversation, Jesus Christ, I come away for a weekend, and can you get away from Donald Trump?

No.

They are talking about Donald Trump more in Vienna, Austria than they are back in Washington, D.C.

at the moment.

It's insane.

But I think we've spoken a lot about Europe.

We should be watching Asia carefully because there's a lot of tensions bubbling up there.

Again,

I'm going to take the position, an optimistic position, that the U.S.

alliance holds.

I think that Trump's political power will weaken as we get closer to the congressional midterm.

So I'll take the position that we'll be okay.

Australians know that the U.S.

has Marines in Darwin.

Australians know that we're fortifying that area with subs, and we're also...

Exactly, and we're also in the area.

So I'll take the position that it holds.

I think it would be a nightmare for the U.S.

if

you went into this tripolar world.

I do think there's a smart enough people.

If Trump wants a tripolar world where China controls Taiwan into New Zealand and Australia just takes that sleeve for itself and and and Russia gets its requisite sleeve which looks a little bit like

it's not impossible because we saw after 2008 the relationship with Australia and China got much closer and the Australians were welcoming the Chinese into Australia in terms of investment and they maintained a good relationship

after COVID that the relationship fell apart and the strains started to show so I don't think we should take it as guaranteed that no no listen I got yelled at in 2012 on Heyman Island.

Have you ever been to Heyman Island?

No, I've never been to Heyman Island.

It's a really beautiful resort.

I was speaking at a conference there.

I've never been to Australia.

Never been in Australia.

We have to get you down to Australia.

Probably one of the most beautiful places in the world, as is New Zealand.

But anyway, I got yelled at in 2012.

It was 13 years ago.

I said, listen, you know, you guys are lovely-dovey with the Chinese, but that is a northern empire that is starving for natural resources.

And anytime a northern empire starves for national resources, they move south.

If you don't believe me, look at what the

British government did to Africa during the colonial era.

And so, so, yeah, you know, listen, I think that the United States's security umbrella has proven to be generally, not without mistakes, but generally a force for peace and stability.

And

I'm finding it hard to believe that we're going to break all of that just for this one man.

But maybe Nino is right.

It's personalities, not principles that move the age, which comes from Oscar Wilde.

Maybe

Nino's right.

We're going to wrap up, but David Moore is just asking one last question.

How do we both manage to stay sane in the face of

the new normal in US politics?

I used to be a news junkie, but I find myself increasingly unable to watch it play out.

But you two must live it daily.

We do live it daily.

Okay, here's my little treat that I gave myself.

I'm here in Vienna visiting friends who live here, Austrian friends, and they very kindly invited me to the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

Do you speak German as well, Katie?

I'm just sorry.

I don't.

I did German in high school until the age of 14, and I can pretend my Swiss grandmother was always speaking.

The seven languages, the 180 IQ, the British accent.

I thought you were just talking about it.

I thought you were going to rub that in, too, but go ahead.

No, my grandmother was Swiss and Swiss German, and she did speak Spitzer Deutsch and was always very shocked that her grandchildren did not.

I mean, a bit like you, your grandparents spoke Italian, and your Italian is, of course, immaculate, perfect, but

they wouldn't let us speak it.

So, and anyway, that is how you stay.

How do you stay calm?

I went to the, I mean, things like that.

So, I was, given I'd never been to the, have you ever been to the, I know you love classical music and your daughter is an opera singer, but it was just a dream.

And you take the moments of,

you know, stepping away from it all that you can and enjoy those like you did with your family last week.

And just going to the Philharmonic was beautiful, and the music was sublime.

And I felt so lucky to be there.

Unfortunately, I've not been there.

I've been to other venues like that in

Germany.

I think that's the big message.

Tune it out.

Dial into the light of your life that's important to you.

Trump wants to get in your melon.

He's a melon splitter.

He wants to get right in there, force him out of your melon.

And then again, if you want to fly with me on a rainy night with tornadoes and the plane is bouncing like crazy and you're looking out the window and you're seeing lightning crackle in the clouds, you're like, I don't care about Donald Trump.

Just get me on the ground, okay?

And the other thing is I landed in Monmouth, New Jersey last night at 3 a.m., which was a two-hour ride to my house.

So I know people are like, okay, it was, you know, high-class problem and so forth.

But if you have other things in your life and you start your life with gratitude every morning that you're just living and around your family and people you love, you'll be just fine.

That's my message.

I was just so glad to be on the ground last night.

Great way to write.

Good reminder.

Then, of course, I overslept.

I felt like this was like a final exam that I missed in college, actually.

You ever have that nightmare where you're like sleeping through the exam?

Still.

I still have the.

If my wife didn't turn me, don't you have like a live stream going on right now?

I said, what?

What?

Ah!

I still have that nightmare that I'm about to sit down and write an essay about a novel that I've never read or ever heard of.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, that was this morning for me.

Thank you from Venice.

Thank you for joining us.

Thank you for waking up.

Thank you for bailing us out.

Okay, we will see you again, guys.

We'll be back next Monday with another live stream.

We will see you as well on Friday with our regular podcast.

We'll be back on Sunday.

You cannot get rid of us without for our founding members.

Thank you again, all of you, for being founding members.

If you would like to encourage your friends to join,

and that will also make sure that Anthony gets out of bed.

You can find us, of course, at therestispoliticsus.com to become a founding member.

Thank you so much for tuning in, guys.