Trump blames Iran war for midterm defeat

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1:11This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Celia Hatton, and in the early hours of November the 5th, these are our main stories. President Trump has acknowledged the U.S. war on Iran was largely to blame for the Republicans' defeat in the U.S. midterm elections. largely to blame for the Republicans' defeat in the U.S. midterm elections. His vice president, J.D. Vance, has questioned whether it had been worth the cost. A pro-democracy activist in Hong Kong has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for breaking China's national security law. Also in this podcast... These traumas should not be hushed up or swept under the carpet. Rather, they must be brought to light and discussed

1:48so that a shared process of healing and reconciliation can begin. Tens of thousands of secret police files from the communist era have been released in Hungary. To the US and the elections that have just been held there with seismic results. The Democrats beat even their most confident of expectations to win both chambers of the U.S. Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate. Their victory will present a real challenge to Donald Trump during the final two years of his presidency. For the Republicans, the blame game has already begun. Mr. Trump said his decision to go to war with Iran was partly responsible for the Republicans' overall defeat. His vice president, J.D. Vance, went further, questioning whether the war was

2:38worth the cost. Our North America editor, Sarah Smith, brings us the latest on the winners and losers from Tuesday's vote. I think we just made some history. Michigan, we did it! We just took back Texas. Tonight, Iowa, we have once again proved that the impossible is possible. Democrats could scarcely believe what they had achieved, making history with a comprehensive route of Republicans across the country, turning the tide of Trumpism. A whole new cadre of victorious Democrats are on their way to Washington to make waves. And it's surely a sign of his waning power that the White House felt the need to remind Americans that Trump is still your president. So how does he now reassert his authority, rebound after a humiliating defeat?

3:32Well, by supervising the installation of a large girder in his half-built White House ballroom, of course. It's just a tremendous structure. It's a structure the likes of which has never been done. The ceilings are over 50 feet high. That's like a five-story building. I don't think there's any ballroom. I doubt there's a ballroom in the country with a 50-foot ceiling. Donald Trump didn't even mention the election until he was asked, conceding that the war with Iran was one reason for the wipeout, but saying he would do it again. Well, you have no choice. I mean, I thought the oil would go up a lot more, and I did it on that basis. You have no choice. You have to do it. You can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon or everything that you see here someday might not exist. J.D. Vance.

4:16His vice president's already trying to distance himself from the commander in chief who attacked Iran against his advice. He does not want to go down with the Trump ship. J.D. Vance posted on social media saying, the reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night. Everyone knows why we lost and any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there. Democrats might still win in Mississippi where Scott Colom is leading by fewer than 100 votes. And Mary Peltola could yet take Alaska for the Democrats, but we might not know about that for weeks. Ron DeSantis, the Republican who thought he should be president instead of Donald Trump, didn't sound overly disappointed about the

4:54drubbing his party got. This is close to an extinction level event for Republicans in many parts of the country, as we have seen probably in the last hundred years. Donald Trump made his priorities all too obvious when he closed this campaign by talking about the renovations he'd made to the reflecting pool in Washington. The pool is now better and more beautiful than it's ever been before, and we're very proud of it. His building projects in the Capitol and the rest of his agenda will now be frustrated by a Democrat-controlled Congress. But he does not seem interested in reflecting on his role in this repudiation of him and his policies. Sarah Smith. And as we heard there, the vice president, J.D. Vance, was scathing in his assessment of where the Republicans went wrong.

5:41Is this part of his bid to be the next U.S. president? It's a question I put to our Washington correspondent, Daniel Bush. Well, it's certainly a remarkable statement, Celia, that immediately fueled speculation that this was an effort by the vice president to distance himself from President Trump on an unpopular policy in the run-up to a potential White House bid. It's important to say that Vance has not officially said that he's seeking the presidency. Sources tell me that he's still mulling it over. The expectation, though, is that he will run. And this appears to be an early toe in the water testing by the vice president of where he might be able to move the argument and where he might be able to spark

6:21a debate about what the future of foreign policy looks like inside the Republican Party in the post-Trump era. And it was, again, remarkable in its candor and how blunt the vice president was in saying flatly Republicans lost the House and Senate because of the war in Iran. He went further than President Trump had. So that's what J.D. Vance is thinking. The recriminations within the Republican Party are continuing. Who's blaming who for those results? in this midterm election cycle, who was often focused on his own legacy, on overhauling Washington, the construction of the White House ballroom where he appeared today, the helipad on the White House lawn, trying to rename the Kennedy Center for himself, and other such projects,

7:16instead of focusing very squarely on what the public seemed most interested in, according to polls, which was the issue of affordability, the rising cost of housing and gas and groceries, disapproval of the war in Iran and other issues. What are we hearing from President Trump? Well, it's been an interesting response from the president. There have been past election cycles where he has lashed out in the immediate aftermath, where he has raised questions about the validity of the election results, even without any evidence of fraudulent voter behavior. This time around, he was pretty quick immediately last night to say in a news interview that he accepted the election result, that he was willing to work with Democrats. He noted that he does have

7:56veto power, but he said that he's not interested in spending the last two years of his presidency simply vetoing legislation. That said, he still doubled down on his support for the war in Iran. He said it was worth it. He still claimed that had he been on the ballot, the Republicans would have won. And Daniel, what about the Democrats? Obviously, they're thrilled with the results. But is this big win more to do with the unpopularity of Donald Trump? Or did the Democrats really do anything significantly different this time around? Polls show that Democrats are not exactly deeply, deeply popular with the American public. That said, they did make a compelling case for why Republicans should not be in power

8:36for the next two years. And the big singular question for the Democratic Party once they come into the new majority in January will be how much do they focus on going after President Trump, holding the administration accountable in the many ways that Democrats want to try and do that versus focusing on a legislative agenda that will build a case to the American people, not just for what they're against, which is Trump and has been Trump for a decade, but what they're for. Daniel Bush in Washington. Once the Democrats take up their seats in the U.S. Congress, they'll have the power to block Donald Trump's actions on a lot of domestic matters. But he'll still have the power to make some unilateral decision when it comes to U.S.

9:18foreign policy. So that's why some outside the U.S. say the outcome of this election will be felt around the world. I spoke to our diplomatic correspondent, Paul Adams, about what might be to come. Perhaps the best, most simple, simplest way of thinking about this is this is not a lame duck. This is a this is a wounded lion. And the next two years may be defined by just how Donald Trump decides to get his own back on those who he thinks brought him down. Of course, Iran being among those in Iran right now is crowing over the fact that they essentially seem to think that they've achieved regime change in Washington, whereas, of course, Donald Trump was promising regime change in Tehran earlier in the year. And that, you know,

10:01a man who is obsessed with his his sort of authority and with the notion that the world will jump to his tune and dance to his tune when he suddenly realizes that that's not happening or it's not happening in the same way and that people aren't quite giving him the deference that he has come to demand and expect, then we just don't know how he'll respond. And what about the incoming Democrats? How much power do they have when it comes to the war in Iran? Can they stop Donald Trump from escalating or continuing the war there? Probably not. They can't advance a new policy. All they can do is to put roadblocks in the way of the policy of the president, whether it is through oversight, you know, calling on officials to explain their actions or by tightening the purse way, and it's pretty clear that they will.

11:06But the president has gotten so used, in fact, successive American presidents over the last 25 years have gotten so used to the idea of doing things by executive order that Donald Trump will feel that he still has the authority, the constitutional right to pursue his objectives abroad. And what about the war in Ukraine? Again, how do you think that that war might be impacted by the fact that the Democrats now control Congress? Well, look, there's been a considerable degree of bipartisan support for Ukraine in Congress throughout this, the last five years. It's just that you've had a Congress which has unable or unwilling to stand in Donald Trump's way or to sort of significantly influence the way he pursues

11:51policy on an issue like Ukraine. This election came at a time when a succession of moves by the White House indicated that Donald Trump was once again seemed to be throwing his support behind Vladimir Putin and making life very, very difficult for President Zelensky, whether it was the decision to the suspending of sanctions, the diesel oil deal, the whole issue about Starlink and the supply of intelligence to the Ukrainians. So at the moment, we're in a phase when Donald Trump seems to be favoring Vladimir Putin and making life as difficult as possible for President Zelensky. At the same time, there is a kind of diplomatic process going on. We're going to see some more talks in the Gulf in the next week or so.

12:36We don't really know where those are going, whether there are any new, substantially new game changing proposals on the table. I think most people doubt it. So I think probably we're unlikely to see any great changes, despite the fact that in Congress, there is a great deal of support for Ukraine, as there has been all along. Our diplomatic correspondent, Paul Adams. To the Chinese territory of Hong Kong now, where the pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for breaking China's national security law. The 30-year-old is already behind bars, serving another sentence, and was due to be released early next year. He came to prominence in the Hong Kong protest movement while still a teenager and became one of the most recognizable

13:22faces at demonstrations. China clamped down on dissent in Hong Kong in 2020 following several years of sometimes violent protests against Beijing's control over the territory. So what crime was Joshua Wong convicted of? Here's the newsroom's Mickey Bristow. The authorities said that Joshua Wong had colluded with other activists to encourage foreign governments essentially to impose sanctions on China and Hong Kong to force China to allow Hong Kong to have more democracy. The authorities used a lot of newspaper articles and interviews he gave to foreign press to prove that Joshua Wong had tried to do this. He pleaded guilty to this charge. His lawyer requested that there be a lesser sentence, three years. He's already in prison, as you mentioned there. In the end,

14:10the judge said the punishment must fit the gravity of the crime and gave him 10 years in prison. So he's going to spend about 16 years in prison in total before he's released. Mickey, is Beijing using this sentence to send a message to others? If they were doing that, and that's certainly what some people are suggesting is happening, they chose a person who is very prominent. He started protesting. His activism began when he was still a teenager at school, protesting against school curriculums and throughout protest movements in 2014, 2019. He was there. His spectacle face on magazines, newspapers, TV screens. He really was the face of the protest movement. Also people, activists, other activists and human rights groups

14:54are pointing out that he was just about to end a sentence. They think it's particularly cruel and unjust that he's coming to the end of a sentence for one charge and then they slap another on him. Ten years, he's not going to get out for a very long time. And what about Hong Kong? Is any dissent allowed there now? Not very much. If I can give you just one example. Every year there used to be an annual vigil for the Tiananmen massacre to remember those people who were killed in Beijing in 1989. Tens of thousands of people would go to those protests. Those are not allowed anymore. And in fact, just a couple of months ago, a number of activists, three activists got sentenced ranging from, I think, five to seven

15:35years for organizing those vigils. So you can just see the example of how Hong Kong has changed. Used to be vigils, now even organizing one gets you prison sentences. Mickey Bristow. Still to come in this podcast, we'll return to our top story and look at the closely contested Senate race in Alaska. This is the Global News Podcast. Tens of thousands of secret police files from the communist era have been released in Hungary, revealing a network of informants used to spy on citizens. The files are accessible through an online public database. The prime minister says the move will help Hungarians come to terms with their totalitarian past. But not everyone agrees. From Budapest, Nick Thorpe reports. 36 years after the fall of communism, the secrets are out.

16:33This whole archive, with the names of 60,000 police informers, was made accessible online to the public today. Until now, you could look up your own file. Now you can find anybody's. Opening the files was an election promise of Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar. These traumas should not be hushed up or swept under the carpet. Rather, they must be brought to light and discussed so that a shared process of healing and reconciliation can begin. There were so many reasons why people agreed to spy on their family and friends. Some were blackmailed, some first agreed, then failed to deliver, and others, a minority, informed with gusto. And this was one of their targets, a theologian in an underground church.

17:30Ignatz Kiraj was informed on by dozens of his fellow Christians. But he doesn't think the opening of the archives today was a good idea. He's afraid it will sow distrust and division, not reconciliation. This would have been a good idea 35 or 36 years ago, but now it feels suspicious. Why on earth do we have to do this now, when perhaps 95% of those who are affected are dead? But those still alive have a lot of explaining to do. This evening in Budapest, well-known singers, scientists, TV presenters and politicians have all found themselves on the list. The shockwaves from today's disclosures are spreading. Nick Thorpe in Budapest. Let's focus on Denmark now. A reality TV show there has been cancelled

18:20after causing public outrage. It centred around a man called Rasmus Walbridge, who was led to believe he'd been offered the chance to direct a movie, but all was not what it seemed. Our global affairs reporter Paul Moss began by telling us more about the man who fell victim to the TV hoax. Rasmus Walbridge is quite a well-known comedian actor in Denmark, but despite his success, he has always had one dream. He wanted to direct a comedy horror film. And to his surprise, a film company agreed to let him do that. And so for several months, he was turning up at what he thought was a film set. And he really was, you know, directing a movie every day. And this is where it all gets a bit Alice through the looking glass,

19:01because it wasn't a real film set. Filming was going on, but it was him who was being filmed. They were making a reality TV show about him making a film which he thought was real. And the people behind this actually got his friends involved. They were in on the hoax. The actors or the so-called actors in the film were just pretending. So were the crew. And, you know, where it gets a little nasty is that Woolbridge had just had a newborn baby. And instead of spending time with that baby, he really wanted to get this film done. So he was turning up at this, what he thought was a film set every day. Wow. And so what happened when the program was broadcast? No surprise, there was outrage. I mean, as I describe it to you, I think it's pretty clear

19:44people were going to be upset. The TV company was accused of psychological torture. I mean, this was Denmark's public broadcaster. So the government got involved. A culture minister said, look, this actually violates all the rules you have around television in which participants have to consent to what they're doing. Some of Walbridge's friends clearly are feeling very bad about it. They've apologised. Funnily enough, the one person who hasn't said very much is Walbridge himself. He just says he wants to get on and focus on his next projects, which I suppose he's hoping are real projects rather than pretend ones. Absolutely. Well, this isn't the first such kind of trick programme, is it? No, I mean, the obvious reference point is the film The Truman

20:25Show, which of course isn't true, but about a man who ever since he was born doesn't know that his entire life is fictional. The people he thinks are his friends and family are actually actors. But it has been done before on a smaller scale. In the 1990s, a Japanese man was persuaded to spend more than a year locked in a flat and having to undergo all sorts of horrible challenges in order to win a cash prize. What he didn't know was that everything he did was being broadcast. And when he came out, he discovered he was one of the most famous people in Japan. He was a celebrity. Paul Moss. To South Korea, where the government is facing criticism over its failure to register Taekwondo, the nation's biggest martial art, with UNESCO.

21:08That's the UN agency that safeguards cultural heritage. South Korea's tardiness when it comes to Taekwondo has allowed North Korea to claim sole historical credit for the sport that's popular around the world. The newsroom's Pete Ross told us more about why people in South Korea are so upset. I think from K-pop to kimchi, Korean culture has had a bit of a, well, quite a global impact in recent years. And taekwondo, which is, as you say, one of the world's most popular martial arts and renowned for fast high spinning kicks, and also its status as an Olympic sport is another cultural export people on the whole of the peninsula are rightly proud of. This particular row, though, has gained some traction

21:52because on Wednesday, a government official, an official in Seoul, revealed that Pyongyang had actually approached South Korea first about a joint bid. However, they didn't take them up on the offer and that left the road clear for North Korea to get its bid in with UNESCO. That's reaching final approval next month. And that's raised fear by people in South Korea that it's ceding historical leadership over its martial art. Now, at this point, of course, I think it should be pointed out that the martial art itself originated in the 1940s before the Korean War. So both countries have a fair claim to it. However, like several cultural things that have divided since the countries have split, they are two very distinctive things now.

22:38The sport that many people recognise is the one that we see at the Olympics when people have these pads on. It's very fast paced and there's a kind of point scoring system. The North Korean martial art is very different from that. Also, it's been revealed that there's another reason why South Korea hasn't got its bid in. And essentially, the way that UNESCO takes in these bids, it's got a list. And South Korea has got many bids in for other things. Perhaps it has precedent over taekwondo, and that's angered some, particularly martial arts fans. Interesting. But to go back to this idea of a possible joint bid, North and South Korea have made joint bids to UNESCO before, right? Yeah, they successfully did it in 2018 over SIDM,

23:19which is traditional Korean wrestling. They actually submitted two separate bids, and it was UNESCO that kind of mediated between the two and said, why don't you try putting in a joint bid? And that was the first ever joint bid to be accepted. Cultural and sporting things are perhaps one of the places where North and South Korea have been able to meet and be friendly. There was a ping pong tournament where they had a joint team and they actually beat some Chinese rivals in that. One time that the two have kind of met and been cordial. Pete Ross. We end the podcast where we began with the US midterm elections. While most of the results are in, there are still a few contests that have not yet concluded. And one of those

24:01is the Senate race in Alaska. Our correspondent Shama Khalil sent this report from Anchorage. This is the home of one of the most closely watched races that we've had throughout the elections. Alaskans wake up today with a Senate race that is still neck and neck. Mary Platola, the Democrat, and Dan Sullivan, the Republican, are just level when it comes to the results that have been counted. And even though we don't have an outright result yet, the fact that we're saying that the incumbent Republican is struggling to maintain his seat, that he's so close with the Democrat, tells you how vulnerable the Republicans have become and how well the Democrats have done here in Alaska that's normally comfortably a Republican. And that has a lot

24:50to do with what we've heard so far from the rest of the country. It's cost of living. It's diesel fuel. It's the fishing industry, which Mary Platola has campaigned on. Dan Sullivan has campaigned on his experience, on the investment that he's brought here. But I think one point of contention that I've heard from his supporters is the fact that he's been endorsed by President Trump. One voter has actually told me, I was chatting to him before we came on air, he said it's like the kiss of death. And I think being backed by President Trump has turned a lot of people away. It could be days, it could be weeks, but this Senate race has turned from a crucial race to win for the Democrats to a nice to have. If Mary Platola wins, it will widen the Democratic

25:32wave. If the incumbent Republican keeps his seat, it will be a bright point for that party in an otherwise very bruising election for them. Sharma Khalil in Anchorage, Alaska. And that's all from us for now. If you want to get in touch, you can email us at Sharma Khalil in Anchorage, Alaska. which goes in-depth and beyond the headlines on one big story. This edition of the Global News Podcast was mixed by Russell Newlove. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Celia Hatton. Until next time, goodbye. What if you could get more from what you already do? When you're a Shell Fuel Rewards member, you can. So your weekday afternoon could be filled with more rewards, more special offers, and definitely more savings when you're fueling up your car.

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