124. Why Trump Is Secretly Rooting for Mamdani

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Speaker 1 Welcome to The Rest is Politics, U.S., with me, Katie Kay, on Halloween Eve. And I'm very disappointed, Anthony Scaramucci, that you have not come in a costume.

Speaker 2 What is your costume? What is this costume? Okay.

Speaker 2 Why don't you describe it to people that are not on YouTube, okay?

Speaker 1 I've got this great red hat which says Mooch 2028 and this t-shirt which says I'm with stupid and an arrow pointing it that I have to say before anyone thinks I'm really mean.

Speaker 1 The arrow is pointing at Anthony. I have to say that too.

Speaker 2 Because of the Randy definition from last week. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Your wife bought me this and sent it to me because you kept digging a hole around the Randy definition and she thought that was hysterical.

Speaker 1 This is Deirdre's t-shirt and instigation, but I have to say, I think it's a pretty good costume. I think it's a sort of mooch MAGA women look, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah, you're mocking. It's a blonde conspiracy against me and it's mocking me.
It's fine. I'm just going to read a text from my wife before we get the show started.

Speaker 2 Caddy, I bought Anthony a similar t-shirt that had the arrow pointing straight up to his face, but it didn't get here on time. Okay, I made a mistake on the definition of Randy.

Speaker 2 It's unbelievable the amount of, it's unbelievable.

Speaker 1 It is the only thing that people mentioned to me about that podcast.

Speaker 2 Anyway, for those of you on YouTube, you could probably see that. It says I'm with Stupid and there's an arrow pointing straight up.

Speaker 2 So just imagine me wearing that as I'm describing the word Randy to people.

Speaker 1 I think the next time we do a show in the UK or in the US, we go on stage with this, these two t-shirts. You with I'm with Stupid pointing at your face, and I'll go on with this one.

Speaker 2 You guys are winning in the immortal words of Charlie Sheen. Winning.
What do you want to talk about today?

Speaker 1 So we are going to talk today about the upcoming elections. It's election day in America next Tuesday.

Speaker 1 It's always that exciting time of year when it's the first Tuesday in November and you've got to have elections somewhere. So there's very important elections in New York for the mayor.

Speaker 1 We've all spoken about that, Mamdani, Zoran Mamdani. There's also elections we think you should watch in New Jersey and Virginia for the gubernatorial seats for the governor's mansions.

Speaker 1 I'm interested to see what you think about what those elections and the results of them are going to tell us about the 2028 race, because I think that's really what these elections are all about.

Speaker 1 And then we will talk about Donald Trump's trip to Asia and his amazing 12 out of 10 meeting with Xi Jinping. And as he lands back in Washington, D.C., we'll...

Speaker 1 have a quick look at what that trip may or may not have yielded. So let's start, Anthony.
You're in New York City right now. Your city, your fair city, is going to the polls next Tuesday.

Speaker 1 Give us a quick sort of overview of the state of the race four or five days out.

Speaker 2 So early polling has started, Caddy, and the early polling numbers are up. And so

Speaker 2 you typically get about a million people. There's probably three and a half million eligible voters.
Maybe a little more than that, but that's roughly what it is.

Speaker 2 You get a million people to vote in a mayoral election. In 1989, we had almost 2 million people show up, and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani won by two points.

Speaker 2 So just to give you a sense for how democratic the city is, you had to have a massive turnout. And then Giuliani was only able to win by 2%.

Speaker 2 And so

Speaker 2 if early polling is an indication, it's going to be a very big turnout. And then the question is, will the older voters pull Andrew Cuomo to victory?

Speaker 2 And, you know, I'm an Andrew Cuomo supporter, but I want to be objective here. The polymarkets have him at a 14% chance up from four.

Speaker 2 So they look at the early voting, and it's sort of swung slightly towards him. But if you look at the Emerson poll,

Speaker 2 and historically, the Emerson poll has been sort of this blended poll. It's been very hard to get too far away from it.

Speaker 2 Andrew Cuomo is 8 to 13 points, depending on which sleeve and category of that poll. And usually you fall inside of that poll.
So it seems an unlikely victory for Andrew.

Speaker 2 This would have to be one of those

Speaker 2 Harry Truman beating Dewey back in 1948. It would have to be that sort of an election.
So, what say you about that election? What's your guess?

Speaker 1 Look, my guess is that Mamdani wins. He's run this campaign, which has been very effective on social media.
He's been very on message about affordability.

Speaker 1 He has promised things to New Yorkers that are very populist but from the left, kind of rent control for New Yorkers, free buses for New Yorkers, free childcare for New Yorkers, all of those things kind of popular.

Speaker 1 They are the sort of populist left equivalent. Whether he can deliver on them, I think is another question.

Speaker 1 I think it's going to be really interesting to watch to see how he actually governs over the next year. Cuomo has not run an exciting campaign.
I've watched the debates and watched some of his ads.

Speaker 1 It feels old and feels a bit stale, to be honest. It feels very traditional compared to this next generation.
He's got charisma, ma'am Dani, and I don't think Cuomo has an awful lot of that.

Speaker 1 And then, of course, you've got this wild card of Curtis Sleewer, who is the 71-year-old founder of the Guardian Angels, who's running in the race, and that probably hurts Andrew Cuomo's chances as well.

Speaker 1 I think the New York race is very interesting to see what happens, how much Mamdani wins by.

Speaker 1 But I think it's also worth thinking New York is not the rest of the country.

Speaker 1 And that's why I also want to talk about these other races in Virginia and New Jersey, which are more like the rest of the country. Mam Dani can't win in Ohio

Speaker 1 or probably Michigan or eastern Pennsylvania. He can't.
He's a candidate that's a representative of New York City.

Speaker 1 So how much do you think we learn about 2028 from the, first of all, from the New York race?

Speaker 2 I think it's bad.

Speaker 1 What do you mean by bad?

Speaker 2 Well, I think it's bad. I think that this is, you know, the signal versus the noise.
I think this will be a signal to the left. This will be a signal to the Democratic Party.

Speaker 2 AOC will get out there and champion the narrative that we're just not left enough.

Speaker 2 In our search for a more perfect form of socialism or in our search for a perfect form of harder left-leaning attitudes in the United States, we haven't gone left enough.

Speaker 2 And so Mondami going left like this is a sign that the rest of us would go hard left. And we need a hard left.
presidential candidate. I think that's what they'll say.

Speaker 2 Now, Europeans listening in or Australians will say, no, you know, Mondami's sort of a center left person as it relates to the way Europeans may think or even Australians.

Speaker 2 But I'll just point out in our country, it's too far to the left. You know, this is still a religious country.
I try to point that out to people that are more secular now.

Speaker 1 Although church attendance is declining in America, as it is everywhere.

Speaker 2 Church is declining, but there's a very still strong

Speaker 2 religious orthodoxy in the center of the country. As you and I have talked about, we have America, then we have Merca, and Merka is still very Christian caddy.
And so

Speaker 2 I think this will be a mistake. And remember, this is an electoral college situation for the presidency.
You're not battling just in the coastal cities.

Speaker 2 You got to go into the center of the country, and you got to beat the other candidate through the electoral college system.

Speaker 2 And so a hard left move here by the Democrats is, frankly, exactly what Trump would want. He has said that from the Oval Office.
This is be great for us. We could use this as a punching bag situation.

Speaker 2 Of course, hard left mayors have crippled urban centers in the United States. I could point to Detroit and San Francisco, etc.

Speaker 1 I mean, that's interesting because I think in a way for the Democrats, the fact that Mamdani could become mayor, does he get sworn in immediately or he has to wait till January, I assume?

Speaker 2 January 1st. He's sworn in on January 1st, yep.

Speaker 1 So he comes in in January. He would have a year and a half as mayor, more than a year and a half, almost two years as mayor mayor before the 2028 elections.

Speaker 1 By which time, and this is why I think you're right to mention AOC, because I think she has a ton riding on this race, by which time voters will have a chance to see whether he can deliver, right?

Speaker 1 Can he actually govern? Because if he can't govern, I think that actually potentially damages the left of the party.

Speaker 1 It makes AOC's bid for the nomination harder if she has aligned herself with somebody like Mamdani and he can't deliver.

Speaker 1 If he delivers and New Yorkers are happy with him and his poll ratings are high, then I think you're right. There's a push to get a and it's interesting how populist he is.

Speaker 1 I mean, he is populist in the way that Donald Trump is populist, but there'll be a push to get somebody more from the okay, I can't actually talk with this song because it's just, I can't take myself seriously.

Speaker 2 Well, I was going to say,

Speaker 2 if you left the mooch 2028 hat on longer, I'm going to actually run for president to punish Steirdre, and I'm going to put you in the cabinet. I'm going to put you in the cabinet.

Speaker 2 This way you could really suffer alongside of all these other bozos in Washington.

Speaker 1 So this is the mooch 2028 hat has to go away because it's just, you know, I'm trying to be serious here.

Speaker 2 Okay, you're trying to be serious with the I'm with stupid Halloween costume.

Speaker 1 I know you like it.

Speaker 2 I'm okay. My ego is recovering.
You know, my ego.

Speaker 2 You know, in the last 18 months, you've done significant damage to my ego, but I'm fine.

Speaker 1 Therapists will like that.

Speaker 2 But back to this topic, okay? Yes. Is this a signal that the Democrats will take with them to 2028 and they will be presenting to you a hard left presidential candidate? Yes or no?

Speaker 1 I think no, because I think the Democrats in the end realize you have to win elections and a Mamdani character would find it figure with his policies.

Speaker 1 would find it very difficult to win in some of those more purple states.

Speaker 1 I do think I had a conversation with a Democrat who had been pretty senior on the Harris campaign recently and had worked on the 2016 campaign as well.

Speaker 1 And she was saying to me, look, in 2016 and 2020 and even 2024, Democrats basically brushed populism and the left of the party kind of under the rug. They sort of put a band-aid on the problem.

Speaker 1 When Bernie ran in 2016, they did what they could to make sure he didn't become the candidate. And they thought that a centrist like Hillary Clinton was going to be the answer.

Speaker 1 And I think there is now a recognition in the party that you can't just ignore the voices of younger Americans and more progressive Americans.

Speaker 1 So, the question then is: who is the candidate who could have some crossover appeal, who doesn't make younger Americans, who, by the way, tipped Joe Biden into the White House in 2020 and helped Donald Trump win in 2024, doesn't make those people think this is same old, same old.

Speaker 1 We're going to get another politician who says all these things and actually doesn't deliver, and there's no energy about them, and they don't understand social media.

Speaker 1 And I think there will be some of that in whoever is the candidate for 2028.

Speaker 2 Let me ask another question. Okay,

Speaker 2 the mayor's race here in New York,

Speaker 2 Andrew Cuomo has raised 4x

Speaker 2 what Zoran Mandani has raised. So what is that telling you now about money and campaigns?

Speaker 1 Well, Hillary Clinton raised more than Donald Trump in 2016.

Speaker 1 And we don't have President Hillary Clinton. So money is important, but it's not the game changer in a world of social media where you and I can do television with a kind of iPhone, right?

Speaker 2 It's the great equalizer is social media. So just think of the,

Speaker 2 he's gone to print, he's gone to TV, which is old-fashioned style campaigning. And Mr.

Speaker 2 Bandani has gone to Instagram and TikTok, very successful, which is young fashion, not old fashion, young fashion, and it's working. And it's a way cheaper delivery system.

Speaker 2 And so this is also going to be a big factor. Trump gets this better than anybody.
He was ran in 16 on Twitter. He ran on 24 on podcasting.
He gets it better than anybody.

Speaker 2 But let's let's switch over to the gubernatorial race, which is up here too, because there's a fight between a MAGA person, this is John Cittarelli, and a sort of mainstream Democrat, Mikey Sherrill.

Speaker 2 Who do you think is going to win that?

Speaker 1 You're talking about the New Jersey race, because there's also the Virginia race, which is between a MAGA-type person and a moderate as well.

Speaker 1 And what's interesting about these two races together, Virginia and New Jersey, is that you have the opposite, you have the alternative path, right, for the Democratic Party.

Speaker 1 You've got in New York, you've got the Mamdani, the progressive populist.

Speaker 1 And in New Jersey and Virginia, both of those more purple states now, you have candidates who represent the center of the Democratic Party.

Speaker 1 I think in both states, the Democrat wins, certainly in Virginia. Maybe New Jersey is a little tighter.
I think the polls have... tightened in the last few days.

Speaker 1 But the question for me will be who, what are the margins in Virginia?

Speaker 1 If Abigail Spamberger, who is running in Virginia, outperforms Kamala Harris's performance in 2024, that will, again, give Democrats an argument for saying, you see, if we want to win Purple States, this is the kind of candidate.

Speaker 1 She's a former CIA analyst like Mikey Sherrill, right, former national security background as well.

Speaker 2 Let me push back on Virginia, get you to react. But Virginia is different.

Speaker 2 Virginia, Northern Virginia, is loaded with civil servants, governmental officials, governmental employees, some of which got stung badly by the actions of Elon Musk and Donald Trump through Doge.

Speaker 1 And the government shutdown.

Speaker 2 And the government shutdown. So do you think that that's overly tipping the scales? That's not the country.
That's not reflective of the country. Or do you think it is reflective of the country?

Speaker 1 I think it's more reflective of the country than New York City. Spamberger has made a big play to go out into farming areas.

Speaker 1 You're right that there is a big federal worker liberal bias population in northern Virginia in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.

Speaker 1 But I spend a lot of time in Virginia. I go every weekend.

Speaker 1 You only have to go an hour outside of Washington and you are in much more rural, much more conservative America of farmers who are also being hit, by the way, at the moment by things like imports of Argentine beef that they don't like because it's big beef farming.

Speaker 1 And she has made a play to go out in those areas. And I think what she has done is she has relentlessly tied her campaign.
It hasn't been a particularly exciting campaign.

Speaker 1 I'm going to be honest, I've watched some of it. She's relentlessly tied it to the issue of affordability and economics and kitchen table issues.

Speaker 1 And she has tried very hard to steer away from any issues around identity. Her opponent is trying to slam her with ads at the moment saying, Abigail Spamberger is for they, them, I'm for us and you.

Speaker 1 And also to slam her with kind of transgender and boys competing in women's sports. But she has pushed back against that by pivoting constantly to economics.

Speaker 2 You have a home in Virginia, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, we rent a place out in Virginia.

Speaker 2 Okay, so Glenn Young, who is the conservative Republican, can't run for re-election. Has he helped or hurt the Republicans' chances in Virginia?

Speaker 1 That's a good question. I think actually Glenn Young has not been a bad governor for Virginians.
I mean, he ran much more on cultural issues, on

Speaker 1 free choice for parents in schools, on parents to be allowed to get more involved and to stop leftward drift in the schooling system.

Speaker 1 And I think that was popular in that election cycle. But he hasn't been that much of a figure.
I mean, I think Earl Sears, who Abigail Spamberger is running about, is a forceful MAGA type.

Speaker 1 And Yunkin is much more of a center, presents as a more centrist Republican, which is probably where Virginia is.

Speaker 2 Okay, so

Speaker 2 who's going to win that?

Speaker 1 I think Abigail Spamberger wins that.

Speaker 2 Okay, and who wins in New Jersey?

Speaker 1 I also think Mikey Sherrill wins in New Jersey. What do you think? Where are you putting it?

Speaker 2 Well, I think Mikey Sherrill is going to win as well because I just think at the end, it always tips towards the Democrat of New Jersey. But is this now a signal to Trump and to MAGA?

Speaker 2 Oh, wait a minute.

Speaker 2 We won handily in 2024. These are two pretty big states.
One is considered a swing state. I would say Virginia is still.

Speaker 2 Is that a signal?

Speaker 1 I think it's more of a signal to the Democratic Party. I don't see Donald Trump really responding in terms of policy to what happens in Virginia and New Jersey.

Speaker 1 He is pushing ahead, and we'll talk about it in the second half, with a very aggressive agenda, both domestically and at home.

Speaker 1 I don't see him suddenly thinking, oh, I'm going to row back on kind of ICE or National Guard in Washington, D.C.

Speaker 1 and Chicago and other cities, or I'm going to, you know, suddenly cede some of my control back to Congress because of these Democrats winning in New Jersey and Virginia. I don't see that happening.

Speaker 1 I mean, I think it is more of a signal to Democrats, and I think they'll be looking closely at numbers like, you know, what's the Hispanic turnout? How do Hispanic votes?

Speaker 1 The groups that got Donald Trump elected, Hispanics and young people, have seen the single biggest drop in support for Donald Trump since January.

Speaker 1 I mean, the poll numbers in those two groups are quite noticeable.

Speaker 1 So Democratic strategists are going to be looking at, wow, if Hispanics really have decided they don't like MAGA anymore and they don't like MAGA, Donald Trump because of the economy and because of immigration issues, then I think that gives whoever runs as a Republican some pause for thought.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's not going to be Donald Trump, I don't think, whatever Steve Bannon likes to say.

Speaker 2 So what do you think?

Speaker 2 I agree with all that. I think I'll answer this first and then see if you agree with me.

Speaker 2 I think that Trump wants Mandani to win, even though he said he would prefer the Democrat, because I think he doesn't care at this point.

Speaker 2 He thinks he'll use that as a battering ram going into the midterms.

Speaker 2 But I do think he wants the two Republicans to win in Virginia and in New Jersey because he has golf courses in both states and he would like to have that Republican connection in those two states, although he's gotten along pretty well with Phil Murphy.

Speaker 2 But that's what I think. What are your thoughts there?

Speaker 1 I mean, it was an interesting question that you asked me because I see these in terms of the impact on the Democratic Party. Party.

Speaker 1 What do you think the impact is on MAGA if Democrats do well in those two states?

Speaker 2 Well, you know, listen, I I I'm of the opinion that MAGA is fading. And I'll give you some more examples of this.
You you you brought this up to me via text that J.D.

Speaker 2 Vance is getting browbeaten by some of the senators, something that they would never do to Donald Trump. Right.

Speaker 2 There are four four senators have now broken from the ranks and they voted against the tariffs.

Speaker 2 And this is to point point out to people, this is a symbolic vote because it would have to be voted on in the House as well as the Senate.

Speaker 2 But the Senate now 5248 has voted against the Brazilian tariffs, which are crippling our food prices, and has voted against the Canadian tariffs.

Speaker 2 Now, just to point out to everybody procedurally, the House would have to then vote

Speaker 2 against those as well, which they say they won't vote on any of this stuff until March of 2026.

Speaker 2 And then, of course, the President would would veto this all the while the court is about to make a decision on the tower. So to me, that's a weakness.
There's a sign here

Speaker 2 that a lame duck presidency is incoming. And there's a sign here that the whole group of people is weakening.

Speaker 2 One other point, and this is from an insider that I had breakfast with this morning, that these guys

Speaker 2 in the White House are making a lot of enemies. Just hear me out for a second, Caddy.
This was a traditional Republican.

Speaker 1 You mean not just you?

Speaker 2 No, not just me, but this is a traditional Republican that's backed Pence and backed Romney, has asked for some help or favors from the White House, and they have basically been very binary.

Speaker 2 You're with Donald Trump and you've passed the purity test. We'll help you.
You're not with Donald Trump and you've failed the purity test. NFW to you.

Speaker 2 Okay. And that is very bad.
That's very bad politics because that's how the long knives come out. And I think the long knives are out for MAGA right now.

Speaker 2 And I'll say this on our program and let's see if it unfolds as we get to next November.

Speaker 2 Irrespective of the outcome, Trump will be over the speed bump into lame duck status.

Speaker 1 And J.D., I think one thing we learned from those Republican senators giving Vance an earful is that JD is not DJ.

Speaker 1 He does not have Donald Trump's clout, and he does not incite fear in Republican senators in the way that Donald Trump does, which I think is a super interesting indication for what happens in the 2028 election and what happens to the Republican Party going forward.

Speaker 1 Because I think

Speaker 1 you see a fracturing of this hold that the leader has on the party because Vance just is not going to have that same kind of clout.

Speaker 1 We'll take a break and then come back and talk about the president's trip to Asia.

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Speaker 1 Welcome back. President Trump is also being welcomed back to Washington, D.C.
He's landing back this Thursday afternoon.

Speaker 1 After a six-day tour of Asia, he sat down with President Xi Jinping at an airbase in South Korea. He was joined by all the senior members of the cabinet.
And

Speaker 1 this came against the backdrop, of course, of the Chinese threatening to cut exports of rare earth minerals that America needs for everything from washing machines to missiles.

Speaker 1 And then the Americans responding, the White House responding with a threat of 100% tariffs on China. The president said this was an amazing meeting and he gave it a 12 out of 10.

Speaker 1 It's a bit like I gave this t-shirt a 12 out of 10.

Speaker 1 And my reading is that both sides kind of looked over the abyss. and decided that they didn't want a full-scale trade war between them.
So there's now going to to be a series of summits.

Speaker 1 There was a bunch of things noticeably that was kind of left out of the readouts, particularly from the American sides.

Speaker 1 It looks like they didn't talk about TikTok, which I think is significant and interesting. You said on the program a few weeks ago that you didn't think the TikTok deal was going to happen.

Speaker 1 I think you're probably right.

Speaker 2 We'll never give up TikTok. But Caddy, if you're going from 57% tariffs to 47%,

Speaker 2 right? Yeah. So what is that all about, Caddy? I mean, I think that's still going to be a devastating thing for U.S.-China trade.

Speaker 1 That's why I want to see more details. And it's quite interesting that the Chinese readout didn't mention any of the specifics.
Donald Trump said they were going to buy a whole load of soybeans.

Speaker 1 The Chinese are going to buy a bunch of soybeans, which has been a big domestic issue because American soybean farmers haven't been able to export to China. He said that they'd done this deal on...

Speaker 1 tariffs and on rare earth minerals. I think it's a one-year deal on carrying on exports of rare earth minerals.
But you're not getting the same readout from the Chinese.

Speaker 1 So I'm waiting to see what some of the carve-outs are on those 47% tariffs, because that feels like if that is a that feels still like a very high number for the Chinese to tolerate.

Speaker 1 What they did get in return, and I thought this was interesting in terms of politics, was a commitment.

Speaker 1 It sounds like Donald Trump is basically saying NVIDIA can sell kind of what it wants in terms of chips to the Chinese, which is a win for all of the China doves like Laura Luma and David Sachs, who want NVIDIA to be able to sell stuff to the Chinese.

Speaker 1 Donald Trump just seems to be washing his hands of that process.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but he's also, remember, he's benefiting. The government's going to benefit by getting a piece of those revenues from the NVIDIA, which is not very capitalistic, but very opportunistic.

Speaker 2 But I think the thing that

Speaker 2 Trump did, which we'll have to see how successful it is, is he's trying to end what's called tariff washing. And so let me just briefly explain what that is.

Speaker 2 And so I make a component, I ship it to Vietnam or South Korea to have it finished off in a lower tariffed area.

Speaker 2 Then it's then stamped, made in Korea or made in Vietnam, and then shipped into the United States as a lower tariff. And so what the Chinese have been very adept at, they've sent stuff to Mexico, 49%

Speaker 2 fabricated. It's finished up in Mexico, shipped into the U.S., HECHO and Mexico.

Speaker 2 So to me, I think that if he stopped that, if he's been successful in getting an agreement with these trading partners coincident to these deals, I think that puts a lot of pressure on China.

Speaker 1 The deal's not done yet with the Vietnamese, right?

Speaker 2 Not done yet. The Korean deal's not done.
You gotta love Trump. He's announcing these deals like they're done.
You and I both know it takes 12 to 18 months to get a deal like this done.

Speaker 2 They're not done. But if he has figured out a way to end that practice, and maybe that practice will always go on, Caddy, it's hard to know.

Speaker 2 But if you figure out a way to end that practice, then that's going to put a lot of pressure on China because they're getting a lot of their goods shipped into the U.S.

Speaker 2 since 2018, 2019 using that practice.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and it's also why China's exports have fallen to the U.S., but have risen actually around the world.

Speaker 2 Exactly.

Speaker 2 It's an accounting sleight of hand. Now, listen, he's saying, Trump is saying that they're going to visit each other in April.

Speaker 2 He's going to go to China to visit President Xi.

Speaker 1 That will be a big rollout. Gold carpet, I reckon, not red carpet.
I think.

Speaker 2 I guess so. I mean, I don't know, though, because, you know, I mean, this is a terrible thing for me to say.
Forgive me for saying it. But when Xi is with Trump, he looks like he's eating

Speaker 2 a shit sandwich. She is.
I mean, just look at She's face.

Speaker 1 He's just looking. You wonder why I'm wearing this.

Speaker 2 I'm with Trump. I'm just got to be, I want to be graphic in this description to be gross.

Speaker 2 Take a look at She's face. He is literally horrified.
It is like horrific indigestion on his part. Also, Trump is always making the move.

Speaker 2 The first move is with the handshake. The second move is with the back rub.

Speaker 2 And you couldn't have a stiffer human being.

Speaker 1 She doesn't like that.

Speaker 2 Prey did not like it at all.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's very interesting, the dynamic, because she is the one leader who Trump seems a little bit intimidated by.

Speaker 1 When you see him with every other leader, it's Trump projects, I'm the alpha here. And he doesn't do that with she.
He's trying to win she over.

Speaker 1 The gossip in Washington is that Trump wants to have a relationship relationship with Xi that he can compare to Ronald Reagan's relationship with Gorbachev.

Speaker 1 We did that great series on Reagan, by the way, for our founding members, and we talked about the relationship with Gorbachev. And that's what he wants.

Speaker 2 I think that's well said, Caddy, but I'm just going to talk as a market participant here.

Speaker 2 The market traded up slightly on the announcement. And then once the details came out, the market traded down.

Speaker 2 Okay, because the market's looking at this and saying, okay, there's really nothing has happened here. It's a framework.
There's a slight de-escalation as opposed to an escalation.

Speaker 2 There really isn't a full reset. And so they've stepped back from the brink of doing something super disastrous.

Speaker 2 But it hasn't, it's not transformative.

Speaker 1 To be too cynical about this, but we've had a pattern. We spent a lot of time talking about the Middle East deal a couple of weeks ago.
The Israelis are back bombing Hamas.

Speaker 1 Hamas is attacking Israelis.

Speaker 1 It shows that Donald Trump can announce with big fanfare deals, but it's important I think that we follow up on those to see what the actual details are because it's one thing to say it was an amazing 12 out of 10 meeting, but you've got to actually see what it delivers.

Speaker 1 And I think we don't know that. One thing I do think we know is that there's been an announcement from the Pentagon that they're pulling forces, U.S.
forces out of Eastern Europe.

Speaker 1 and that they're planning to do that. We also have the USS Ford barreling its way down to the Caribbean.
Donald Trump is intent on kind of shifting America's focus clearly out of Europe.

Speaker 1 Not really from a national security point of view. They didn't mention Taiwan in this meeting into Asia, even though China is flexing.

Speaker 1 And what he really wants to do is flex at home, flex in North America and Latin America.

Speaker 1 The Wall Street Journal is calling this the Donro doctrine as opposed to the Monroe doctrine of discouraging European colonialism in Latin America. And it's pretty clear that

Speaker 1 whether he wants to use American military and/or or economic might to imprint his desires on Latin America and his political ideology on Latin America.

Speaker 1 And I don't know, given how much Russia is flexing at the moment in the Arctic, the Chinese are in the flexing in the Arctic too, how much Russia is flexing militarily around Europe and in other European countries.

Speaker 1 I don't know that that's the wisest.

Speaker 1 to be at a time when Russia is pushing its boundaries to be pulling back and to be sending a signal to Moscow that you're pulling American American troops out of Eastern Europe and focusing instead on what is what even Donald Trump has described as a narcotics problem.

Speaker 1 I think people are going to question that use of the military.

Speaker 2 No, I think your analysis is correct, but

Speaker 2 let me play MAGA. Let me play Johnny MAGA for a second.
So what this Don Rowe doctrine sounds like is more forever wars. And so I thought we were ending the forever wars.

Speaker 2 And what does MAGA say to Johnny MAGA?

Speaker 1 I looked at the polls on this and MAGA likes this.

Speaker 1 Charlie Kirk, just before he died, a couple of weeks before he died, actually said this was great to see the American military being used closer to home against countries that were actually a threat to the United States, as opposed to in the Middle East or far away in Europe.

Speaker 1 So maybe

Speaker 1 actually MAGA will be happy with the Donroad Doctrine. It's kind of interesting that the Monroe Doctrine is now trending on TikTok.

Speaker 1 Who knew that, I don't know if there's a dance around the Monroe Doctrine or something that's trending on TikTok, but the TikTok that is owned by the Chinese still is pushing the Monroe Doctrine.

Speaker 2 Not super scientific, Caddy, but I have friends of mine that work in the port of Miami and

Speaker 2 have told me that the drug trafficking coming through that port and the

Speaker 2 interdiction of drugs, the successful interdiction of drugs has been staggering. It's cut the supply of drugs in the area way down,

Speaker 2 which means prices are up.

Speaker 1 Which drugs do you know?

Speaker 2 Yeah, mostly cocaine. Mostly cocaine.

Speaker 2 Now, you know, you've got all these crystal mess factories in central Florida that you're going to have to deal with as well.

Speaker 2 But it seems like the Trump policies are working and have slowed down the flow of drugs. And I think that's something going way back to the Reagan administration that we wanted.

Speaker 2 And so, again, we'd like to be fair on this program and say that if

Speaker 2 the strategy is slowing down the drugs, that's beneficial to the country.

Speaker 1 He says the strategy is to slow down fentanyl, of course, which is not what comes through Venezuela.

Speaker 2 And hasn't happened yet. And a lot of fentanyl is getting manufactured here in the good old United States.

Speaker 1 Supply and demand, baby.

Speaker 2 Exactly. And I think he's saying that politically as an excuse to put on these

Speaker 2 tariffs. He sees the tariffs as

Speaker 2 a large stick to wallop over the head of our trading partners because of the strength of the U.S. consumer market.

Speaker 2 But I want to go to a couple of points because in preparation for this podcast, I have come up with seven points. Usually I have seven points.
Wow.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 So I'm going to be very brief.

Speaker 1 In preparation for this podcast, I got a t-shirt.

Speaker 2 Yes, you got a t-shirt and a hat.

Speaker 1 And you got seven points. Okay.

Speaker 2 But I'm going to be brief. I put these together.
These are things the U.S. could do, in my opinion, to strengthen its relationship with China, which is a very necessary relationship.

Speaker 2 So, number one, we had something during the Clinton administration called the Strategic Coexistence, and there was a coordinating council. I would recommend a permanent

Speaker 2 coordinating council, which would be business leaders, academics, etc. I think we have to resume military communication, which we're not doing anymore.
Yes, critical.

Speaker 2 Number two would be: I think we got to move to reciprocal fairness away from tariff wars. So if you look at the shots across the bow right now, the president was correct.
China had a benefit.

Speaker 2 We were accepting less protectionism. They were coming into our market relatively unfettered.
We should now get that to some level of fairness in terms of the reciprocity.

Speaker 2 A couple of more quick points. I think we need co-leadership on climate and technology.
And so we need to have a framework established around AI. But I think we need to work with each other.

Speaker 2 China is going to advance ahead of us if we're not careful in terms of solar and other non-carbon-based sources of energy. And I would like to re-establish that people-to-people

Speaker 2 bridge that we had, which was both academic and commercial, which again we're not doing anymore.

Speaker 2 Last couple of points: we can help each other in certain hotspot areas.

Speaker 2 I think the Chinese have influence over the Russians, and I'm surprised that the President is not leaning on President Xi to help him with Ukraine. Okay, so that's another issue.

Speaker 2 Again, last two points: both countries are facing some level of domestic hardship, okay?

Speaker 2 And we could help each other because they're manufacturing, we're consumers, help us figure out a way to get aggregate demand up in the U.S., which will help your manufacturing, would help the quality of life in the U.S.

Speaker 2 And how about, last one, how about having a cold peace instead of a cold war

Speaker 2 where we return to that status, where we define the mutuality of our successes as opposed to hitting each other as hard as we've been with the Belicasia rhetoric over the last decade.

Speaker 2 I think these things are super important. A State Department official that's not Marco Rubio or Donald Trump would probably put a memo together like this, hand it to the President.

Speaker 2 Maybe he put it in a paper shredder.

Speaker 2 But I think these things are super necessary, Caddy, to reduce the tension between these two global superpowers because you don't want a kinetic nightmare to be a disaster for us, for all of us, for all all of us.

Speaker 1 I think those are great points. I think you should call Laura Luma because she has a lot of influence over China policy in the White House and who is up and who is down on China policy.
I'm a serious.

Speaker 1 I think you're absolutely right on the kinetic war. And I'm just going to close with the kind of the piece of news that Donald Trump has said that he may go back to nuclear testing.

Speaker 1 America hasn't tested nuclear weapons since 1992, but because other powers, which means China and Russia, are doing so, America may now do so time and date and place TBD.

Speaker 1 But when you talk about kinetic wars, obviously that's the kind of thing that doesn't make anyone feel reassured that there won't be one. That's it for today.

Speaker 1 But do stick around for our question and answer episode.

Speaker 1 This week we are going to talk about how Kamala Harris is soft launching her 2028 run, the cracks beginning to show in the GAOP, in the Republican Party, whether Trump's reign has changed in style since Anthony was there for 11 days back in 2017.

Speaker 1 And founding members will see you there. If you want to sign up, of course, and get the QA bonus episodes, do head to therestispoliticsus.com.

Speaker 1 And if you're on YouTube, just look in the comments of this video and click on the link, please. Okay, we'll leave it there.

Speaker 2 But have a great weekend and happy Halloween to everybody.

Speaker 1 Happy Halloween, everybody.