439. The Pro-Putin President: Are Zelensky and Europe sleepwalking into disaster?

Is appeasing Trump and Putin a recipe for disaster in Europe , or simply a pragmatic approach? Why was JD Vance so silent in Zelensky's second White House visit? With mass protests on the streets of Tel Aviv, is Netanyahu losing the Israeli public — and his own army? Join Rory and Alastair as they answer all these questions and more. Join The Rest Is Politics Plus: Start your FREE TRIAL at therestispolitics.com to unlock exclusive bonus content – including Rory and Alastair’s miniseries – plus ad-free listening, early access to episodes and live show tickets, an exclusive members’ newsletter, discounted book prices, and a private chatroom on Discord. The Rest Is Politics is powered by Fuse Energy. The Rest Is Politics is powered by Fuse Energy. Fuse are giving away FREE TRIP+ membership for all of 2025 to new sign ups 🎉 TRIP+ gets you ad-free listening, discounts, and early access to episodes and pre-sale tickets for live shows! To sign up and for terms and conditions, visit ⁠https://www.fuseenergy.com/politics⁠ ⚡ Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ nordvpn.com/restispolitics It's risk-free with Nord's 30 day money back guarantee ✅ For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @restispolitics Email: [email protected] Social Producer: Celine Charles Video Editor: Josh Smith Assistant Producer: Evan Green, India Dunkley Senior Producer: Dom Johnson Head of Content: Tom Whiter Exec Producers: Tony Pastor, Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rory Stewart?

  Coming up on today's show, Trump was saying he was going to end the war in 24 hours. He meant by giving Putin what he wanted. Trump is on Putin's side on this and always has been.

• 0:10Alastair Campbell?

  It's all about whether anyone can trust Vladimir Putin. And it seems to me that the only person in this equation who is remotely minded to trust Putin is Trump. And then it's a question of whether you can trust Trump.

• 0:21Rory Stewart?

  What if Trump just doesn't care about Ukraine, doesn't care about NATO, doesn't care about Europe? His gut instinct is screw Ukraine, it's really part of Russia anyway, it doesn't really matter. Even if Putin proposes a deal and Trump gets behind it, Zelensky won't accept it.

• 0:38Alastair Campbell?

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• 0:50Rory Stewart?

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• 1:04Alastair Campbell?

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• 1:33Rory Stewart?

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• 1:41Alastair Campbell?

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• 1:56Rory Stewart?

  This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.

• 1:58Alastair Campbell?

  And I must thank NordVPN because on my Grand European Tour with Fiona, I was away from the Hawthorns for West Bromwich against Burnley, but I managed to watch it. There you go.

• 2:11Rory Stewart?

  I actually had a NordVPN thank you. I was in the new Starbucks here in Creve and of course the thing flashed up saying this is an unsecured public network. And I was able to go to my VPN and it was a little reminder of something we often forget when we're in all those cafes and things, which is actually genuinely, people can do all kinds of weird cyber attacks and spying if you don't have a virtual private network when you're sitting in that Starbucks.

• 2:34Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I think, are you not already sort of proud of me that I managed to do this? Or should I say Fiona managed to do this?

• 2:41Rory Stewart?

  I'm incredibly proud of you. That's a tech transformation. So to get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com/rusthispolitics. That's nordvpn.com/rusthispolitics. And the link is in the episode description.

• 2:57Speaker 02

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• 3:34Rory Stewart?

  Welcome to The Rest is Politics with me, Rory Stewart.

• 3:37Alastair Campbell?

  And with me, Alastair Campbell. And first half, All Matters Ukraine, after another big episode of the Trump reality TV show. And second half Gaza. And then we'll perhaps go a bit more domestic when we get to question time.

• 3:50Rory Stewart?

  Let's start on this. So our super keen listeners will have picked up that we did an extra episode on Saturday morning. So live after the Putin-Trump meeting in Alaska. We're now recording 48 hours. After that, in the time since, and people will remember, nothing really was said at the end of the Trump Putin meeting. But there was massive anxiety from Zelensky, of course, the Ukrainian leader, and the European leaders who then jumped on a plane, dropped everything. I've never seen anything like it. How quickly these guys clear their schedules and get on a plane to get out to Washington to try to sit down with Trump. And presumably to return, I mean, I guess to my central analogy, which is that I think always the momentum of Trump,

• 4:34Rory Stewart?

  the rolling boulder is heading in the direction of Putin. But over the last eight months, again and again, the European leaders and Zelensky try to sort of stop it and keep saying, please give us security guarantees, please give us a ceasefire, please don't sign up to what has seemed almost since November, the inevitable deal with Putin. I imagine when Trump was saying he was going to end the war in 24 hours, he meant by giving Putin what he wanted. But anyway, over to you. What's your sense of what's going on?

• 5:03Alastair Campbell?

  I mean, it's all about trust now, isn't it? It's all about whether anyone can trust Vladimir Putin. And it seems to me that the only person in this equation who is remotely minded to trust Putin is Trump. And then it's a question of whether you can trust Trump to stay engaged, to stay interested. Look, I thought the the outcome of Alaska and the optics of Alaska were both horrific for Ukraine and for Europe. I think that's why you did see this extraordinary action of Macron, Merz, Starmer, Maloney, Stub from Finland, Rutte and Von der Leyen, all feeling, oh my God, we've got to get this show back on the road. I think the significant shift that's happened since that meeting, if you remember, Trump went into the meeting in Alaska, saying he would be very unhappy,

• 5:47Alastair Campbell?

  there'd be severe consequences if he didn't get a ceasefire out of Putin. Ceasefire not even discussed. So therefore he comes out with a new line, which is basically, we don't go to the ceasefire, we go straight to a peace agreement and we go straight to security guarantees. Okay? So he's sort of totally reframed the kind of the positioning of this thing. For obvious reasons, from the optics and the substance of Alaska. So for obvious reasons, the European leaders were very alarmed, very worried, very anxious about what was going on.

• 6:19Rory Stewart?

  The reason why the European leaders were so horrified is that they had had a call with Trump two days earlier in which he had absolutely promised not to do that. And they had somehow convinced themselves that they had a deal with Trump, that Trump then broke as soon as he sat down with Putin. And so a lot of the last two days, I guess, has just been trying to reverse and get back to where they thought they were on Friday.

• 6:42Alastair Campbell?

  And they also know he is very impressionable. He does have the ability. It's the thing that lots of people who know and well say is that he actually doesn't enjoy confrontation. It's why he won't have enjoyed that meeting with Zelensky that Vance triggered it. It's probably why Vance was kept in his box. So the Europeans know that the best chance to maybe, at least at the margins, get him to shift a position, to give them a bit more time to do the things they're trying to achieve. Get in the room with him and, you know, that's what they did. You talk about Trump being the boulder, but the boulder is kind of moving a little bit like he moved on that red carpet in Alaska. It's sort of going a little bit sideways rather than a straight line.

• 7:22Alastair Campbell?

  So what the Europeans said is we cannot have a repeat of Trump, Vance beating up Zelensky in the White House.

• 7:30Speaker 03

  Have you said thank you once this entire meeting? No, in this entire meeting, you said thank you.

• 7:35Alastair Campbell?

  Therefore, we have to kind of be there like a bit of a bolstering shield. Before they went to the White House, first of all, for the bilateral with Zelensky, then with the broader meeting with all the European leaders, they met at the Ukrainian embassy. They clearly decided, I think, that whether we like it or not, and it's pretty clear they don't all like it, we're going to have to do a bit of, you know, backside kissing. So they did a lot of that. This wouldn't be happening without your leadership. Thank you so much for getting Putin to say whatever he said and at least to be talking about security guarantees. The problem where we are now, I think, is that, so if you take Keir Starmer's reaction and his response at the end of the day,

• 8:19Alastair Campbell?

  which I thought was fair and balanced, he basically said, we're at least talking about security guarantees and now the hard work begins on what that means. And we're talking about the possibility of a trilateral meeting. The only thing I've been able to pick up that I've not seen in the media from any of the people who were there. Is that it was Putin on the phone call with Trump in the middle of the meeting with European leaders, who suggested starting with a bilateral meeting with Zelensky. Now, I don't know quite what to read into that, but it seems that that is what gave them some sort of confidence that Putin was at least talking about it. However, the Kremlin line is, they said they had a very frank and constructive discussion.

• 9:04Alastair Campbell?

  Now, frank usually means not very friendly. And they then just talked about setting up a new process of negotiators to talk about the possibility of the meeting between Trump and Zelensky. So more drama, more theatre, more announcements of process, but very hard to assess if it actually adds up to very much.

• 9:25Rory Stewart?

  I'm going to play a devil's advocate maybe and push, push harder and say there's a pretty good chance. And if I was really forced to predict, I'd say that Trump is on Putin's side on this and always has been. And I think we're misreading in a way. I was listening to our friend, the Mooch, saying, you know, how come Trump got so outmaneuvered by Putin, you know, it was three to zero against him. And what I thought is that maybe we're looking at it the wrong way up. Trump is only outmaneuvered if you assume that what Trump is trying to do is support Ukraine or take the European position. I mean, there's no doubt the Ukrainian European position was outmaneuvered, but what if Trump just doesn't care about Ukraine?

• 10:11Rory Stewart?

  Doesn't care about NATO, doesn't care about Europe, and what he really cares about is having good relationships with Russia and potentially getting some minerals deal and business deals in Russia. In which case, from his point of view, the art of the deal he's making doesn't really have anything to do with defending Ukraine or Europe. But we're sort of imagining that in Trump's mind. He's back in, you know, the nineteen eighties in in New York and somehow Ukraine and Europe are his company. But his company is is the US.

• 10:40Alastair Campbell?

  But Rory, if that's the case, why doesn't he go much closer to the J D Vance position? And J D Vance looked very miserable yesterday. He was made to sit at the children's table. You had the the BT with the leaders there, Trump sitting with all the leaders. And then over there behind that side of the table, I saw I spotted Jonathan Powell and some of the European diplomats who were there. And then over there, you had J D Vance, Rubio, Besant, Hexeth, Susie Wiles. And it really did look like this is for the big people and you sit there and you don't speak. And in the meeting in the Oval Office, I think it's quite interesting. Yes, there was a lot of fuss made of the fact that Zelensky wore a suit.

• 11:24Alastair Campbell?

  Because last time he wore his kind of, you know, the uniform that he's been wearing since this war started. But the other thing that was very, very different is J D Vance did not open his mouth. So I think Vance was told by Trump to stay in his box. Rubio looked very nervous at both meetings, I thought. But I think a lot of this depends on, you're basically saying they don't care about Ukraine. And he only wants to help Putin. If he doesn't really care, why go through all this effort?

• 11:54Rory Stewart?

  I wonder whether, I mean, getting into Trump's psychology or Putin's psychology is very difficult.

• 11:59Alastair Campbell?

  Well, it's what all the leaders were doing yesterday.

• 12:01Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 12:02Alastair Campbell?

  They were all doing that.

• 12:03Rory Stewart?

  Let's say broadly speaking, your analysis is that the things that he cares most about now are fame, are money. But he's got more money than he used to. And that he has certain sorts of beliefs, of which the strongest one is he loves tariffs. Second one is he doesn't like immigration. And third, but maybe not quite as strong, is the belief that the world is divided into spheres of influence. And big countries get to do what they want in their backyard.

• 12:32Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 12:32Rory Stewart?

  And basically Russia gets to do what it wants back here. But if it's a slightly less strong belief than his love of tariffs and his hatred of immigration, then. He's facing a concerted effort by an enormous amount, not just of European allies, but NATO, a lot of the Republicans, a lot of American public opinion who are skeptical about Russia. So although his, I think his gut instinct is screw Ukraine, it's really part of Russia anyway, it doesn't really matter, everything would be much easier. And anyway, they're never going to win. I think that's another very important point. He thinks that Putin is winning, Ukraine's doomed, the way to get peace is just to let Putin get what he wants.

• 13:14Rory Stewart?

  But the reason in eight months he hasn't quite got there is that he quite enjoys probably having all these European leaders jumping on planes to see him all the time.

• 13:23Alastair Campbell?

  He loved it, he loved it.

• 13:25Rory Stewart?

  And he probably feels, well, I don't care enough really about this issue to totally throw in my whole weight behind Putin. But if you were to grab him one on one, I think he hasn't changed his position, which is still, Ukraine's really part of Russia, this isn't relevant to the United States. If we get to sell some weapons to Europe, great, but that's not that important to me either. And I'd like the Nobel Peace Prize. And the easiest way to get peace in inverted commas is to take the aggressor's peace. And the most straightforward sort of peace is, dear Putin, have some more territory and stop fighting.

• 14:00Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. Of course, so much, we talk about Trump psychology, a lot of this is about what Putin thinks. It was really interesting during the pool spray at the top with Zelensky. And oh my God, I, I, I did try, Roy, I fed in to every person I could think of who had any influence in this, please can we not have a pool spray at the top with Zelensky? But it happened. It was, if you, if you listen very carefully, Roy, you heard Zelensky, when Trump was obviously going to take questions, Zelensky said, he sort of whispered, let's make it short. And Trump said, short, very short. It then went on for about five years. He took, he took questions from Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend about every three minutes, including about policing, in mail-in balloting, all sorts of nonsense. I thought Zelensky was quite clever.

• 14:45Alastair Campbell?

  When he reached in for the envelope, I thought, oh Lord, he said, who's, who's the Ukrainian king who's going to give a state visit to Trump? But in fact, it was a letter from his wife to Melania Trump. We obviously think about Trump a lot because he's in our heads all the time, because he's, he's on our phones and on our TV screens all the time. Putin, we see a lot less of. But here's Rory, why we, literally why you've just been talking, the other Rory in my line, my son, he sent me this tweet, have you seen this? It's a tweet from Medvedev, former president, still a, you know, we don't know how important he remains in the Putin sphere. He wasn't there at the meeting, but this is his tweet this morning. The anti-Russian, warmongering coalition of the willing fails to outplay

• 15:27Alastair Campbell?

  Trump on his turf. Europe thanked and sucked up to him. That is true. The question now is which tune the Kiev clown, that's Zelensky, will play about guarantees and territories back home, once he's put on his green military uniform again. So he's trolling Zelensky, he's trolling the Europeans. I mean, we talk about Putin being a sort of Barbara's dictator. Does Medvedev put that out there with Putin's blessing or not? Because if he does, he's basically taking the piss.

• 15:57Rory Stewart?

  I think he is taking the piss. And I think if I were Putin, I'd be pretty confident at the moment that things are going in my direction, that these European meetings are just froth. I mean, I'm increasingly coming to the view on lots of fundamental things with Trump, including tariffs, but also what we'll get on to, I think, maybe when we talk about some question time, some of his internal repression stuff, that he's actually surprisingly consistent. And the reason that we get confused is because he'll send out posts on Truth Social saying things like, I'm getting fed up with Putin, or he's got 50 days and I'll put sanctions, but never actually happens. It's the same with Israel. There were moments where everyone was like, oh, he's getting really annoyed with Netanyahu, he didn't

• 16:36Rory Stewart?

  visit him on his golf tour, etc. But fundamentally, it feels as though he is never actually going to punish either Russia, or in fact, Israel, whatever they do. And that's because at some level, he's kind of on their side.

• 16:52Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 16:52Rory Stewart?

  On the Russian thing, it's also really worth emphasizing that Putin, rightly or wrongly, seems much, much more confident now about his military position. So I was looking at some of the statistics around recruitment, and the Russians are consistently recruiting about twice as many people a day as the Ukrainians. And it's really remarkable. Part of this is about incredibly generous payouts that they're making.

• 17:19Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 17:19Rory Stewart?

  So in Russia, you can, normal person, on about $900 a month, so. You know, seven hundred and fifty pounds a month. So in British terms, very, very much well below the minimum wage. But soldiers on the front line earn much more than their British equivalents. If you're on the front line, you get two thousand four hundred and fifty dollars a month salary. So, you know, nearly two and a half times median income, thirty thousand dollars signing bonus. Then you get special money for, you get twelve thousand dollars if you get a medal, you get money if you get tanks and helicopters. And you, when you retire, you get a guaranteed one thousand one hundred dollars pension a month for the rest of your life. That's a really significant thing, and they don't

• 18:00Rory Stewart?

  seem to have any problem recruiting. At the same time, there have been these breakthroughs. There was a breakthrough in Povorosk, which begins to seem to threaten nearly ten, ten miles worth of breakthrough, which is forcing the Ukrainians into a very, very narrow corridor to one of their central logistics bases in the east. So I think if you're Putin, you're sitting there thinking, in the end, the war's going in my favour. In the end, I know that, yes, the Europeans will continue to buy American stuff, but there's going to be less American stuff, less American focus. I know that there is no US appetite. So you, you talked about Vance. I don't know whether you saw his interview on Sunday. He said-

• 18:38Speaker 03

  I think the president, and I certainly think that America, we're done with the funding of the Ukraine war business. But if the Europeans want to step up and actually buy the weapons from American producers, we're okay with that, but we're not going to fund it ourselves anymore.

• 18:52Alastair Campbell?

  That basically is what they mean by security guarantees. We will make weapons and you lot can buy them.

• 18:56Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, over to you on that. So that's the final thing. So this security guarantees story. Remember Macron in his meeting with Trump, which I think is now back in February?

• 19:05Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 19:05Rory Stewart?

  Thought that he'd got security guarantees out of Trump. But if you listen to Trump, there's no detail on what these guarantees are. And if I were Putin, I would think, well, this isn't anything like Maloney's Article Five NATO, you know, attack on one, it's an attack on all. And if it remains ambiguous, it's not really a deterrent, is it?

• 19:24Alastair Campbell?

  Those press conferences are utterly horrific because the journalists just, they don't do their job. There, you have people like this Mr. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was actually talking about going for a walk with MTG around Washington. Thank you, Mr. President, it felt so safe. If you can walk around Washington safe with MTG, you know, then the place, thank you. And then all this sort of nonsense going on. And the guy from Fox News basically just trying to needle Zelensky.

• 19:51Alastair Campbell?

  The whole time. But the other point where you say that about them being more confident militarily, there's an amazing thing. I don't know if you follow this thing that goes out pretty much every day. The British Ministry of Defence Military Intelligence put out these kind of, you know, analysis of what's going on. They get way more coverage around the world than they do in in Britain. But the one that I that caught my eye this week that went out basically says, if they carry on based at the battlefield advances so far in 2025, it will take Russian forces approximately 4.4 more years to gain 100% of the four Ukrainian oblasts territory. Now, just think about that, because what Trump seems to have fallen for with Putin

• 20:35Alastair Campbell?

  is the idea that Zelensky will have no problem handing over the Donbass, which is two of those oblasts. And somebody said yesterday that it's like saying to Trump, look, give, decide who your biggest enemy in the world is and give them Florida and maybe throw in a bit of Texas as well. Your friend from The Economist, Shashank Joshi, I saw him being interviewed on television yesterday. And he said for Zelensky to hand over the Donbass would be suicidal. So that can't happen. That that means that this really hasn't moved past stage one. And Zelensky did not give any promises on that at all.

• 21:12Rory Stewart?

  Again, the coverage has tended to assume that we're on the cusp of a deal. The way it's normally described is there's like a pro-Russian deal. And the pro-Russian deal would mean that Putin would get, as you say, the head of the Donbass and Ukraine would agree to demilitarise, so limit the size of its army, not join NATO, not join the EU. And sanctions would be lifted on Russia. So that's the kind of pro-Russian position, which is, I think, the position to which which Trump basically favours in his gut. And then there's the other position, which is the kind of pro-Ukraine deal, which is no recognition of the territory Russia's taken, freeze the front lines where they are, Ukraine can arm as much as it wants, it's got a free pass to join NATO and the EU,

• 21:55Rory Stewart?

  and America will produce in the most optimistic scenario, almost a kind of NATO-style guarantee for the security of Ukraine. My guess is that neither of these things are going to happen. My guess is that even if Putin proposes a deal and Trump gets behind it. Zelensky won't accept it and therefore what you'll really have is a sort of frozen conflict, a kind of grey zone going on for years and years and years. I was reminded, thinking about this, our interview with the president of Cyprus and the way that he thinks about Turkish occupied North Cyprus. So obviously, from his point of view, he, in a way, is like Ukraine. That was part of their territory. The Turks invaded, they captured half the territory and 60 years later, the Greek Cypriots are still saying,

• 22:40Rory Stewart?

  this is an illegal occupation, we don't recognise it, get out. But the rest of the world, unfortunately, is beginning to, I'm afraid, lose energy and think, well, facts are facts and basically Turkey occupies North Cyprus, we'll have a two-state solution. So there's a serious chance that that's the kind of world that you end up in in Ukraine.

• 22:56Alastair Campbell?

  Well, the other thing that we, you know, when we talk about, you can't work out Trump's psychology, but so much of this is about his psychology. He doesn't stick with things for long. So we're going to talk in the second half, after the break, we're going to talk about Gaza. Now, what's been happening in Gaza in the last 24, 48 hours, there's been some pretty consequential stuff going on. But was there any mention of that yesterday in the long ramble that he did in the Oval Office? Because in his head, he's kind of already, I think, moved on from that. He's now thinking, Ukraine is the episode I'm dealing with now. That is what I've got to get fixed. I've got to get a new storyline out every day. And then, I think you're right, I think eventually this will possibly peter

• 23:40Alastair Campbell?

  out. Now, I don't think we should underestimate, by the way, the significance. You know, we can laugh and say, oh, you look at them all getting on a plane and going to sort of kiss his backside. It felt to me quite significant that the Europeans were there yesterday and that he felt this need, for whatever reason, he went round the table, basically saying something very nice about all of them. And even though, to some European eyes, it would have been puke-making to watch them say, we couldn't do this without you and blah, blah, blah. One, they stopped short of any of the Nobel Prize nonsense. But two, when you actually dig into what they were saying, there were some pretty substantial points being made. The one point in the round table, when Trump, I felt, is about to lose it, was with Merz, because Merz was absolutely clear, you cannot possibly go on with these

• 24:25Alastair Campbell?

  negotiations without a ceasefire. Likewise with Macron, Macron said, yeah, it'd be great if you can get a trilateral meeting, but then there should be a quadrilateral meeting where we should be there as well, because Ukraine's security is Europe's security. So they were making some pretty substantial points. And of course, the big point that Zelensky kept making repeatedly was security guarantees. Now, what nobody did in public, but I suspect this is what they're now doing in private, is, okay, you've said security guarantees, let's drill down on that. And do you know one of the most interesting, moving things I saw this week? I don't know when it was done, but it was an interview that Bill Clinton did with Miriam O'Callaghan,

• 25:07Alastair Campbell?

  who's the Irish television presenter. He was talking about the deal that Ukraine did to get rid of its nuclear weapons. And he was basically saying, I feel really bad about that, because I was part of persuading the Ukrainians to give up their nuclear weapons on the basis that Russia would never attack them. Russia's now attacked them with the same leader. That's this point about trust. How do you possibly trust somebody who has broken so many promises and so many red lines? And as you know, Rory, I'm in, I'm in Germany, and I picked up De Velt yesterday, and there's an amazing feast by Gary Kasparov.

• 25:47Alastair Campbell?

  Now, Gary Kasparov, we know, is not a fan of Vladimir Putin.

• 25:53Rory Stewart?

  He's actually, he's quite courageous, Kasparov. I mean, his criticisms, I mean, those kind of Russian criticisms of Putin by a leading figure have ended up with people being assassinated.

• 26:01Alastair Campbell?

  Well, absolutely. I mean, you know, you see comedians doing stories about, you know, who's going to fall out the window next. No, Gary Kasparov, he is right out there and has been for a long time. But the headline is Putin is not the Hitler of 1938. And what is, the whole piece essentially is about these comparisons we make between Putin and Hitler. And he says, yes, you can make a comparison, they're both evil regimes. But in 1938, Hitler may have become an authoritarian leader in his own country, but he had not yet broken a massive series of international norms, which Putin has. And he actually says, Chamberlain may have been naive, but you could be forgiven in 1938 for taking Hitler

• 26:46Alastair Campbell?

  at face value. He said, it may have been cowardly, but it was rational. And he says, the difference with Putin, we know. We know from Chechnya, we know from Georgia, we know from Syria, we know from all the wars that he's fueling over across Africa. And he has this wonderful line at the end, and I think this is a message to the European leaders about Putin, but also possibly about Trump. He said, "We should do our best to learn from the past, but this must happen with integrity. Instead of looking for historical justification, we should ask, how do we want to be seen in the history books of the future as spectators of authoritarianism or as defenders of freedom and democracy?"

• 27:31Alastair Campbell?

  It's a very powerful piece.

• 27:33Rory Stewart?

  That, of course, raises the big question, which is, are the Europeans playing this right? And my fear is that they're putting all their focus on to trying to change Trump's mind. And there's another strategy they could have pursued, which is to conclude in November, December, so six, seven months ago, that yes, they can try to change Trump's mind, and it's worth continuing to try to change his mind and delay him. But the likelihood is, the overwhelming likelihood is, he's not going to come in on their side. And therefore, what they should have been doing is using the seven, eight months to really rearm and sort themselves out. Because there's a repeated pattern here. Remember, if you're Metz, you announced just under a week ago that you'd had a meeting with Trump where five principles had been agreed with Trump, right?

• 28:18Rory Stewart?

  And those principles were no peace terms or land swap without ceasefire, no legal recognition, security guarantees, keep Ukraine, right? And sure enough, two days later, the whole thing's broken again, right? And that's been repeated again and again and again and again. So what's worrying me is that if Europe genuinely believes that Russia is a significant long-term threat to Europe, and I think what we mean by that is that... If Russia takes all that it wants in eastern Ukraine, it is then emboldened, will be convinced that NATO and Europe are weak, and therefore the likelihood of them trying something in Lithuania or Moldova goes up.

• 29:02Rory Stewart?

  And that unless Europe actually, within the next few months to years, really sorts out the lessons of Ukraine and how to defend itself against Russian attack, Putin will be opportunistic, right?

• 29:13Alastair Campbell?

  And that's going to be very, very difficult economically and politically in a lot of the countries that we're talking about. And of course Putin knows that. The other thing that I think is just worth reflecting on, Trump has these talking points that he uses and uses and uses again, and then they they get fed back by these poodle journalists that he travels around with. One of them is this thing about, you know, I've ended six wars, okay? Now, just this morning, so one of the six wars is the war between Congo and Rwanda, okay? This very morning, the main rebel group in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the M23, has walked away from peace talks with the government, saying it will not return unless the authorities adhere to a previous ceasefire deal.

• 29:55Alastair Campbell?

  What did Trump say when Merz raised the issue of ceasefire? I've sorted these six wars without anybody talking about a ceasefire, because these ceasefire don't always happen. Now, that shows two things. One, he knows nothing about what's gone on between Congo and Rwanda. He just wants to be able to say, I've ended it, because he had a meeting with the leaders and said how great they were. But that one looks like it's falling apart. He then said this other thing, Roy, we're going to talk about Gaza later. He said, I thought this was going to be the easiest of the wars to sort, Russia-Ukraine. It's turning about to be the hardest, but it's the last one on the schedule. So.

• 30:32Rory Stewart?

  So in his, in his, in his head, he's well on his way.

• 30:36Alastair Campbell?

  Gaza is not a problem.

• 30:37Rory Stewart?

  It's all, it's all been sorted. So just as we go to the break, just final thought, we, we talk about, you know, whether or not Trump is being naive, trusting Putin. I don't think he's being naive. I don't think Trump trusts himself. I don't think he trusts anybody. I, I don't think he's that kind of person. I, I don't think that's how his business deals work. I, I suspect he doesn't care really about what happens in Ukraine. All that he cares about is getting some kind of deal so that he can talk about his Nobel Peace Prize and getting, saving the US some money and getting some deals in Russia. So in that sense, he doesn't really need to trust Putin. The people who need to trust Putin are the Europeans.

• 31:15Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 31:15Rory Stewart?

  But Trump doesn't actually think Putin's a threat to the United States. He doesn't think this is relevant to the United States. So I think this whole idea that Trump is being naive or outmaneuvered is slightly missing the point. I, I think he's basically indifferent. And, and the only reason that he feels like he's being naive and outmaneuvered is that he enjoys the flattery and the spectacle of European leaders grovelling to him, which means that he never quite just gets behind the Putin deal. But I, I, I think it would be a mistake to think he's on our side, but somehow a naive version of us.

• 31:45Alastair Campbell?

  Also, I don't think any of the leaders think that. I think they've decided that as part of their strategy, they, they have to say that. You know, I think if you talk to them sort of away from the cameras, you know, I mean, Maloney was even rolling her eyes while he was talking at one point. She's very, she's got a very expressive face that he was, I can't remember the issue, but she was sort of looking around the room. There's another bit where Starmer and Macron were sort of whispering to each other in a way that was like, you know, they, they clearly, they know what they're dealing with. They've decided collectively, whether they like it or not, and I suspect it makes most of them feel sick, they have to do this flattery stuff. They have to say none of this could

• 32:25Alastair Campbell?

  happen without him. But I think there was enough yesterday of ultimately, this is about Putin. Putin has to be the one who makes changes because he's the one who, who offered nothing to, to Trump. The other thing, Rory, you mentioned the Nobel Peace Prize a couple of times. I've had an absolute brainwave.

• 32:42Rory Stewart?

  Oh, yes?

• 32:43Alastair Campbell?

  On this.

• 32:43Rory Stewart?

  Yep.

• 32:43Alastair Campbell?

  Well, you know that people think the Nobel Peace Prize is always given to individuals. It's often given to institutions.

• 32:49Rory Stewart?

  Okay.

• 32:49Alastair Campbell?

  I think one of the reasons why Trump hates the United Nations and hates the European Union, they are both previous winners.

• 32:57Rory Stewart?

  Oh, right.

• 32:57Alastair Campbell?

  Of the Nobel Peace Prize. So here's my idea.

• 33:00Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, go on.

• 33:00Alastair Campbell?

  The Nobel Peace Prize, open the envelope, is awarded to USAID.

• 33:08Rory Stewart?

  There we are.

• 33:09Alastair Campbell?

  Do you think?

• 33:09Rory Stewart?

  It's even better than your previous idea of Obama.

• 33:12Alastair Campbell?

  Because the reason why this is such a good idea, and here's the thing, Roy, you could say, and we invite the president to come to accept it on behalf of USAID. Because sadly, after all the amazing work that is done, it's not really the same shape that it was. But the truth is, this is partly a serious point. USAID, I would argue, has helped to stop wars because it's addressed the root causes of wars at times, poverty, famine, drought.

• 33:40Rory Stewart?

  What Putin calls the Pravil Prachini, the root causes.

• 33:44Alastair Campbell?

  The root causes, the root causes. So I just think, listen, I think we need to get a campaign going on this, you know, USAID for the Nobel Peace Prize. Yeah, didn't you know that often goes to institutions?

• 33:55Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think that's a beautiful idea. I'm supporting your campaign. Let's get behind that, right? See you after the break.

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• 35:55Alastair Campbell?

  Welcome back to The Rest is Politics with me, Alastair Campbell.

• 35:57Rory Stewart?

  And with me Rory Shittsoh. Alistair, we're now moving on to developments in Israel, which aren't just about Gaza, partly about an announcement that has come from the war cabinet, that they're going to go into Gaza City, effectively clear out the northern half of Gaza. But secondly, announcements from Smotrich that they're going to try to build an enormous settlement which would tear what remains of Palestinian territory in the West Bank in half. And finally, protests against Netanyahu in Israel itself, which some people think had as many as 400,000 people in the streets.

• 36:36Alastair Campbell?

  And I think the other one to throw in is Hamas suggesting that they're up for a ceasefire.

• 36:42Rory Stewart?

  Absolutely. It's fresh in this morning. Yeah.

• 36:44Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. So I think the protests are interesting because, as you said a couple of weeks ago, I think it was, that Israeli public opinion was pretty solid in support of the war, the basis of the war. I think there is a sizable chunk of public opinion who's pretty horrified by what's going on. And the other thing that's happened recently is that there's started to be some coverage in Israeli media of the actual hunger, the starvation, the suffering on the ground, much more than there was previously. So, look, I think that we shouldn't overstate this, but I think that Netanyahu's position is not as strong as it was. He has decided

• 37:30Alastair Campbell?

  he's going to go all out, take the hold of Gaza, that's the current plan. But I don't think it's as, I don't think it's as popular at home as he might think.

• 37:38Rory Stewart?

  So let me quickly come in on that. I think this is a really interesting question, and it slightly depends who you are talking to. But there was a recent poll done at the end of July suggesting that... Basically seventy eight, eighty percent of the Israeli Jewish population, in other words, not including Palestinian Arab Israeli citizens, believe, I think the quote is that Israel is making substantial efforts to avoid causing unnecessary sufferings to Palestinians in Gaza. So that's four fifths of Jewish Israelis still believe that the IDF is being

• 38:20Rory Stewart?

  very proportionate, taking real steps, no unnecessary suffering is being caused. And I think the second thing is that if you were to ask people about their support for a two-state solution or a Palestinian state, there's very, very little support indeed. Again, I'd imagine very similar numbers would say any kind of Palestinian state, any kind of two-state solution would just be a haven for terrorists and a repeat of October 7th.

• 38:44Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, just to say that that poll was done at the end of July. And when I do think there's been a shift in Israeli media coverage on this, not, you know, listen, there's always been some Israeli media, I often quote Harretts, which are, you know, pretty tough on the Netanyahu government. But generally, the media that people are consuming on their phones or on television, they, I don't think they've been getting the full picture. I think that full picture is is starting to shift on that. And then the other thing that's happened, of course, on the international front, you know, we interviewed Arab Barghouti a few months ago, the son of Marwan Barghouti, who's this guy who's, you know, seen as the possible leader of a future Palestinian state, who's been in jail for decades. And there was a

• 39:29Alastair Campbell?

  truly horrific filmed meeting. Well, I say a meeting, it was like he was sort of there looking pretty gaunt in his vest. Ben Gavir turns up at the prison where this guy's being held and basically just berates him. And

• 39:47Alastair Campbell?

  You know, so what every time you you see you were talking the first half about how, you know, we think that we're moving, Trump might be moving to this position or he's been moved to that. And I think sometimes we like to think that about Netanyahu, that maybe he's trying to move because he's very good at reading politics and what have you. But every time there's any sense that Israel Netanyahu might move, Ben Gavir and Smotrich are just out there, I think, ever more extreme. And, you know, and I know that every time we talk about Ben Gavir and Smotrich, we get some listeners and some supporters of the Israeli government saying, you two guys are obsessed, you overstate their importance. I don't think we do. Here's the guy in charge of security going into a prison to berate the guy seen as a possible leader of a future Palestine.

• 40:31Rory Stewart?

  And this is because Netanyahu made a deliberate decision to create a coalition, bringing these people into his government and giving them these key positions, finance, security. And therefore, his government completely depends on them. If they leave, they can topple and bring down his government, trigger an election. So he's he's tied to them completely. And as you say, that gives them real power. You you can see this if we go through the some of the stories that we've been talking about recently. So number one, this decision from the war cabinet to go into Gaza City, really interesting, because it's a decision which has been opposed by the Israeli chief of the army staff, who

• 41:12Rory Stewart?

  has made it quite clear publicly that he thinks that this is tactically mad, that it won't achieve its objectives on Hamas, that it will risk the lives of Israeli hostages. And he's not sure that he's got the troops, the reservists, to be able to do this effectively. Now, that plays into the coalition politics of Netanyahu, because of course, he's reliant on Chass as one of his coalition partners, who are an ultra orthodox group, who very much believe the ultra orthodox should not be conscripted. So that's an important part of the reservist picture. Secondly, Netanyahu may be thinking about going into Gaza City because it's, I don't know, something to keep his coalition together or something to deal with Hamas. But from the point of view of Smotrich and Ben Gavir, this is

• 41:57Rory Stewart?

  the first step in. Getting rid of the population of Palestinians and colonizing the whole of Gaza, turning it into a whole settlement territory. Now, again, it's an interesting move there because that's not part of their religious Zionism. Their religious Zionism is all about the West Bank. All the stuff that they're taking from the Old Testament about Israel and Judea is about the West Bank. Gaza was where Goliath comes from. Gaza was always not Israelite territory. It was the kind of Philistine fringe down on the coast. In fact, in many ways, Smotrich and Ben-Gavir hate the people who live on the coast. They associate it with liberals in Tel Aviv and topless bathing and parties. They're very much religious conservatives, right? Now we move on to the peace deal. So there's

• 42:42Rory Stewart?

  a story that's come today that Egypt and Qatar and Hamas have now got Hamas to agree to a peace deal. But it doesn't seem to me that there's much likelihood of that going through because Ben-Gavir is completely opposed to any kind of peace deal of that sort. And then finally, we get on to the settlement. And I'd love to get your views on this. So this settlement is called E1, and this is a settlement that has been talked about for certainly 30 years. This is something that even Rabin was talking about. It's a settlement which would essentially put Jewish settlers right the way in a strip between Jerusalem and Jericho in the east. And by doing so, it would completely cut

• 43:24Rory Stewart?

  off the northern part of the Palestinian West Bank, so Nablus and Ramallah, from the southern part, which is Hebron and Bethlehem. It would be the end of any state. Why are they doing it? Well, they're doing it because Smotrich is making it quite clear that if people in Europe and Australia and Canada are going to recognize Palestine, he's going to make sure there's no Palestinian state left for them to recognize. Back of the...

• 43:47Alastair Campbell?

  Well, let's just put the two together. Ben-Gavir goes into a president, berates Mawam Barghouti. Meanwhile, Smotrich, not just sort of, let's do it as they've done over years, let's build the settlements, build the settlements, build the settlements. He says they're going to put 3,000 new homes into this particular settlement project to, quote, "bury the idea of a Palestinian state."

• 44:14Alastair Campbell?

  And that's where we're at.

• 44:16Rory Stewart?

  And it's not a new idea. And the only reason it hasn't happened in thirty years is because of American pressure. I mean, one of the most famous meetings between Condoleezza Rice and the Israeli prime minister was about that settlement project.

• 44:26Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 44:26Rory Stewart?

  I mean, the US has been clear for thirty years that that is the one settlement project that can never be built because it would be the end of any hope of a contiguous Palestinian state. And it shows how much the world's changed because I don't think the Trump administration is likely to seriously oppose it. And what about timing also, Alsa? It's very noticeable that you get a sense that Netanyahu knows that August is a time when most of these parliaments are on holiday and he's leading up to the UN General Assembly and he's going to just do everything he can. So you'll get Gaza City, you'll get settlements. You also are getting stuff around Australian diplomats. So the Australian representatives to Ramallah, to the Palestinian Authority, have now been

• 45:11Rory Stewart?

  declared persona non grata and expelled. Why? Because Australia didn't give a visa to one of the most extreme religious Zionists in the Israeli parliament who was proposing to do a speaking tour of Australia. Now, the hypocrisy there, because remember, a Labour MP who tried to go and visit Israel was denied entry into Israel. We did not respond by expelling Israeli diplomats. So why are they responding to not allowing an Israeli MP into Australia by expelling Australian diplomats?

• 45:39Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, well, let me give you one that's even worse than that. One of the many sort of kind of cartoon but dangerous characters in the White House circle at the moment is this influencer Laura Luma. The Americans have stopped the visas for sick children who were due to be coming to America for treatment, and they have been bringing some children in from Gaza for treatment in specialist hospitals in the United States because Laura Luma, who is a self-confessed Islamophobe, white supremacist, et cetera, and somebody who has President Trump's here, has been raising merry hell about this issue on social media.

• 46:21Alastair Campbell?

  So, as you say, we kind of operate by rules, they operate by spasm, according to whatever is being pushed by these influences. The other thing I read in the German press yesterday, which was really quite stark, was an interview with the woman who leads one of the two organisations in Israel. Explaining why they moved to a position of saying this is genocide. And it was it was setting out the process by which they did that. Um, and and here's another thing that I struck me this week, Rory, this was something again in the Israeli media, a general by the name of Aharon Haliva, who was leading military intelligence on October seven,

• 47:03Alastair Campbell?

  said fifty Palestinians must die for every person killed that day. And it doesn't matter now if they are children.

• 47:09Rory Stewart?

  Can I just, I mean, on that, because I was attacked for saying that I'd heard from a senior Israeli, not long after October the seventh, that they believed they needed to kill seven Palestinians for every Israeli that had been killed. And people suggested this was an antisemitic trope. The guy said it to me quite openly. And it's now clear that actually the ex IDF chief of military intelligence is saying fifty to one, he's saying they killed a thousand, we're going to kill fifty thousand people, including children. Um, and so it's interesting that he is that explicit, and I'm absolutely, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna double down on this. There are people within the setup who genuinely believe that the way they achieve deterrence

• 47:55Rory Stewart?

  is by killing many, many multiples of anyone that are killed, that this is what the whole thing is about. But what's interesting, unfortunately, is that after October the seventh, somebody said to me, we're going to kill seven for everyone, they killed seven for everyone, then they killed twenty for everyone, then they killed forty for everyone, now they've killed fifty for everyone. Um, and and it doesn't look like at the moment it's it's stopping. Um, however, one more thing, um, worth watching, maybe the relationship between Netanyahu and the Israeli military. The Israeli military traditionally is the, by far, the most respected institution in Israeli public life. All Israelis do national service, women and men.

• 48:38Rory Stewart?

  They are part of the founding of the state. So many senior Israeli politicians have been generals or special forces officers, and there is a real problem now emerging between Netanyahu and the military. As as we said at the beginning of this, the chief of staff is warning against what he's doing in Gaza City, and now the defense minister is threatening to fire this chief of staff. But he lost another chief of staff just a year ago who resigned on his conduct of the war. He's fired his Shin Bet chief, so his internal security chief. And Israelis are going to be very torn on this because I think there are many Israelis who, given a choice between listening to Netanyahu and listening to the military, who they respect much more, will tend to respect the military.

• 49:21Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. Well, there we are. And I guess my final point on this goes back to what I was saying about the way the the international media operates. I mean, it is really, I think it's terrifying the way that whatever Trump focuses on and engages in is sort of multiplied in terms of the public oxygen that it gets. Now, Ukraine, him meeting Putin for the first time in years, I'm not denying remotely that that isn't newsworthy. It is newsworthy. The the meeting in the White House over the weekend, of course, is massively newsworthy. But it's almost like when Trump decides he's going to focus on something, that most of

• 50:04Alastair Campbell?

  the world's media and certainly the Western media sort of, it can only cope really with that at that time. And it means that other stuff gets forgotten. And when, you know, here we are in a week, as I said at the start, where lots more death in in Gaza, some really significant political developments as well. But it kind of was playing second fiddle. And Rory, I've got to say, Rory, we should, I think we should start tomorrow with the fact that so many of our listeners and viewers, they were a bit pissed off that when we're talking about where does a radical centrist go, well, in response to the voice note from young Jacob Stokes last week, that neither of us mentioned the Lib Debs. We've got a lot of flak for that. So we'll, we'll, we'll come back to that. We also need to talk, I

• 50:49Alastair Campbell?

  think, about this, the other stuff happening in America about redistricting and ballot rigging and Jerry Mandri and all the other stuff that's going on ahead of the of the midterms. And I know you had a a letter from the head of the Education Service at a UK prison that you want to talk about as well. So lots to get into. See you tomorrow.

• 51:10Rory Stewart?

  See you tomorrow.

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