586. Can the Democrats Capitalise on Trump's Midterm Disaster?

0:00The Democrats' win was so big, so overwhelming, that even Donald Trump felt compelled to concede defeat as his Republican Party lost control of both houses of Congress. The last time we saw a blue Democrat wave as big as this was probably in 1974 in the wake of the Watergate scandal which brought down Richard Nixon. America is now doing what it did then, sending new blood to Washington to clean the place up. Trump says the Republicans lost because his name was not on the ballot, but his name was on the ballot. His corruption, his lies, his nastiness, his wars sending gas prices sky high, his love of dictators, his contempt for democracy. Well, it looks like democracy has hit back. But now there are some very big questions for both parties.

0:50How does Trump react as a lame duck president? How do the contenders to replace him as presidential candidate for 2028 respond, notably J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio, when they are so much part of this now damaged brand? And if this was primarily a vote against Trump and the cost of living crisis, what approach do the Democrats now adopt? Do they put revenge on all things Trump ahead of sorting out their own strategy? Or should they focus more on choosing the right leader to take them into that presidential election in two years time? So many remarkable results to discuss, lots of questions for the future to analyse in this special midterms episode of The Rest Is Politics. This episode is powered by Fuse Energy.

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2:22Switch to Fuse at fuseenergy.com slash politics. Use the code politics and you'll get a free Trip Plus subscription allowing you to hear all the extraordinary members content that Alistair and I are now producing for you. Visit fuseenergy.com for full terms and conditions. Hi, this is Gary Lineker from Goal Hangers. The rest is football. This episode is brought to you by Wise. It's only when you start moving money between currencies that you really think about the exchange rate, the fee, and what might be hidden away in the small print. Whether you're living abroad, paying someone overseas, or just trying to manage your money across borders, you want a fair exchange rate, an easy transfer, and no surprises along the way. WISE keeps things simple. WISE is a smart way to

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3:57So I must go. I've I'm on Jordan time. That's good. I'm on Jordan time. I like that. OK, how do you how do you protect yourself from arguing with your co-host? I just watch you argue with other people. No, I have this tactic when I think I'm losing my temper, I just rub my thumb and my index finger together. That's what I do. And I just calm down. Yeah, that's cool. And how do you protect yourself from online scams? Well, the answer is I find NordVPN useful for that. It's not just a VPN app. They've built in next-gen antivirus block scams, phishing attacks before they reach you, so you can carry on knowing you're secure. To get the best discount on your NordVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com slash restispolitics. You'll

4:34get four extra months free on the two-year plan, plus a 30-day money-back guarantee. The link is in the episode description. Welcome to the Restless Politics with me, Alistair Campbell. And with me, Rory Stewart. And so Rory, the midterms have happened. And we both thought, I think, that the Democrats were going to do well. But I think we've both been moderately surprised by just how well they've done, or maybe we should say just how well they've done, or maybe we should say just how badly Trump's Republican Party have done. The results are absolutely stunning. I mean, but by the end, you didn't need to be Mystic Meg to predict a Democrat victory because the polls were pretty consistent. But it was still possible to argue, and some commentators were doing that if

5:26the polls have been wrong three to four points in the same direction, you would have ended up with a pretty tight night. It wasn't like that. If anything, the polls this time may have overweighted the Republican vote and underestimated the Democrat vote. So people who are really paying attention, I've just literally left the United States yesterday, so you get a slightly jet lagged version. But if we go back over these great Senate races that we were talking about, with the exception of Alaska, every single one of those Senate races that we described has been won by the Democrats. Alaska's not yet declared. It's a tight race. And we'd add to the list we gave South Carolina, which is another astonishing upset.

6:06I'd love at some point later on just to go through race by race because it's an incredible portrait of America and the modern Democratic Party. But you're completely right. This is a real blue wave and the Democrats will be very happy. Over to you. Yeah, and the Republicans will be very unhappy. And I just don't know what they do. I said in the introduction, it'd be really interesting to see what they do. So Trump, who, as we know, only ever thinks about himself, he was straight out. First of all, I was the one big surprise to me was how quickly he conceded defeat. When you think back to the Biden election that Biden won, and Trump came straight out with the claims that led to the January 6th riots.

6:47This time, he basically came straight out and said, yeah, we've lost. But what he never, ever, ever does is accept any of the responsibility. Sit with that for a second, though, that doesn't seem to have happened. Because that is a different story in terms of Trump's authoritarianism and fascism. I think he remains this unbelievably unpleasant, anti-democratic, poisonous force. But he's not, as people suggested, somebody who's actually cancelled elections, sentendized agents to stop people voting, or refused to accept the result of the midterms. I think that's worth remembering. And that's interesting because again, given how much narrative was going into this might be the last election in the United States, which I was hearing

7:55from people even a month or two ago, that's a significant change. Yeah, but maybe there's another narrative that he's developing and the narrative in this, the results are so overwhelming, it'd be impossible for him to try the same trick. But so he's got a new narrative, which is it's got nothing to do with me. And it makes me wonder whether there is a part of him that wants the Republicans to do badly once he's gone. And that is a form of narcissism. It is a form of saying that after me, there is nothing. And so it's so interesting that as all this was going on and the results were coming, he was doing that old thing of phoning up journalists and all on the record. So then you suddenly start seeing, you know,

8:38the New York Times put out a piece, Politico put out a piece, Fox News put out a piece. Donald Trump basically says, well, the problem was my name was not on the ballot. And then you have them all playing clips of him during the campaign saying, my name is on the ballot. Imagine you're voting for me. But of course, he's now moving the narrative. That's right. He's clearly on that track, but it's also, he may shift on this, but what was striking for me during the campaign is just how hard he worked. He hadn't decided before the midterms that he was going to distance himself from the Republican Party. He really, as a man there for an hour and a quarter, then back on the plane late into the night and just hitting state after state after state.

9:33I mean, it was one of the most energetic and relentless campaigns, far more than Biden did in the midterms. I mean, it was, you know, he was really trying hard. He was, and he did put in the hours and he does have extraordinary stamina and yet his eve of poll speech at the reflecting pool was one of the most bizarre campaign events i have ever watched it was extraordinary he's that he's standing there with some guy handing him photographs hoping that photos talk about algae algae talking about you, people drowning in water that is, I think, at no point more than three feet deep. And all this sort of, it just, it was utterly bizarre. It was dementing. And so I think what's going to happen now,

10:17and I said in the introduction, this really throws up questions for the people who will be thinking about taking over for him. Because you just, as you've just said, he's accepted he's lost this election. Now, there is this talk, Steve Bannon keeps saying he'll fight a third term. I think that's now gone. Let's just assume that's gone. So that means the J.D. Vance's and the Marco Rubio's and any of the others who may think they have a chance of standing as nominee, they've got some really, really difficult difficult thinking to do because he still has a hold trump still has a hold over vast swathes of people particularly people who are in the republican party machine what do they do now what does jd vance do does he try and distance himself from this does he try to

11:01lean in to some of the arguments that are coming back from the Democrats? I watched a lot of the acceptance speeches last night, through the night. All of them, John Ossoff, James Tallarico, Abdul Al-Sayed, lots of them were making this point about, you threw everything at us. You threw the lies. You threw musk's multi multi-million campaigns and i think it was abdul al-said had this great you know the many can beat the money i really i thought that was really really really nice slide and but they all spoke to this they weren't overdoing the thing about this is about trump but they all spoke to this is about a change of politics. Now, can they harness that between now and the presidential elections? Can

11:47they now show that because they've really pinned themselves to changing politics, it's a bit like Andy Burnham here, they pin themselves to saying we're going to get the money out of politics. What does that mean in America? Because the Democrats are, you know, pretty up to the neck in money, Nancy Pelosi and the trade stocks and all that stuff. So I think if these guys really think this through, it will be a combination. And my worry is they just decide to go after Trump and go after the family. That's going to be part of it. But the bigger thing has to be about the agenda for the Democrats now, because this wasn't really an election about the Democrats. It was an election about Trump and Trump's Republican Party. A couple of things that strike me as you're talking. One of them is that

12:30there may be different forms of, I don't know, democratic backsliding, democratic decline going on here. And maybe what we've seen with the United States, as with Hungary, Viktor Orban, and Vucic in Serbia, is that these are states where aggressive populist anti-democratic leaders accept election results in the end because that same prediction that Trump would not accept the midterms was made about Orban and was made about Vucic. There was a narrative that they're all like Erdogan in Turkey or Putin in Russia. They're not. There's still something going on in the United States where January 6th notwithstanding, this guy did ultimately accept the midterms and didn't cancel the elections or use excuses to do that. On the money point, I mean, there's two

13:26types of money. There's the corruption thing, which is, you know, we've got to get into and think about a lot. And I think that's, are the Democrats prepared to really think about all the ways in which corruption operates in the United States, how deep it is, not just in the Republican Party, but the Democratic Party. You talked about Nancy Pelosi and her husband with their congressional stock trades. You could also talk about the incredible scandals involving Democratic as well as Republican administrations at a state level and a mayor level up and down the United States, decade after decade. I mean, some of the most kind of staggering stories imaginable, which we occasionally touch on. I love to talk about

14:11Buddy Cianci in Rhode Island. But there was some staggering stories in Ohio as well when I was going around there. Some of the candidates that I had dinner with in West Virginia, you meet somebody who thinks quite jolly over dinner, and then you go to the local newspaper and you read the guy's been indicted on astonishing claims. So that's the corruption point. And why are the Democrats, or why I can think why, but will they ever be prepared to address things like abuse of presidential pardons, this mad American system, which allows Biden to pardon his own family members and allows Trump to issue pardons for people who are effectively donors to his crypto, and I suspect will lead Trump to try to pardon all the criminal members of his own administration before he steps down from the presidency. Just for American listeners, you may think that's normal. That is not normal.

15:11There is literally no democracy I can think of, certainly in Europe, where it is remotely possible for a head of state to do that kind of stuff. In Britain, yes, the King can pardon, but what he will do is he will pardon someone like Alan Turing, who's dead and is a great national figure for the fact that he was imprisoned for homosexuality in the 1950s. He's not trying to pardon his own family members. So will the Democrats be perpetrated? And then the other thing that you raised, which I think is a sort of separate thing, which is the staggering money. I mean, we've had a lovely bit of research by Joe on our team, who's pointed out that US midterms are set to be the most expensive in American history, expenditure at $12 billion. That's $12,000 million. And for context, spending in the midterms 10 years ago

16:07was only 2.8, 5 billion. In other words, it's six times larger. They've spent more in political advertising than they did even in the 2024 presidential election cycle. And that's not just the Republicans. And we'll get on to musk and his hundreds minutes actually the democrats are outspending the republicans in a lot of these states well in a way they feel they have to it's like a kind of nuclear arms race you know they've got the money but i'll take the other thing that will happen in this and there is a there is a bearing here for the reason why in the uk i think reform are on the slide is because I think British people are pre-empting a reaction against this sort of monification of our politics you know I don't

16:53like a lot of the money issues in our politics never mind America but when you have Nigel Farage saying five million quid no strings attached 72 million coming in from two formerly overseas based crypto guys that is peanuts to elon musk it's peanuts compared to the money that the republicans have spent against talarico and against abdul al-zahid in particular but it's a lot of money in our politics and i think that you know you were talking um when we did one of our episodes when you were out there you were talking about being in a sports bar and Fox Sports is on and then the adverts come, okay? And you say, nobody's watching. Now they're spending a fortune on these TV ads, an absolute fortune, hundreds of thousands of dollars

17:37at every single state that may be close. They've got to come a point where they think, actually, maybe this message, we're for the many, they're for for the money actually is beginning to cut through in a way that all of them need to start rethinking how they do politics now that may sound a bit naive but i think that what i've found so interesting people want to say that the democrats are all very different there's this left right battle going on and to some extent there is But it was interesting to me to see the similarities in the themes that were coming through in these acceptance speeches. And by the way, I've got to tell you, Roy, of all of them, if I had to say which of those is already thinking about the presidential election, it's John Ossoff.

18:18He was absolutely, that was more than a, I've wanted Georgia speech. But I think all three of them, all three of those guys made really powerful speeches. Ossoff, I suppose, from traditional American politics, you've said that he's maybe not as tall as he should be, but he certainly seems to be more of the kind of central castings, square-jawed. He's got the jaw, got the jaw. Yeah. Concise Americans. Whereas the others are an amazing group of people. I mean, just before we get back into the big themes, just to remind people a little bit about who these candidates are and how remarkable this victory has been. So, you mentioned John Ossoff in Georgia. That was one where Ossoff was so far ahead that people

19:06almost stopped talking about it. But he is this crisp, square-jawed prosecutorial figure. You then mentioned James Tallarico. Now, the Tallarico-Paxton run in Texton was essentially Paxton who basically looked very, very old and tired towards the end of the race. One of his eyes wasn't quite working, and he really felt himself going down. He is a battered guy, humiliated by Trump, under lots and lots of corruption investigations, going up against James Tallarico, who I really hope we can get on leading soon. He is the most lovely, but quite intellectual, quite geeky, quite unusual looking, earnest, I like to say, earnest young pastor. I mean, I don't know whether, maybe I'm repeating myself because I've got jet lag, but

19:57I just loved his attack on the religious right, where he said, these people keep talking about abortion and gay marriage, and neither of those things are in the Bible. Jesus didn't mention abortion or gay marriage. Matthew 25 is about looking after the poor, helping the sick. And I was so struck by that, because there I was in these Pentecostal churches where ultimately the pastor was saying to me, I'm voting Republican because in the end, the only thing that matters is abortion and gay marriage. And there's Tallarica reminding people it's not even in the Bible. You know, his, his, I mean, as you know, I don't do God and I've always had a bit of a queasy feeling about politicians who do God

20:45and are very, very open about it. But I'll tell you his speech today. The best part of it for me was he did that. He told the story of David and Goliath, but he told the context of the campaign and then turned to the crowd and said, you were my slingshot. And it was like, it was brilliant. And so I think they've got the, you know, Fiona was watching it with me and she was saying it was brilliant and so i i think they've got the you know fiona was watching it with me and she was saying you know god i wish we had more politicians who spoke like this and so that sense of the power of of the i mean these are very different figures you said this on the podcast on the episode the other day you know you've got a you've got a paralympian in a wheelchair

21:20you've got a uh the first muslim senator in abdul al-sayyed you've got this guy who looks and speaks like he's a pastor rather than a politician you've got ossoff as you say looks like a kind of you know absolute standard i'm gonna go for it presidential candidate they're all very very different and then you see you know some of these governors that are coming i think i've heard we've got you're gonna have four black governors for the first time in american history so there's a real sense of that change but my god some of them can they can deliver a speech i couldn't work out with all of them whether they were using an autocue i think they probably were because that this there was something there was something quite

22:01packaged about it but they were all saying similar, addressing similar themes in very, very different ways. Now, the challenge to the Democrats now is how they bring all that together. So, Alistair, what, just, you've mentioned this before, but just more clearly, what was the central message you were getting out of the acceptance speeches? Democracy, corruption, the people, understanding they have agency, the building of movements, the taking of money out of politics, and the nature of the debate, the nature of what politics and democracy are about. It was a lot about, they didn't, none of them overdid it with Trump, but it was just a given the nastiness, the smears, the corruption, Elon Musk and his role.

22:51Now, Elon Musk spending whatever it is, half a billion. That's like you and me, you know, making a charitable donation of a few grand. Okay. It may not seem that much to him, but if you're somebody who's so driven by money as he is he'll be thinking hell was that worth it and the one thing about all these people trump musk they don't want to be seen as losers today and for some time to come they're seen as losers and how again how the democrats tap into that and the other thing that was coming through was maybe a bit more understated but the other thing that was coming through was maybe a bit more understated but the other thing that was coming through was this sense of politics being about about service politics being

23:32about about people they were all and of course talarico does that in such as you say such a beautiful way because it's sort of the reason i don't mind seeing him talk about god so much is because it's so clearly fundamental to everything about him. So he's incredibly authentic. But so I think they were the big themes. And then tying it all together was a sense of the Republic being strong enough to withstand something even as awful as Donald Trump and what he's doing right now. One of the things I think that will be interesting is, as you say, whether those acceptance speeches gives us a clue to how the Democratic Party wants to run in the presidential elections. I was very struck in the places I was in, which was Ohio, Kentucky,

24:21West Virginia, and Virginia, how this didn't feel on the ground as though it was an election about democracy. It felt like an election about the cost of living, primarily. Now, I noticed you've just said that they didn't talk much about Trump, and that was a very important theme. It was very difficult to get anybody actually to share the kind of moral abhorrence that I have for Trump in many of those either Republican-leaning or pretty safe Republican states. Now, that doesn't mean that they would accept the MAGA rally. They were not great sort of Trump right or wrong enthusiasts. They were people who decided to take the position that they were disappointed that they thought he was this amazing businessman. He turned out

25:13to be just an ordinary politician. So this whataboutery, if you said Trump was corrupt, they'd be like, well, yeah, but they're all corrupt. Or one of the pastors I spoke to said, went as far as saying, yeah, he's an idiot, but they're all idiots, rather than what I was really looking for, which is from a pastor, a bit more moral condemnation. But in the end, I think all the focus groups seem to suggest, and definitely this is what I got on the ground, and I think it's what your son, Rory Campbell, got on the ground too, that this felt much more like a cost of living election. It felt much more as though Trump had got elected primarily because they felt that prices had gone up under Biden, their living paycheck to paycheck, their groceries

25:57couldn't afford their gas, and Trump had completely failed to turn that around in two years. And therefore, they were punishing him for economic failure. Now, the reason that's relevant is I think there are three big factions in the Democratic Party. There is the, this is about democracy and Trump and saving the Republic, which is what you were hearing slightly in your speech, maybe less the Trump stuff, but definitely democracy, saving the Republic, which some people sometimes call Heather Cox Richardson Democrats. And those are people who are kind of passionately idealistic. They're on the No Kings marches. I think many of my friends in New Haven, Connecticut, many of my family members would fall into that category. Then

26:42you've got the, I don't know quite whether you'd call them Bernie Sanders Democrats, but they're definitely Democrats who are much more about focusing on radical ways of tackling inequality, you know, whole new taxation structures, whole new ways of thinking about healthcare, trying to make, I suppose, they're what Trump would call communists, but essentially, they're trying to make America a little bit like a more normal European country when it comes to welfare spending in that state. And then you've got the abundance Democrats, which are the Ezra Klein, you know, let's follow a little bit, you know, again, this is maybe a bad analogy, but a little bit more new labor. They're quite sort of technocratic. They're quite middle of

27:31the road. They think they've got some very smart policy solutions. They would argue that there's a lot of capital involved in the United States. And if they could build the right kind of infrastructure in the right way, they could raise people's standards of living. And then finally, so I've said there are three, and then the final one, which is where Abdullah Al-Sayed comes in, one of the big issues for many, many Americans is this whole question around Abdullah Al-Sayed and his position on Palestine, his position on Israel, his position as a Muslim. My phone was, again, being hit quite hard by Jewish friends who wanted to turn this whole thing into a sense of real shock, horror, and mourning at the fact that Abdullah Zayed won.

28:16And they feel, I think wrongly, but they feel that this is a really bad moment for Jews in the world. I don't think that's the way to read Abdul El-Sayed, but they will read it like that. While I was channel hopping, I can't remember which channel it was, but one of them was a guy from Michigan giving the stats on Jews and their vote in Michigan, saying I think it was 60% had voted for Abdul El-Sayed. I think I've got that right. But I think all of those things will have to sort of come together in one big strategic mix. So the Bernie Sanders AOC, I'm not sure AOC is in exactly the same place as Bernie Sanders, but the sort of the progressive left of the party. I guess they'll be assuming that Abdul El-Sayed will want to come in

29:04and just be part of that argument. I wonder if he's going to be more subtle than that. I took out of his speech, I didn't get that feeling. I got a slightly different feeling about what he was trying to do. But they're now going to have to resolve his question because, you know, we've seen in this election just how important is the personalities the people the names i mean it is extraordinary if you think about it that there will be people all over the world today who know who abdul al-sayyed is people you know people in every part of the world will be following this race in alaska or even in mississippi now i don't even at the time that we're recording this there's 28 votes between the Republican and the Democrat in the in the battle for the Senate in Mississippi

29:52that is that and that's a state that the the Democrat party from the official top level would probably put zero resources into so somehow the wave is such that even Mississippi it's a problem and all around the world people are talking about that one because it's consequential American elections are but secondly because this is what Trump has done and this is what Trump's politics are all about it's about who can command the attention economy space now as a result of that this is how backlashes work as a result of that these guys now how backlashes work. As a result of that, these guys now have the attention economy. People are way, way more interested in Abdul El-Sayed and James Tallarico because Donald Trump and Elon Musk have spent fortunes trying to destroy them.

30:36And they've stood up against it. And now they're already, as they go to Washington, established big figures. So they're going to have a really important role to play in what decision the Democrat Party takes. I'll tell you the other thing I was surprised by. We should throw in a little British element by telling our listeners and viewers that Mr. Steve Hilton was not elected in California. David Cameron's former right-hand man, the man who wore no shoes when Barack Obama came into the Downing Street, he's lost. This guy who was seen as very much part of my type of conservatism, which is pretty left-wing centrist conservatism, became a full-on Trumper. He went from being somebody who I would have

31:15thought was sympathetic to the Democrats in the way that many of us were to being a full-on Trump Republican. And astonishing, I mean, really pretty astonishing ascent that somebody who was basically a geeky Brit could within a few years, very few years, I mean, he literally was in, I was seeing him in Downing Street not many years ago, right? Flip it around. I mean, it's extraordinary. It would be like you suddenly popping up in the United States as the governor candidate in Michigan in five years time. I mean, it's pretty weird. I'm doing it. No, he's lost. But the point I was making is that Gavin Newsom has been very quiet through this campaign. Actually, AOC has been quite quiet through this campaign.

31:58Now, I know they're not on the ballot, but nor was Trump on the ballot. And I just wonder whether they were waiting to see what transpired in these elections before making a decision. Gavin Newsom, he said this when we interviewed him on the podcast. He said this thing, you know, in the end, it's up to my wife and my kids whether I do it or not, which, you know, I think we both took with a pretty large dose of salt. But it is interesting that he's still saying that and he's still not committed. The truth is we do not know who is going to be the candidate, either of the Republican Party or the Democrat Party. And that choice will be the consequence of a debate, which the Republicans have not had because they're completely enthralled to Trump.

32:41Trump's now damaged that they've got to have that debate. And the Democrats have not had because to my mind, they've never wanted to confront the strategic errors and choices that they made that led to them losing against somebody as terrible as Donald Trump last time around. Those two debates have to happen. And from those debates and how they go about them, the next presidential election, I think, will be decided. And I do have a worry, and although this was slightly assuaged by the nature of these speeches that I've been describing to you, I do have a worry that there'll be such a desire, rightly, to punish Trump for the incompetence, for the corruption, for the standard of living hits and the rest of it,

33:21that they'll so go after him within the congressional processes that they now can open up because they have a majority in both houses, that the people of America will start to think this is all they care about, So they said it was about us, but in fact it's about them. They've got to somehow do that without making it all about Trump. And I think that is about restoring democratic values, not just about the presidency, but about Congress as well, and about the Supreme Court. Actually, I know they love their constitution, but they could do with a big overhaul of their constitution. You mentioned the pardons thing. That's just got to go. You cannot have a president who, we know this president is going to have the longest ever

33:59pardon list before he goes. Which effectively means that a president in office is almost exempt from accountability or prosecution. I mean, it's an encouragement to illegal activity in office and encouraging your own people to be engaged. I spoke to Beth Macy, who sadly didn't get elected. I mean, she was running in a very red state in Roanoke in Virginia. And maybe a sign that maybe she was beginning to suspect she wouldn't get elected is that she very kindly sat down for me for an interview the day before the midterms. And wonderful though the rest of this politics is, that may not have been the way of getting everything over the edge. But she is a very smart, thoughtful writer from Roanoke, as well as being a congressional

34:46candidate. And her view is that the kind of people we should be looking at, and I think this reflects the sense that I got in the Midwest, was Andy Boucher, who's the Democrat governor from Kentucky, or maybe Pritzker up in Illinois. In other words, as she said to me, I hate to say this, but I think we probably need a white man. And she was basically a gesturing at figures who were within the Democratic Party. I mean, Boucher is the grandson of a Baptist preacher. He's the son, I think his father was the governor of Kansas before him, but he's a Democrat governor in red Kansas. And he's somebody that we saw together, you and I, when we were at the Democratic Convention in Chicago two years ago.

35:39He represents a different type of vision of the Democratic Party. What is he known for in the bits of East Kansas I was in? He was known for being really good at getting out during the floods, being with people when the flooding was coming. difficult campaign to try to stop Kansas from abolishing all abortion and doing it door to door. But he's doing it as the grandson of a Baptist preacher. And very much, I suspect on things like guns, very much on the Republican side rather than being over the Democratic side. So I don't know. I mean, just before we go to the break, I just think that this issue of what this election was about is both obviously something that could be answered by focus groups and polls, but it's also something that's going to be very subjectively answered by which side of the party you happen to be spinning their own narratives. And there'll be a Newsom narrative, there'll be an Ossoff narrative, there'll be an Andy Boucher narrative. And then there'll be narratives from the progressive left a little bit about what this might mean for foreign policy? I said a couple of weeks ago that I'm quite worried that the more Trump's

37:10wings are clipped at home, that he'll start to think his best place to be active and operating is abroad. So let's take a break, then come back on that. A better help ad. Your brain has limited storage. So why is it still holding on to that embarrassing moment from years ago? That tough breakup? The conversation with your boss you keep rehearsing in the shower? If you could permanently delete one thing from your brain, what would it be? BetterHelp is an online therapy platform that gives you space to talk about what's taking up too much of yours. BetterHelp is now in network with more than 125 health plans, with many co-pays as low as $15 for eligible members. And if you don't have eligible insurance or live outside the U.S., you can still get 10% off your first month.

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39:54Taking Zepbound with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Welcome back to The Rest is Politics with me, Alistair Campbell. And with me, Rory Stewart. Now, Alistair, you wanted to start us on foreign policy, which seems like a good challenge. So maybe I'm going to frame the question to you like this. Trump is back. He's lost control of the Senate and Congress. As you said before the break, his wings are clipped at home. What do you think this means for what he might do abroad? Well, look, you were right to say earlier that a lot of the things that were projected might

40:51happen, and a lot of American commentators and politicians were sure were going to happen, such as sending ICE to the ballot boxes to stop Latinos and others from going out to vote, the sort of trying to get everything wrapped up in a legal morass. These things that were predicted haven't happened. One of the most alarming predictions, and I don't like giving this guy too much airtime at all, but he gets so much of it, might as well add to it. Tucker Carlson, former commentator, sometimes talked about as somebody who fancies himself as the presidential contender himself but he was sort of when he almost seemed to be saying that he knew that if the elections went badly trump was planning to fire off a nuke at uh uh in relation to iran

41:39israel iran and of course at a time when in another election that's just happened recently the israeli election with a very unclear outcome but Netanyahu sort of clinging on for now, you could see why that sort of accelerated talk might be beginning. him deciding that he can get more actively engaged. And I don't mean necessarily in a good way, but actually start to tell himself, well, maybe I can sort out Ukraine. Or start to think that some of the foreign policy stuff that he's already been engaging in, such as China, Taiwan. I just have that sense that he won't want to play normal politics. He hasn't played normal politics the last two years he's done everything on a whim surrounded himself completely with sycophants executive

42:31orders the rule of the day corruption up to the guinnells and with both houses of congress now able to refine their voice i just think that becomes something he wants to avoid people talked about how they'll now have greater ability to stop his legislative agenda strikes me he doesn't have a agenda he's got two years where he can just be angry and whether it was when we're talking to mary trump or whether it was when we'd be series with Michael Wolff, all the people who, and the Mooch says this as well, Trump is just so full of anger. And he's going to be, for all the sort of bonhomie with his little phone calls to his journalistic friends overnight, saying this isn't about me. The reason he's doing that is because he knows it is about him. And the anger

43:22is going to be deeper. So I just worry that he'll lash out in all sorts of different directions. Well, we had this discussion when we had the not very pleasant experience of debating with Kellyanne Conway, Trump's former campaign manager. And I said, listen, you know, I was hearing from people who claim to be close to Trump's White House that the midterms wouldn't make much difference to him. He didn't really have a legislative agenda. So losing control of the Senate and Congress wouldn't make much difference to him, particularly because the Democrats in this has turned out to be the case. And, you know, we're never going to. She didn't like the suggestion that Trump didn't have a legislative agenda, and she banged on about the big, beautiful bill. But when I saw

44:09her afterwards, it turned out that her real concern was that he was going to be caught up in endless committee investigations of all his stuff. Now, I think she went through this I know that she went through this herself, so maybe it's her own personal trauma, but there was certainly a sense that she and many other Republicans are very, very afraid of what's about to happen to lots of them as they get dragged in front of endless committees and asked to account for their corruption and misdemeanors and the way in which that will be, in her words, a distraction from the administration, which brings us to foreign policy. The thing that I was so shocked about in this election is how little it was about

44:50foreign policy, how little voters cared. Now, that really matters because we're talking here about the world's superpower. We're talking about a Trump administration which has made the world more dangerous and poorer in two years than almost any American president has achieved in world history. We're talking about a guy who has basically wrecked European, Gulf, and Asian and African economies through his actions in Iran, who is an existential threat to the security of Europe through his support for Putin and his undermining of Ukraine, who is cozying up to dictators, humiliating allies, undermining the fundamental underpinnings of NATO. And nobody really talked about this at all. If Iran was mentioned,

45:47it was mentioned as a misstep that had contributed to people's diesel prices going up. And when I tried to remind voters on either side, just how much damage America is doing in the world, people were a little bit surprised and then sort of apologetic. They were like, oh, I didn't know that. Oh, I'm really sorry. I'd just like to apologize for what we're doing. But my goodness, that wasn't my sense that means I suspect that he may well pursue these erratic, horrifying foreign adventures, that American public opinion is not as opposed to those as you might think, if they don't affect their gas prices, and that America in general, including the Democratic Party, is becoming increasingly isolationist, their own version of America first, and that you shouldn't conclude from this

46:52that the old America's back, that the old American rules-based order has returned, that we don't need to worry about middle powers anymore, that we can all take a sigh of relief, and that somehow this is the moment where suddenly the United Nations is going to be reformed in a positive way, that American military and diplomatic strength will be restored around the world, that European countries and Canada can breathe a sigh of relief and think, it's fine, we can go back to our old dependency on the United States. I think this is an electorate that doesn't care, a Trump who, as you say, is now in a sense has almost nothing to lose, and a democratic party that's going to be incentivized to focus on domestic American cost of living issues.

47:42Just on the point about the indifference to the outside world, maybe being a little bit with both parties, there was a very I hesitate to say, it wasn't funny but it was interesting, where James Matthews, who's the Sky News Washington guy, Scottish, pretty tough, very good old-fashioned, gets his foot in the door, and there's this extraordinary, quite long few minutes British, pretty tough, very good old-fashioned foot, gets his foot in the door. And there's this extraordinary, quite long, for a few minutes, Abdul Ansar with his hands on James Matthews' shoulders, basically saying to him, why would I waste my time talking to you? Where are you from? And he says, I'm British. I'm from Sky News.

48:25Nobody watches Sky News here. He said, well, we're an international channel some people do watch this why would i want to talk to five people who watch sky news in america it was a really kind of that and you know hayley hayley stevens the the democrat who switched the republicans the night before just a little explain if people didn't follow the ins and outs of this. Hayley Stevens was the mainstream candidate of the Democratic Party against Abdel Al-Said. So many Democrats who thought Abdel Al-Said was too radical, too anti-Israeli, too pro-Palestinian had backed this woman called Hayley Stevens, who sort of thought that she was going to be crowned and become the Democratic candidate. She was beaten. And her response was ultimately,

49:08on the eve of the polls, to flip, appear in church with Rogers, the Republican candidate, and then endorse Trump's Republican party two days before the election. I mean, it's an unbelievable betrayal. I think it helped Abdul in the end, although it's worth pointing out that the Democrat candidate for governor in Michigan got a better share of the vote than he did. So I don't know whether that's relevant or not, but James Matthews, fair play to him, just kept saying, I'm from Sky News. My job is to ask you questions. Are you saying that your election is irrelevant to the rest of the world? And he sort of puts his arms on his, he's now sort of moved them down onto his biceps. And he's saying,

49:50I'm just, I'm just saying I'm fighting for Michigan. The point is, I mean, I used to say back in 1997, I did have this thing, NVTV, no votes TV. Okay. So when we had all these hundreds of bids coming in from all over the world, can we speak to Tony Blair? And I would just write on on the top nv tv no votes tv in other words a nice polite no but there comes a point where and this is something by the way that i think the point i made earlier these are now global figures and i think they should be leaning into that bit now because the other thing i kept thinking is if he doesn't matter talking to Sky News, why is he taking so long to tell him that he doesn't matter? You know, get on with campaigning.

50:32So I do think there's some, it's bipartisan. I mean, look, the Democrats will be more interested in Europe, are more likely to support Ukraine rather than Putin. But I don't think we should ever, we should think that we're going back to some sort of status quo ante But I don't think we should ever, we should think that we're going back to some sort of status quo ante. I don't think we are. But I think we're agreeing on this. I just have a worry because he's still the president. He's still going to be able to kind attention. He's still going to be able to say, I am traveling to X and I am going to do this and the world will follow. And he'll still have a say in who probably have a say in who follows him in terms of the Republican nominee. So his voice is still

51:10going to matter. He's never going to go away. And I just worry he's going to start lashing out in places that he understands even less than he understands the wars he's already started. Well, let's remember he has full executive power. He is still the commander in chief. The US military does what he says. He runs the Department of Justice. The DOJ will go out and do what he says. He appoints all the ambassadors. He determines all American foreign policy. And he's revealed quite clearly that he's prepared to launch these wars and strikes without consulting Congress. He didn't consult Congress on what he did in Iran, and I can't imagine he's going to consult Congress again. So then we get into the most difficult thing in the world, which is this question of trying to predict Trump.

51:56And as I've pointed out, some of the, and I'm not going to name them, but some of the great analysts of populism were pretty confident that they knew Trump well enough to predict comfortably that he wasn't going to accept results in midterms, and he has. So what do we know about him? Well, the answer is, here are the different theories. One of them is all he cares about is money. So there could be a narrative that what he's going to be doing is going around hoovering up bribes from as many countries as possible and using, remember, his tariff powers, which again, he tries often to exercise around Congress, without Congress, to extort money from people. Second thing is, and that may be connected to wars or it may not be connected to wars, what's the second thing

52:38we think we know about him? Well, we think we believe that he's a guy who believes in spheres of influence. So this Don Roe doctrine. So Cuba, I would be watching Cuba very, very carefully. I'd imagine that he would want to make Cuba essentially into, I don't know, the DR, right? It would be a half American state without a vote by the end of his presidency. And he will find a lot of people in Cuba who are so... I mean, Cuba is now suffering economically so much, the poverty is so extreme. And there will be many Cubans who don't like Donald Trump, but are just like, okay, enough already. I give in. We'll have Trump. Anything's better than this. We're going to fold in. What does that mean for China, Taiwan? And let's return to that again. How does Xi Jinping read this? There's part of Trump's

53:32worldview, which seems to say you have a sphere of influence. And the sphere of influence logic is Putin gets to dominate Ukraine, US gets to dominate Latin America, and Taiwan is thousands of miles away from the United States and 70 miles away from China. So the implication of that would presumably be, if he doesn't really care about democracy and international borders, which clearly is his position with Putin and Ukraine, that Xi Jinping could help himself to Taiwan. Now, we've just interviewed Kevin Rudd, the former Australian Prime Minister, and he'd be like, absolutely not. Taiwan is completely different. You know, the United States is a Pacific poweraeda Syria, Abdel Shara as president, which had been right against the advice of the State Department

54:29and the DoD and pulled it off successfully. And how does Xi Jinping play this? Does Xi Jinping think, okay, I've got two years, is this my best moment to move against Taiwan? Do I want to risk waiting for a new democratic president to come in? Or do I think this is the time to achieve my legacy? Xi Jinping's not getting any younger. He said again and again that Taiwan should be part of China. Does he move against it now? And that's before we get onto your questions around Iran, which are very pressing. Because again and again in the midterms, and I saw this in the speech that he gave us in Chillicothe, amongst that hour and a quarter of rambling was a lot of, I can't allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

55:09I didn't start this war. This war was started 42 years ago. Once I'm through the midterms, you can expect some action. I think I just want to reiterate, because if you listen to the end of the interview that's on leading at the moment with Kevin Rudd, you'll have one of those really marvelous spiky moments where rory sort of allows somebody to get under his skin but before you get to that you do have a real brain on china and a real brain on xi jinping so in the context of what rory's just been saying it really is worth a listen I also want to uh final plug of the day but is the the rest is the rest is politics series we're doing on Percivillians because David Blunkett was the interview last week Clark Carlyle who actually I'm with this evening because he's

55:55going to be unveiled or announced and introduced as he's the new chair of MIND the one of the biggest mental health charities in the country and he's a guy who honestly shouldn't really be here given how many times he tried to end his own life. And thankfully, mainly because he was so physically fit as a professional athlete, he failed. There's so much to unpick in what you've just been saying about the foreign policy stuff. And I wonder if the other thing that's just worth reflecting on is how this changes how other leaders deal with him. Because the one thing that we know about political leaders is that they sense their own strengths and weaknesses, but they also sense the strengths and weaknesses of their opponents.

56:40Now, whoever is the president of the United States is always going to be a powerful figure. But Donald Trump today is a lot less powerful than he was yesterday. And I wonder if you talk a lot and we both support this idea that the middle powers have to be much better and more strategic at using their power in a kind of combined and collective way. And I wonder if that actually helps this process too. People are going to just be a little bit, we're going to be worried about his unpredictability. And so does it weaken it? I mean, my anxiety, given that I'm very much on Team Carney, and that that was actually part of this debate, which you'll hear in this leading interview that we just did with the former Australian Prime Minister, that people may be tempted, many, many people in Whitehall

57:30in Britain, for example, or indeed in Germany, who don't want to really take the risks and do the tough, expensive work that involves building an independent third leg. So we're not completely dependent on China or the US, but we really have significant strategic autonomy. It's very tough, it's very expensive, and it's going to take a lot of time. And so some people may be tempted to just read these midterms and think, oh, phew, sigh of relief. You know, we don't need to worry again about the United States, we can return to a position of total dependency on the United States. I think that would be a big mistake. I think this is an opportunity. I think this is an opportunity for countries that maybe have just been avoiding having

58:15to think about how you deal with Trump and America. There is now a post-Trump America that people can start to think of and be involved in the debate about what it might be. But I think that'll be very, very interesting. It'll be interesting to see his next big foreign trip, where he chooses to go, how he chooses to project himself. Today's an interesting example of absolute classic Trumpism. You know, he gets a big whack. He comes out basically saying, oh, well, nothing to do with me. And it's not very convincing. It's not very compelling. And the truth is is there's something in him he will know that today Mark Carney will be thinking Donald Trump is less powerful than he was European leaders will be thinking he's less powerful than he was now he may be more dangerous

58:58because of that because he still does have the capacity to do extraordinary things but and, and I also think the fact that this debate will now have to be unleashed inside the Republican Party means that that will weaken him further. I mean, there's a reason why it's called lame duck. It's a very, very fitting expression because you can quack as loudly as ever, but you don't really have the weight. And that's just the way that the democratic process in the United States works. And then when people start to talk about his, well, he'll start to focus on legacy. I'm afraid, whether he likes it or not, November the 3rd, 2026 is a big part of his legacy because this was the last opportunity the American people had to give a

59:45verdict on him. They're not going to get it next time. And so let's cast forward then and put you into the very uncomfortable position of trying to advise a Republican run for the presidency in 2028. What's the best hope if you are J.D. Vance's campaign or Marco Rubio's campaign? So you're thinking, I want to do a presidential run in 2028, or maybe even Pete Hexeth, God knows. And you're looking at what's just happened. What's your best path to victory? And here are three things I'm interested in. One is, how do you work with Trump? Do you try to distance yourself from Trump and use the next two years to do that? And in which case, how do you deal with the fact that Trump is going to thump you very, very hard? That was famously the problem for the Democratic

1:00:35candidate trying to succeed at LBJ. How do you separate from it? And that was the way in which I think Kamala Harris probably got it wrong with Biden. She was unable to say how she was different from Biden. Secondly, what sort of economic conditions are you looking for between now and the election to have a hope of winning? Is it all about cost of living? And thirdly, again, without being too mystic meg about this, I think the next election is going to be very much an AI election. Within the next two years, AI will define so much in our economies. Either it will have pulled off incredible productivity benefits, creating these enormous trillion dollar companies more powerful than ever and putting US in an incredibly

1:01:18dominating position, or these tech stocks could go into full free fall, and they will be blamed for a full financial recession going into the next economy. So just any of the thoughts on those three things, how do you deal with Trump, economy and AI? Well, you morphed quickly from advising the Republican Party to advising the specific two candidates who are most talked about, Rubio and Vance. And I think that you'd have a different take on those. If I were the Republican Party, and I know the Republican Party has been pretty much, you know, wholly owned, wholly consumed by Trump. But I think those who are honest enough to recognize that he has become such a big problem, sufficient to give them these disastrous results, they have to start thinking

1:02:00post Trump. And that means I think for JD Vance and Marco Rubio, if they don't have some sort of separation from the agenda, then I think they're finished. Vance probably, I'm beginning to wonder whether Vance will even stand. I just don't, I don't think he's got it. I think Rubio could just about get there. But if the Republican Party only sense, they'd be casting far and wide. They'd be thinking, how do we get beyond this? Now, the problem they have with that is Trump, it's money, and it's the old politics. So if they're going to, a lot depends on who the Democrats pick. But if the Republicans think that the sort of campaigning that has now been shown to have failed in this context, they've got to start thinking about something different. So Vance, if it is

1:02:57Vance, he has to have a reinvention. The Vance that we see day after day after day after day is one of the most high profile political figures in the world he's not going to win he's not going to win and the republicans are going to know that what is it that makes you feel he hasn't got it what what is it specifically about vance that's that makes you think the guy hasn't got it and maybe rubio's got more of it i think rubio has been cleverer at not getting too drawn in as rubio, I think, has still got some capacity to project himself as an independent voice. Now, as it happens, I think he sold his soul. And I think that's always a dangerous thing for a politician to do. And I also feel with Vance, I feel he's,

1:03:37you went to that rally with Trump, okay, in Ohio. And I thought it was really interesting. You said that, you know, and I said, but didn't you get bored of him just rambling? He said, no, it was mesmerizing. You said it was mesmerizing. You weren't bored. It was really was really interesting. You said that, you know, and I said, but didn't you get bored of him just rambling? He said, no, it was mesmerizing. You said it was mesmerizing. You weren't bored. It was really, really interesting. Two things. Donald Trump said, and I think he's right, if I shot somebody in Fifth Avenue, my base wouldn't care less. I think that's probably true. If J.D. Vance shot somebody in Fifth Avenue, he'd go to jail if jd vance stood up and

1:04:09did 90 minute rambles without a script just going from left right and center people would leave the room he doesn't have the thing that trump has that engages people even you in that sort of audience he's a more he's a more bog standard politician, I would say. And he's not very nice and he's not very charismatic and he's not very, he's intelligent. So for example, I said, I put Percivillians when I'm analyzing your friend, King Charles's speech, Vance, it seemed to me was the only Republican in that Congress who worked out what was going on. This was a speech really poking things that he believed in. So he's very, very intelligent, but I don't think he's got the political appeal. Now, the question then is, are there others in the Republican large family that could come up?

1:04:59And don't forget the thing that people say again and again, again, said at the last election, including Republicans and Democrats, is this the best offer we can give to the people? That these are the two candidates, whether it was Biden and Trump or Trump and Harris. Is this the best we can do? I cannot believe that there aren't people. I'm sure somebody good is going to emerge out of this Democrat race. I'm pretty confident about that because I think there are some, we've talked about some of them today. There's a fair smattering of really effective political potential leaders. There have to be people on the Republican side. Otherwise, I think the Democrats' celebration today will be followed by another one in two years. And I think the AI point is interesting, because AI, you're probably right, but think about how AI is seen within the American political context at the moment. We talked before, a few weeks ago,

1:05:45about how data centers have become this massive issue in some of these swing states. Now, we don't know whether it's switched votes, but it may well have played a part. And AI at the moment, when Trump was banging on about the economy's never been better, we're making so much money, the people who voted against the Republicans, they're saying, yeah, but who is making that money? So the issue, AI is going to to drive further drive the issue of inequality. And inequality is the thing which the Democrats, particularly if they can clean up politics and can actually say we are different to the Republicans when it comes to money and corruption. That inequality agenda, I think, is going to be really, really big for both the progressives and for the more mainstream conservative Democrats. So I think in all of them, I wouldn't go for Vance and I

1:06:31wouldn't go for Rubio. If somebody came out and said, you guys, you're part of the problem. Somebody new has got to emerge in the Republican Party. Otherwise, I think they're really damaged. And I also go back to the point you made earlier, I think Trump wants that. Let's just maybe finish by just giving people a little bit of a detailed view on what's actually happened in these races. And maybe I'll just lead on from the point you just made about Republican candidates. One of the things that struck me most is that this has been a night in which some very, very strong Republican candidates who in a normal year would hope to hold those seats have lost them. Perhaps the most dramatic is Susan Collins

1:07:14in Maine, who is one of the most extraordinary survivors. You know, she is incredibly impressive, independent-minded, new main in and out, has been there for a very, very long time. And she's just lost to Troy Jackson, who is a fifth-generation logger, kind of old, very lived-in face, has just taken her out there. Roy, can I just jump in on Troy Jackson? I watched his speech as well, and it was so different to the others. Again, your point that you made the other day, they're all so different. His speech was like folksy. He kept being sort of giving friendly heckles, and he couldn't resist sort of engaging with them all the time, so it all became a bit rambling. Very, very different character.

1:07:59But, you know, he won by 53 to 47. You know, that's a big swing from where she's been there 30 years. She's got incumbency. She's popular with her base, et cetera. So, yeah, sorry, I jumped in. But Troy Jackson's speech worth looking at as well. No, I think Maine is an amazing thing to look at. I mean, look at the other Republican seats that were lost. Ashley Hinson in Iowa, local news anchor, very, very much embedded in that way. A Kansas, Doc Roger Marshall, he's an obstetrician who has literally delivered thousands of his constituents' babies. Army reservist, maybe less than Ohio people like John Husted, who's like a football star. But there was a range of pretty solid, plausible Republican candidates. And now let's go through

1:08:46the people that won, just as a reminder for people who've not been following it bit by bit. So incredible upsets, Iowa and Kansas. These are deep, deep red states. Iowa, as you said, Turek, who is in a wheelchair, Paralympian basketball star. Kansas, a guy who hasn't got much national and international coverage, but Pastor Adam Hamilton, who is an elderly head of the Methodist church there. And a really interesting vision of even more than Tallarico, somebody who really can talk God in a very measured, calm way. Tallarico, we talked about, he's the geeky pastor and I think mesmerizing politician, the man that I'm most excited by in Texas. Georgia, John Ossoff, well, we began with him. Troy Jackson, we've just spoken about. Adler-Side,

1:09:38we've spoken about. Sherrod Brown in Ohio. Sherrod Brown is the rumpled, I mean, he's actually a Yale graduate, but you wouldn't think it. He's like 50 years in the Senate, this guy. He just lost last time and has come back in again. Very much the rumpled trade union voice. Cooper in North Carolina. And then finally, somebody we didn't talk about, which is Annie Andrews in South Carolina. Now, she was running against Darlene Graham, Lindsey Graham's sister. This was Lindsey Graham's seat. People remember Lindsey Graham. He was actually a big Trump supporter, a big veteran of the Senate, but somebody who was very much associated with trying to defend Ukraine against Russia, and who in a sense, Trump

1:10:26double-crossed having got this Graham bill through. He then lifted the sanctions on Putin, defeated by Annie Andrews, who's a pretty bubbly pediatrician. Anyway, I just thought it was to come through on that, an amazing list. And oddly, the one that hasn't yet been declared and won't be declared for some time is Alaska. That is really close. And that's Mary Patola, who is the you-pick candidate running on fish family freedom. That is the race that Fox News was on about all the time. And they tried to make the big scandal of the election. That's the race in which the Republican candidate Dan Sullivan, the Marine Colonel, found himself against another Dan Sullivan, who's literally vanished, and who somebody,

1:11:19presumably in the Democratic camp, thought would be a good idea to put up to split Sullivan's vote. And it is true. The guy has got, I mean, not an enormous number of votes, but he's got a significant number of votes in a very, very close race. And you can completely see why the Republicans are completely disgusted and bewildered that people would try to play that kind of trick because that's not a normal thing to do. I mean, that literally can only be done for one reason, which is would try to play that kind of trick because that's not a normal thing to do. I mean, that literally can only be done for one reason, which is to try to sap the Republican vote. And it may be that Mary Potota is punished for that and Sullivan comes through.

1:11:53That one is going to take a long time to unpick. And there are a couple of others where whether there'll be full recounts, don't know. But that is close. And it's like a couple of thousand votes for Dan Sullivan too. And it's kind of it that's one where the leaders changed overnight in a different point so that's good and that's going to take a long time to unpick but that was what was so interesting about the fact that trump conceded so quickly he could have said well we've got to wait till the very end of this let's just see what happens in alaska let's see if we need a recount here etc he didn't do any of that listen my final point is just to go through some of the sort of historics, the firsts. And some of these guys we've already

1:12:30talked about. Abdul El-Sayed, first Muslim senator in the United States Senate. Chris Pappas, New Hampshire Senate, first openly gay man elected to the Senate. James Tallarico, your new hero. I think he's taking over from Alan Milburn. First Texas Democrat to win since 1994. That is a long time ago. That was the year that Grace was born, my daughter. And by the way, there are nine tickets left at the Palladium on Saturday. Nine, just nine. We've got to get it sold out. Adam Hamilton in Kansas, first Democratic senator in Kansas since elected since 1932, right? That's before you and I were born. Annie Andrews, first woman elected to South Carolina, to the Senate. Amy Acton, first woman elected governor of Ohio.

1:13:19And Keisha, this is a great name, Keisha Lance Bottoms is the first black woman elected governor of any state of the four governors that are now elected. So this really does feel like a big change moment. And it's going to be so interesting now to see how both parties react. But Donald Trump can say all he wants that he wasn't on the ballot. He was the big driver. He's the reason why people are talking about this election all over the world. The backlash has begun. Vladimir, Elon, Donald, Nigel, your boys took a hell of a beating tonight. And that's why I'm in a better mood despite my rather croaky voice. Thank you, Alistair, very much. Been a great pleasure doing this midterms coverage with you.

1:14:02And also huge shout out to the Goldhanger production team, who were incredible. People will have heard the last two things from Izzy, who was traveling around Texas, and most recently, Louisiana. And of course, please do go to thewrestlespolitics.com to sign up to the newsletter. You can read more of Izzy's reporting there. And I'm going to be producing a Sunday read on my tour around the United States. But a particular thanks from me for the work of Celine, who was there doing some incredible filming. Daisy, who was doing a lot of the production, research and general cheeriness as we travel around the country and bella who led us and drove us uh as you imagine long long american roads hour after hour as well as leading the team staying up

1:14:51all night getting the b-roll together we've got more b-roll than anyone on earth sticking funny cameras out of windows so thank you so much to the goalhanger team for all the hard work no it's been it's been great and uh and you know special shout out out to Celine for getting you in a MAGA hat. She'll be getting you backing Liz Truss next. You watch. Anyway, there we are. All the best. Speak to you soon. Bye-bye, Alistair. Hi, I'm Lexi, your friend and jeweler at Shane Company. If you're planning to propose this holiday, we're ready to make creating your engagement ring a warm, welcoming experience. At Shane Company, we're all about your style, your budget, your dream engagement ring. Explore the widest selection of diamonds and ring settings ready for you to see in person or visit us at

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