403. Trump's Gulf Billions: Saudi, Sanctions, and Ceasefires

From a $400m plane to starvation in Gaza, who will benefit from Trump’s big Gulf visit? Who really brokered the ceasefire between India and Pakistan? Can Zelensky and Ukraine survive on half-promises and secondhand weapons? Join Rory and Alastair as they answer all these questions and more. The Rest Is Politics Plus: Become a member for exclusive bonus content, early access to Question Time episodes to live show tickets, ad-free listening for both TRIP and Leading, our exclusive newsletter, discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, and our members’ chatroom on Discord. Just head to therestispolitics.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestispolitics. 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 GetFuse.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] Assistant Producers: Evan Green, India Dunkley Video Editor: Josh Smith Producers: Nicole Maslen, Fiona Douglas 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

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• 1:52Alastair Campbell?

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• 2:22Alastair Campbell?

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

• 2:24Rory Stewart?

  And with me Rory Stewart.

• 2:25Alastair Campbell?

  And before we get going Rory, we have some exciting news. We are going on tour again.

• 2:31Rory Stewart?

  Very exciting. Yeah, we're on our way to Glasgow, Manchester, Bournemouth, London for a brand new run of The Rest is Politics Live.

• 2:39Alastair Campbell?

  And I think it's fair to say last year we were somewhat taken aback by the interest, by the numbers that turned out. So hopefully we have the same this year.

• 2:47Rory Stewart?

  Really exciting. And obviously, highlight last year, O2 was very, very strange and extraordinary.

• 2:53Alastair Campbell?

  But stranger's moment was you getting somebody shout out, "Moo!" as you went through one of Dan Needle's slides on the tax take. If you're a member of The Rest is Politics Plus, you can get early access to tickets with our pre-sales starting this morning, Wednesday, the 40th of May, from 10am UK time.

• 3:12Rory Stewart?

  And our previous tour dates sold out incredibly quickly. So if you want the best chance of securing tickets, become a member of The Rest is Politics Plus, therestispolitics.com. You'll receive all the details in your welcome email.

• 3:24Alastair Campbell?

  And you'll also get access to an interview we've done recently with Ken Rogoff, very interesting American economist, fascinating on USA China. So that's all in there as well. Remaining tickets will be released in the general sale on Friday, 16th of May, 10am UK.

• 3:37Rory Stewart?

  And we hope to see as many of you there in November as possible. Right then, Alistair, let's get on with today's show.

• 3:42Alastair Campbell?

  Okay. Well, look, when I started the week, I thought we would kick off possibly with the UK and immigration, but I think we should do that in question time, not least because we've had lots of questions on it. I think we should focus the whole episode today on foreign affairs, foreign policy, but starting with Trump in the Gulf, because there is so much going on that kind of relates to that visit. Lots of talk of different ceasefires, business deals, who's in and out in geopolitics. So let's stick with Trump.

• 4:06Rory Stewart?

  And I think one of the things you said to me over the weekend, which I struck, is that it is partly this week, a story of three conflicts and three potential peace deals, all of them involving nuclear armed states. So Israel's got a nuclear weapon and it's conflict with Gaza. Russia, obviously got a nuclear weapon, it's conflict with Ukraine. And India and Pakistan, both with nuclear weapons, with a conflict over Kashmir. And as I thought about it over the weekend, we can get into this in more detail. I was really struck by two things. One is how each type of conflict comes from a very different type of nationalism and would have to have a very different type of solution. And the second thing is how much all of them are a product of populism and a new world

• 4:48Rory Stewart?

  of populism, which drives this kind of conflict more than it probably would have done in the past. But anyway, back to first on the Trump visit, which is maybe a way of bringing it down to earth.

• 4:57Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, so he's just landed. We were speaking on Tuesday morning. He's just arrived in Riyadh. Both of his terms now, his first visit, has been to the Gulf, not to Europe, not to Latin America, not to China, but to the Gulf. And I think we're going to hear a lot about business. And I think there's a very interesting story developing, which I think could become a problem for them. It's focusing around this plane, the gift from Qataris to Trump. But actually, it's the interlinking of political, personal and professional and commercial interests. You talked last week about the Trump boys being out there sort of seeding the ground.

• 5:29Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, this is an amazing gift. So the idea is basically it's a sort of Air Force One plane with the most unbelievable amount of electronic equipment, which costs $400 million. Of course, everyone terrified that actually the plane's going to be potentially full of stuff that could spy on the American president as he's moving around. And people have calculated it would take three years to do all the tests to remove all the equipment that could be dodgy and probably cost more than the cost of a plane. And a couple of things from that. I mean, straight after the inauguration, he said, I'm thinking of making my first visit to the Gulf. Depends how much they they pay. You know, last time they gave 400 billion, so I'm thinking maybe this time 500 billion and I'll make my first visit to Saudi Arabia. And sure enough, Saudi Arabia has offered investment of much more

• 6:11Rory Stewart?

  than that. UAE has offered over 10 years, over a trillion. And Qatar has offered this amazing $400 million plane, which we're told Trump apparently is intending to use while he's president, and then he's intending to give it to his presidential library. And that I think-

• 6:27Alastair Campbell?

  Every library needs a plane.

• 6:28Rory Stewart?

  Absolutely.

• 6:29Alastair Campbell?

  Because the library has to fly all over the world.

• 6:31Rory Stewart?

  Exactly. It's presumably not sitting there with the bookshelves because I'm not sure there's going to be much on the shelves. I think he's going to be using it, isn't he?

• 6:37Alastair Campbell?

  I can remember Jimmy Carter, when he was president of America, having to give up his peanut farm. Because people were so worried about the potential for a conflict of interest. I think I write about that. He gave up his farm. This is a level of, I mean, how is it anything but corrupt? And the fact that yesterday he got challenged on it by, I think it was somebody from ABC who immediately condemned as fake news and all that stuff. But we're talking about, this is, this is more than a gift. I mean, I've, I've been with prime ministers and presidents when you're exchanging gifts. And it's usually some sort of antique that you're not allowed to keep because the value is over a thousand pounds.

• 7:14Rory Stewart?

  Or a watch or something.

• 7:15Alastair Campbell?

  Exactly.

• 7:16Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 7:16Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I remember Jospe when he gave us a horse and we didn't quite know what to do with that one. But a plane, this thing's called a flying palace. So there's that, there's the business stuff.

• 7:24Rory Stewart?

  Can I just come on the horse? I mean, the horse is literally the worst possible gift. And if anybody's thinking of bribing world leaders, Gulf leaders often give horses. And the, the problem is if you're really serious about accepting the gift, you've got to move the horse over to the United Kingdom. Then you've got to have a stables for it. You've got to feed it. It's a really expensive gift.

• 7:42Alastair Campbell?

  You're not allowed to keep it as your, if it's a race horse, you can't race it.

• 7:45Rory Stewart?

  And this is, it's actually basically, this is what the Burmese story of the white elephant is, which is that it's actually so expensive looking after the white elephant that you've been given, you bankrupt the whole kingdom. What did you do with Jospe's horse before we get back to that?

• 7:56Alastair Campbell?

  I honestly can't remember. I can't remember.

• 7:58Rory Stewart?

  You didn't kill it.

• 7:58Alastair Campbell?

  Because they only get stored in the Foreign Office. No, we didn't kill it. I think we must have given it to a stable somewhere. Somebody worked out that this plane, if you remember the fuss of Keir Starmer and his freebies. This plane would buy him, I think it was like 21 million pairs of the spectacles that he got grief for. Anyway, let's go to the, the serious stuff. I'll tell you, there's one thing that immediately comes to mind and this sort of relates to, to Gaza as well. You get the feeling that Trump and Witkoff, his special envoy, are losing faith in Netanyahu. It's interesting. So he's going to Saudi, he's going to Qatar and he's going to the UAE. Israel is not that far away. He is not going to Israel. The Whitkoff, it seems, has been the one who's been directly

• 8:41Alastair Campbell?

  dealing with Hamas to get this hostage out. The last American nationality hostage who was released yesterday, not involving Israelis. And the other thing that's fascinating, this this dropped out in Trump's bilateral with Mark Carney, the Canadian Prime Minister, when he suddenly announced, we're stopping bombing the Houthis in Yemen. And because the Carney thing was quite big news of itself, it sort of went under the radar. But when you drill down into the detail of that, again, I think it's a bit of a hit on Israel because essentially the deal they've done with the Houthis is that the Houthis have agreed to stop bombing American interests as opposed to other interests like they say they will still be targeting Israeli linked ships. So this feels to me like there's a bit of

• 9:24Alastair Campbell?

  a move against Netanyahu and the Americans taking this over on their own terms.

• 9:29Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, I think there's a number of them, isn't there? So as you say, the US negotiated directly with Houthis without Israel. They've been negotiating directly with Hamas without Israel. He's been praising Erdogan. He's starting talks with Iran when Netanyahu's actually been pushing for strikes against Iran. He's talking about lifting sanctions on Syria when Israel is very, very clear they do not want sanctions lifted on Syria. And he's talking about a strategic defence partnership with the Saudis, which again was only supposed to happen once they'd normalised relationships with Israel. So I think you're absolutely right. There's a sense that Trump and Whitkoff are no longer prioritising Netanyahu's

• 10:11Rory Stewart?

  concerns. But, but, but, but, but, but, that is still quite a long way from them pushing ahead with a peace deal with Gaza. And there, there's been some very, very interesting things. I mean, again, it's probably Trump just trying to create headlines. But, you know, he made a statement about considering recognising Palestine as a state. There's a lot of ifs and buts there. Number one, extremely unlikely he would ever do it. I mean, that is very, very aggressive from Netanyahu's point of view. Secondly, he hasn't really described what he's, I mean, if what he's saying is At the end of a peace deal, when the Palestinians have done all the right things, we will eventually recognise the Palestinian state, then that's no different really from what people were talking about in Oslo.

• 10:56Rory Stewart?

  But if, in the very strange situation, and it is important to understand Trump is pretty unpredictable and peculiar, as we see with the tariffs, he actually were to announce the recognition of the State of Palestine, that would be a very, very major issue for Israel, because in particular it would mean that the settlements would become very, very difficult going forward. Every future settlement would be happening in a Palestinian state against the explicit interests of the United States, and Israel is so dependent on the US. Sixty-nine percent of its arms imports, for example, comes from the US, but it's much more than that. Really, the entire project of Israel, the entire project of settlements, would have been unimaginable without American support.

• 11:38Rory Stewart?

  And therefore, there's a real limit to what Netanyahu can do to challenge Trump, not least because the Democratic Party, particularly younger members of the Democratic Party, turning very strongly against the Israeli position. He needs Trump.

• 11:49Alastair Campbell?

  The other thing, again, yesterday, he literally just dropped it out when talking about something else. Because of this style he has of sort of, you know, and we've compared it to a reality TV show where he's the cam, and we will see this over the next four days in this Gulf visit, the cameras will be on him all the time, he will be throwing out all sorts of, you know, angles and distractions, and you've got to try and keep your focus on the big picture. But it was in one of these pool sprays where I think he was talking about something to do with health, and he suddenly talked about lifting sanctions on Syria. When we interviewed Al-Shara, the president of Syria, he was very clear with us that, you know, that was the big goal, getting America to lift sanctions on Syria was the big goal. And there's now even talk, there was an American congressman, who, a Republican congressman,

• 12:34Alastair Campbell?

  who visited Syria last week, who met Al-Shara, who met lots of the big players, and who did an interview with the Jerusalem Post, he wasn't, you know, he's going right into the heart of the debate, and saying, we need to take a risk on this guy. Now, you and I got flak, and still get flak, just for talking to the guy, okay? If you're the president of America and you suddenly decide, yeah, we are going to take a risk on this guy, and suddenly sanctions get lifted on Syria, I mean, again, how does that go down with Bibi and crew?

• 13:03Rory Stewart?

  Just to remind people, the issue here, of course, is that Ahmad Al-Shara was the head of Al Qaeda Syria, and before that had been part of Al Qaeda Iraq, and from the point of view of Israel, he is seen as a dangerous terrorist taking over a country. Next, Israel has been conducting lots of bombing campaigns, it's seized territory and it's supporting the Druze and it seems to be trying to essentially weaken and balkanize the country and making it clear that they need to get rid of Al-Shara. And they've been putting a lot of pressure on the State Department, particularly on Marco Rubio and some of the assistant secretaries under him, not to lift those sanctions. And Mike Walz, who was the National Security

• 13:45Rory Stewart?

  Advisor, seemed to be pretty much on that side, let's hold a hard line on this. And to continue to sort of play devil's advocate, one of the things that's happened since we talked to Al-Shara is firstly, the atrocities connected with the Alawite communities, where there were attacks by the Alawites against the government and then government militia attacked Alawite villages and killed a lot of people. That was one series of issues. A bigger set of issues is that we talked to him a lot about the constitution changing power and it's becoming increasingly clear, I think, that he's holding off really pushing ahead with elections or thinking about democracy. And most disturbingly of all, he has brought

• 14:28Rory Stewart?

  in foreign fighters into quite senior positions, including an Uzbek Al Qaeda activist who he's put in, effectively as a minister. So you can see why the concerns are not just from Israel, they're also coming from more liberal voices. They tried in Damascus, for example, I had a friend in Damascus yesterday who was complaining that they'd just been on a bus where militias had tried to make the men sit at the front and the women at the back so the men can look at the women. And there'd been actually basically a protest by the Damascusians and it hadn't happened. All that's happening in the background. But it's very interesting, as you say, that Trump, and this is, I think, the final part of the story, why is he then doing it? Well, he's doing it because...

• 15:09Rory Stewart?

  He's clear he doesn't want to put any money up and because the Saudis have made it very clear they want sanctions lifted, the Qataris have said they want sanctions lifted and the Turks have said they want sanctions lifted and all three countries have said that if he lifts sanctions, they will basically pay for stuff. Qatar will pay for some servants.

• 15:27Alastair Campbell?

  And they've already had permission to start paying some of the civil servants. So the Republican congressman, his name is Marlin Stutzman from Indiana and I got the feeling, I don't know this guy and I don't know whether he's close to the MAGA lot or not, but it was very interesting that he was, because we we talk a lot about how you kind of have to flatter Trump to get his attention, to get his ear and he set this meeting with Al Sharar in the context of Al Sharar's willingness to sign up to the Abraham Accords, which is all about normalization of of relations with with Israel. And when you think about what their historical, traditional view of Israel is, I thought that was very, very interesting. So this stuff's moving and you mentioned the Turks there. The Turks

• 16:07Alastair Campbell?

  who have now seemed to resolve this longstanding, decades-long fight with the breakaway Kurdish party PKK. Yesterday, when they were announcing it, there was the Turkish Foreign Minister and who was standing alongside him? Our friend, the Syrian Foreign Minister, who helped get the interview with with Al Sharar. So what you're seeing are these these moving parts into the middle of which flies Donald Trump with, as you say, nobody quite sure what he's going to do and how he's going to do it. This is a very, very, very important week for all of these relationships and right now, could change, but right now it feels to me like the Israelis will be feeling unhappy and vulnerable, the Saudis will be feeling

• 16:50Alastair Campbell?

  very strong and very powerful, ditto the Qataris, ditto the Emiratis and the Turks and the Syrians.

• 16:57Rory Stewart?

  And we have to watch Iran. I mean, one of the central things that may come out of this visit to Gulf and again, the White House keeps throwing out different messages. I suspect it's unlikely to be a major resolution of Gaza. It's certainly going to include statements about new relationships with Saudi on defence and AI. In fact, he's bringing with him a lot of the sort of central villains. I think Elon Musk is on the plane.

• 17:22Alastair Campbell?

  Zuckerberg.

• 17:23Rory Stewart?

  Zuckerberg, Sam Altman are all turning up. But Iran is going to be very important and the Iran story is again very, very interesting because traditionally.

• 17:34Rory Stewart?

  When people tried to understand why UAE had become close to Israel, why Saudi was considering becoming closer to Israel, the story was that they were relying on Israel to work with them against Iran. Iran was their common enemy. And the high point of that was about sort of 2015, when there were recorded conversations from a UAE minister, apparently calling for the US to bomb Iran. Fast forward 10 years, they seem to be much less worried about Iran, partly because Iran has been revealed to be weaker than it was, partly because they no longer think that the fundamental threat posed by Iran would be against them. They don't think Iran is likely to drop a nuclear bomb on Riyadh. They think they're

• 18:16Rory Stewart?

  more likely to drop it, if anywhere, on Israel. And also because Mohammed bin Salman seems to have totally changed his view from a much more confrontational attitude towards Chinese brokered deals with Iran. And so I think it's it's going to be interesting to watch, and it's also going to be particularly interesting to watch UAE, which was a bit of an outlier and a little bit more sceptical about Iran. Will they come together if Trump pushes ahead with the deal?

• 18:42Alastair Campbell?

  This morning, the head of UNRWA, which has been declared to the PNG by Israel, but the head of UNRWA has come out and essentially said that the Israelis are using starvation as a weapon of war. And of course, the Israelis are dismissing it, but there was some, I don't know how much of the news you watched last night, there was some unbelievable footage on ITV and Channel 4 that I saw. I mentioned last week that the girl who was looking at pictures of herself when she was healthy, but they were they were in a hospital with these babies that were, you know, you've seen kids like this in Africa where their eyes are popping out, the ribs are coming out through the skin. It was absolutely horrific. I still can't for the life of me understand why it's not being called out more than it

• 19:26Alastair Campbell?

  is, including by our own government and by the American government and by the French and by the Germans. I mean, it is, it is, it's just gone beyond anything that I think we ever imagined was going to happen with the international community not getting stuck in and really trying to resolve it.

• 19:39Rory Stewart?

  Interesting things happening in the British Parliament, some of my former Conservative colleagues.

• 19:43Alastair Campbell?

  I saw that.

• 19:44Rory Stewart?

  More on the right, in fact, kind of Brexit voting Conservative colleagues coming out now very strongly critical of Israel.

• 19:49Alastair Campbell?

  And I saw Mark Pritchard and Nicholas Soames and others saying, recognise the state of Palestine and I've got it wrong and all that stuff.

• 19:57Rory Stewart?

  I mean Nicholas Soames, I think, has always been more on that side, but Pritchard was more of a surprise. And there have been other MPs WhatsApping me from the Tory party saying, we want you to speak out more about this. So there's clearly a movement within the Conservative Party, which is interesting. On what's happening, just to remind people, effectively now for over two months, there has been a blockade on food going in.

• 20:19Alastair Campbell?

  And medication.

• 20:20Rory Stewart?

  And Smotrich, who is of course on the far right in Netanyahu's coalition, is calling for a permanent occupation of Gaza. The current plan seems to be not quite a permanent occupation, but it is that Israel will mobilise four to five divisions, involves calling up 70,000 people, put them back into Gaza, effectively segment Gaza into at least three different sections, try to move the population to new white area settlements in the south, so I don't know, new tented settlements in the south, and then contract with the US military contractor to bring in supplies. They're talking about bringing 60 trucks a day, that's about a tenth of what you would need.

• 21:00Rory Stewart?

  And it's really mad because the UN has systems in place, which it's been running, has an enormous amount of experience about how to deliver that aid. The idea of trying to bring in a tenth of the amount with completely untested people while moving 2 million people at the same time is is an absolute recipe for disaster. And the problem unfortunately seems to be that, although as we've said, Trump seems to have lost interest in Netanyahu and the issue, he's not really stopping him from doing it. And I don't think there's any sign that he's actually going to do anything to intervene. He's not going to impose sanctions on Netanyahu.

• 21:38Alastair Campbell?

  No, he's going to hear a lot about Gaza though in these meetings that he has in, because of course, you know, Saudis, the Qataris and you're coming at it from different perspectives, they're all. Frankly, don't want the whole region to be beset by conflict and they don't want to be picking up the tab the whole time.

• 21:51Rory Stewart?

  And they don't want the Palestinians leaving them.

• 21:52Alastair Campbell?

  Correct.

• 21:53Rory Stewart?

  I mean, the one thing people don't talk about is that none of these countries want more Palestinians in that country.

• 21:58Alastair Campbell?

  The role of the media in this is incredibly important. I know it's hard and sometimes I'm a bit, maybe a bit too critical because it's very, very hard to get in there. I'm assuming that the footage that I saw last night was, I don't know whether it was people on the ground or it was stuff that was filmed by the people there, I don't know. But I do think there is, and we fell victim to this, I think. We were, we were very much trying to be fair to both sides, on the one hand, on the other hand. And I think that one of the, the narratives that the Israeli propaganda machine has been very effective at pushing, particularly on people who maybe haven't followed this closely over the years, is that this whole thing kind of started on October the 7th. Whereas actually what we see more and more of, particularly from the Ben Gavir and Smotris, and we talked about the Louis Theroux documentary

• 22:40Alastair Campbell?

  on the settlers, is that in a way that they seize this opportunity, horrible though it was, to drive this agenda of annexation and essentially to, you know, wipe out the Palestinian occupied territories, which in that interview, the, the settlers wouldn't even call Palestinian occupied territories. And, you know, there's a documentary that's been made by an independent Basement Productions who make very, very good films. They've, they've spent months and months documenting the death of doctors, medics, nurses, et cetera, working in Gaza and the sort of systematic destruction of healthcare facilities.

• 23:19Alastair Campbell?

  And the BBC has been sitting on it now for months and every week coming up with different reasons why they can't show it, trying to relate it to the film where, remember there was a documentary before and one of the kids that was featured, it turned out that their dad was a senior member of Hamas. Because of that, sitting on this, when all the fact checking has been done, and I do think there's, that it's, there is a sort of double standard here. Um, and I'm, I'm only mentioning the BBC because it happens to be sitting there. But I think you then look at the way that America, American, some of the American media covers this. So I think if, if, when you see those pictures of those kids, and again, there was footage last night of these. Young kids screaming, holding these pots, four guys stirring what looked like rice

• 24:03Alastair Campbell?

  or something in these in these pots, and these kids screaming to get near them, and then food flying. It was actually, you know, the the reporter used the word feeding frenzy, and it's the first time I've ever fully understood what that means. They were in a frenzy because they could see food there. So then you see stuff like, you know, UK lawyers for Israel, which is, you know, as it says on the tin, these are British based lawyers who essentially support Israel. And they've made the rather astonishing claim that the blockade might be good for the people of Gaza because the Gazans had a bit of an obesity problem, and also that it might even lead to greater fitness, which will help life expectancy. There are no cigarettes going through, for example. I mean, that is sick. That is sick. I'm sorry. I don't know whether they've apologised, but they should. So there's Trump there. Let's hope he does get the message that actually he

• 24:48Alastair Campbell?

  does have a responsibility for some of this going on.

• 24:50Rory Stewart?

  I don't think he'll feel the responsibility, but I think equally, the Saudis, the Qataris and UAE will make it very clear that they are not going to pay for the reconstruction of Gaza under the current situation, that they're not into the idea of of somehow funding it if it's under a partial Israeli occupation.

• 25:09Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 25:09Rory Stewart?

  Shall we take a quick break, though, and maybe after the break, come back and expand this conversation to talk also about Ukraine and Kashmir and how Trump plays into that and how populism and conflict play into those things?

• 25:22Alastair Campbell?

  Cool.

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• 27:05Speaker 05

  Hi, it's Katty Kay here from The Rest Is Politics US. Myself and Anthony love listening to our podcasting comrades Rory and Alistair. So we thought we'd return the favour by inviting Trip UK listeners to check out our brand new series about Elon Musk, perhaps the most powerful unelected person on the planet. Anthony and I will take you through his life, from being beaten and bullied in school, to sleeping on the floor of his rocket building factory, to becoming the richest person in the world, and finally, that iconic image taking a chainsaw to the American government. He's a character of wild contradictions, of genius mistakes and extraordinary risk.

• 27:50Speaker 05

  And as a listener to Rory and Alistair's podcast, you can listen to episode one completely free. Just go to therestispolitics.com/musk. You won't want to miss it.

• 28:07Rory Stewart?

  Welcome back to The Rest Is Politics with me Rory Stewart.

• 28:10Alastair Campbell?

  And me, Alice Campbell.

• 28:11Rory Stewart?

  So I was thinking, if it's not too pretentious, that it's worth maybe comparing these three conflicts and the three potential pieces. And what struck me is that they are conflicts about quite different types of things, and particularly different types of nationalism. So Russia is really about Putin with this 18th century, kind of almost imperial fantasy, which isn't particularly ethnic. I mean, the Greater Russia can include Chechens, can include lots of different peoples. It's about hegemony, influence. Israel is instead feels much more sort of late 19th century, early 20th century nationalism, which is all about blood and soil. This is our land.

• 28:52Rory Stewart?

  This is our people. This is our ethnicity here. And Kashmir is fundamentally about partition. It's about where a border is placed and about these two different countries. Pakistan, based on Islam, India, initially conceived as a secular, multi-confessional country. And that means that the solutions are quite different in each case, right? In the case of Ukraine, you could almost imagine a sort of land deal where Putin gets a bit of land, but he would want influence over Ukraine. In Kashmir, you might imagine something to do with making the border more porous, you know, maybe more like a Good Friday Agreement, more trade going back and forth across the border. Israel, Palestine, on the other hand, is so existential because this

• 29:33Rory Stewart?

  is sacred land for two different peoples living in the same place. And my gut instinct is that that's the least likely one that Trump's going to want to get involved in because as soon as you get away from a real estate developer dealing with land deals to really complicated questions of identity, religion, shared land, you've lost Trump's attention entirely.

• 29:55Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, let's go through them one by one. So ceasefire was the word that was kicking around everywhere last week. India, Pakistan. And again, Trump was straight out of the traps taking credit. I watched a lot of NDTV. I've become slightly hooked on NDTV because it's

• 30:13Rory Stewart?

  Remind us what NDTV is?

• 30:14Alastair Campbell?

  New Delhi Television and it's this sort of very lively 24 hour news station. But I watched this very, very, very long briefing by the Indian military. They were going like hour by hour through the whole story. And I have to say, Mr. Trump's name did not come up once. There was a hotline. The guy, the head of the military revealed this, he had this hotline to his Pakistani opponent. And essentially what's happened is both sides have claimed credit victory in making the other back down. Which is quite a good thing in a way.

• 30:46Rory Stewart?

  Just before we get there, just to remind people who've not been following it day by day, since we recorded last week, we did a sort of almost emergency question time podcast on this. We recorded at a time where there had been the terrorist attack in Kashmir and India then saying Pakistan was behind those terrorists. Responded by attacks driven by planes against terrorist camps, killing some people who seemed to have been closely related with terrorist groups. Pakistan then shot down Indian planes, including it seems at least two advanced fighter jets that India bought from France. India then responded with attacks which went straight against the air defence systems in Lahore.

• 31:26Rory Stewart?

  Pakistan then responded with missiles and drones which hit a number of India military bases, killing a number of Indians. At least five Indians were killed in these attacks, possibly more. India then responded again with strikes to airfields and again to air defence systems, which killed 11 Pakistani soldiers and wounded 78. So when we set this up last week, we said, this is really going to get out of control. If for the first time, unlike the previous times, they actually start killing each other's soldiers and targeting each other's bases, that happened.

• 31:59Alastair Campbell?

  And as a result of that happening, I suspect that is possibly what has made them pull back a little bit. Now, what they were saying at this briefing, this guy who was in charge of briefing Lieutenant General Rajiv Gai. So the ceasefire had happened, but it was very interesting to watch the body language and the rhetoric. This was all about what they, essentially what they've done. In response, and of course, they were not attacking civilians and they were doing all the usual sort of caveats that both sides were doing, accusing the other of attacking civilians. But he basically was going through all the things that they might do, that they could do, that they would do. The other thing that was extraordinary, any time I've been to India and Pakistan, and particularly when, if you go to one after the other, it's surprising the extent to

• 32:41Alastair Campbell?

  which Kashmir, even for people hundreds of miles away from Kashmir, it defines their politics. And it was interesting at a press conference to see journalists who were starting their questions by saying, may I thank you on behalf of our readers and viewers and listeners for protecting us in the way that you've done. It's very much that sense of, you know, national, national embedded pride. But they've dialed down for now, but I think it's still very, very volatile. And then the Pakistanis came and said, we have three dozen countries involved in the negotiations. But I think what's happened, I, I, I think what's happened is that the military between them, bearing in mind that essentially, although they've got a civilian prime minister, the leader of Pakistan essentially is the military head, that the military between them with

• 33:26Alastair Campbell?

  these constant, there seems to be constant communication going on between them. So they've dialed it down for now.

• 33:32Rory Stewart?

  It's fascinating also because J D Vance had said, it's none of our business.

• 33:35Alastair Campbell?

  None of our business, yeah.

• 33:36Rory Stewart?

  And Trump had said, you know.

• 33:36Alastair Campbell?

  And then claimed he spent two days doing nothing but deal with it.

• 33:39Rory Stewart?

  Yeah. So it is interesting and it's a reminder of this new world, which is a world where, on the one hand, the populism generates these things in, in all these three conflicts. Because I think what happens is if you're Netanyahu, or you're the Pakistan chief of the army staff, or you're Modi, or definitely if you're Putin, what you've got is this incredibly strong ability to, to weaponize nationalism. And you've got a, a sort of support base, a voter base, that does not reward you for compromise. It, it rewards you for confrontation and attack. And that's building up, and that's why we're seeing these conflicts now happening more frequently. At the same time as the US is retreating.

• 34:24Rory Stewart?

  So the US, the UN, all the traditional institutions that brought peace.

• 34:28Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 34:28Rory Stewart?

  Barely featuring.

• 34:29Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. And of course, the other thing that happened, Rory, and though you know closely you follow sport, was the cancellation of one of the most important sporting competitions in the world, the IPL. That was massive. For them to, I mean cricket is an obsession in India and Pakistan. They've got two hundred and eighty million paid subscribers to watch the IPL. Three hundred and seventy million spectators. The brand value of this cricket league is twelve billion dollars.

• 34:56Rory Stewart?

  Wow, and it's now not happening at all?

• 34:58Alastair Campbell?

  Well, they've now, because of the ceasefire, I think they've got sixteen games left and they're bringing them back, starting, starting this weekend. You mentioned the drones there, just a quick one on the Houthis. One of the reasons it's said why the Americans felt it was about time that they stopped the bombing campaign is because it was becoming so expensive. They'd lost a fighter jet worth sixty million. They'd lost several really, really expensive drones. So we talk about, I think we talk, maybe this is a way into Ukraine, because you know, you've talked before about the way the military, the nature of military conflict is changing. I think we think about drones as these little things that fly around because we see them.

• 35:38Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 35:38Alastair Campbell?

  You know, when we're at a football match, you sometimes see a drone going above filming you when you're doing documentaries and stuff. We're talking about unbelievably sophisticated and expensive pieces of kit.

• 35:47Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 35:47Alastair Campbell?

  That are now, and the Ukrainians, it seems, are now the sort of best in Europe at manufacturing use of these.

• 35:53Rory Stewart?

  There's an amazing bifurcation because of course traditionally, certainly over the last few decades, the defence industry has been dominated by these companies, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, who produce these unbelievably exquisite, expensive bits of kit, which takes so long to produce that the procurement people have signed a contract for one thing. And sure enough, as two years go on, they want to change the specs on the radar or the intelligence equipment, then they have to pay these companies even more. Meanwhile, at the other end, there are these very cheap drones being produced. So, you know, Iran produces drones and Ukraine has basically been able to produce drones for about a thousand dollars

• 36:36Rory Stewart?

  that are able to do a lot of the things that these drones worth millions are able to do. And then when the British Army goes back to these defence contractors and says, okay, here's this lovely thousand dollar drone that the Ukrainians built, can you build one for us? The defence contractors say, well, absolutely not, because it doesn't work for their business model. Their business model is all about producing stuff that costs millions and takes a long time. Thousand dollar drones are not in their business. And you're also right, that what we're seeing in India, Pakistan, as in Ukraine, is how central drones aren't warfare. What didn't happen this time compared to Carthage is it wasn't about infantry soldiers confronting

• 37:15Rory Stewart?

  each other. It's non-contact warfare. It's we're returning to a sort of funny world that H G Wells imagined where everything's happening in the air.

• 37:24Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm. Now, where are we on Russia, Ukraine? Again, it's been unbelievably busy this week. I thought one of the most significant, you know how I love photos and whether they become historic. I don't know whether this one will. It partly depends on what happens, but the picture of Zelensky, Macron, Merz, Tusk and Starmer, kind of on a sofa and a couple of chairs with Macron holding a mobile phone at the other end of which was Donald Trump. And this was them preparing to set this 30-day ceasefire ultimatum to Putin. And then the other, the other photo, there was Putin in Moscow late that evening, very unusual because they like to sort of show that they're in control

• 38:06Alastair Campbell?

  the whole time. So it was definitely a specific reaction. And the picture that I saw was the the wonderful Steve Rosenberg's head. The back of his head was in the shot because he was in the front row. The media had been told it was going to be a full-scale press conference. It turned out just to be a statement from Putin where he made this offer of direct talks in Istanbul on Thursday, which if they do happen, I suspect Vlad will not be there. Rather smartly, I thought, Zelensky straight out the traps, saying, I'll be there. So again, it felt like stuff was moving, but then you start to think, well, hold on a minute. Is this not just Putin playing another game to kick things down the road?

• 38:50Rory Stewart?

  No, you're completely right. The story is changing. And this is a sort of difficult thing in dealing with Trump because one way of looking at it, if you're a kind of Trump supporter is you kind of give him immense credit and you say this is the art of the deal. And look, Rory, you know, you and Alice have been talking about for the last half hour, is that, you know, he may be on the cusp of bringing a deal in Iran and he's moving away from Netanyahu and he's putting pressure on Putin and he's solved India Kashmir. So this all ticked him. But of course, the real theme is unpredictability and him often losing interest.

• 39:24Alastair Campbell?

  Strategic uncertainty, apparently they call it.

• 39:26Rory Stewart?

  Strategic uncertainty. But there's no doubt things have changed. So put the clock back when we were. Talking at the time of this famous, I mean, talk about images that meeting between Zelensky and Trump, where Trump and JD Vance humiliate him and Zelensky tries to stand up for himself. And then this followed by weeks of Trump repeating Putin's talking points, making it clear there will be no security guarantees for Ukraine, cutting off for a time, American intelligence support for Ukraine, recognizing Crimea and Witkoff, as you've pointed out, going for these seven individual meetings with Putin, the last one of which you pointed out, they were talking about girls during the meeting, right? So all of this symbolizes.

• 40:07Alastair Campbell?

  Also turns out that his interpreter came from the Kremlin. He went on his own. There's a very interesting piece in Huffington Post today, defenders of Witkoff saying that he's shaking everything up, the swamp doesn't like it, but he's, you know, Trump's got complete faith, et cetera. But it does appear to be operating almost in a vacuum, doing his own thing. There's even this story about when he went to the UAE, he was on his private plane, the UAE weren't aware that he was coming. And there was sort of, they were actually thought this was a hostile attack. No, it's very, very strange. But you know, that is what we're going to have to get used to the fact that this is how Trump operates.

• 40:44Rory Stewart?

  Yeah. And I think there's a pattern here, which you can get into a little bit more in tomorrow's podcast. But the speed. So, you know, let's add to this, the fact that there's now been this week, a US-China tariff deal, a US-UK tariff deal. And your man, Steve Witkoff, is simultaneously negotiating.

• 41:01Alastair Campbell?

  My man.

• 41:02Rory Stewart?

  Your man. Simultaneously, apparently negotiating peace, Russia, Ukraine, and also doing an Iran deal, and also doing the Gaza deal.

• 41:10Alastair Campbell?

  And getting a hostage out.

• 41:12Rory Stewart?

  And getting a hostage out and fly to you. And, and as you say, doing it with no apparent State Department support bureaucracy or infrastructure around him, which means that these deals are very odd. I mean, a normal trade deal takes months or years to negotiate because you're looking at the detail of ethanol tariffs. The fact that Witkoff and Trump are able to do these things in a couple of hours implies they're not quite negotiations and deals in the traditional sense.

• 41:38Alastair Campbell?

  No, I mean, and also, I know that he's really trying to undermine Congress deliberately, but ultimately, Congress does trade deals. The president has the power to do tariff deals. So they're tariff deals is what he's doing. That's what we we should stop calling them. They're not comprehensive trade deals. The other thing I found really interesting about the the Russia Ukraine thing is. So let's, you know, we're we're, this is going to go on Wednesday. Let's see if any meeting of substance happens in Istanbul on Thursday. You're right, by the way, what you said earlier, it's interesting that they. Turkey becomes the place where they say this should happen. But I think there was another really interesting thing today that relates to one of the things we talk about a lot, which is misinformation. So picture this, if you haven't seen it already, and if you're on social media, you've definitely seen it, but let's say you haven't.

• 42:22Alastair Campbell?

  Then you're on a train, it's a very, very important meeting, these European leaders going to meet Zelensky. And Macron, Merz and Starmer are sort of, you know, being quite chummy with each other. And then you notice that they look towards the door because the media are being brought in to take some pictures. And Merz picks up a spoon. Now, I think, as a sort of, you know, think guy who doesn't imagine that Merz has ever taken drugs in his life. I think he's picking up a spoon because it looks a bit untidy and he's probably been stirring his coffee. Macron picks up a tissue, okay? Maybe he blew his nose. Who knows what the tissue is doing there?

• 43:03Alastair Campbell?

  Suddenly, all across social media with people doing slow motion versions. And cutting to fake video of these guys dancing together in clubs and all sorts of stuff. The story goes that what they've been doing is taking cocaine.

• 43:19Rory Stewart?

  On the train, on their way.

• 43:20Alastair Campbell?

  On the train, on their way to see Zelensky.

• 43:24Rory Stewart?

  Like, like some of my conservative colleagues at a Bullingdon party.

• 43:27Alastair Campbell?

  Is that what they do?

• 43:28Rory Stewart?

  That's that was the allegations. Yes. Come on, you remember all this stuff.

• 43:32Alastair Campbell?

  Is that what they did in the building? Was it was it drugs more than alcohol?

• 43:35Rory Stewart?

  That was certainly the allegation. I didn't personally witness it, but it seems.

• 43:37Alastair Campbell?

  You're an opiate kind of guy. You're sort of, you're way above cocaine. So anyway, so there's the thing.

• 43:43Rory Stewart?

  Pretending naivety and innocence.

• 43:44Alastair Campbell?

  Honestly, can I tell you something? Can I tell you something about cocaine? This, maybe I'm just a very naive sort of person. I've never seen cocaine. In my life.

• 43:55Rory Stewart?

  You you you've never seen actors.

• 43:57Alastair Campbell?

  I've seen police.

• 43:58Rory Stewart?

  Actors going into the House of Commons bathroom and snorting cocaine.

• 44:02Alastair Campbell?

  Never, never.

• 44:03Rory Stewart?

  No.

• 44:03Alastair Campbell?

  But what I noticed on, and this was absolutely swamping all of my social media feeds. It was it was everywhere.

• 44:10Rory Stewart?

  It's it's quite it's quite a good story, all all these worldly.

• 44:13Alastair Campbell?

  It's a good story, but what but what's it is, it was coming, you see, and this is, Rory, you're falling for their trap.

• 44:19Rory Stewart?

  Well, sorry, sorry.

• 44:20Alastair Campbell?

  Because they they they like, what they'd like you to do.

• 44:22Rory Stewart?

  Serious about this.

• 44:23Alastair Campbell?

  They like you to think it's funny.

• 44:24Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:24Alastair Campbell?

  Okay.

• 44:25Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 44:25Alastair Campbell?

  But it was coming.

• 44:26Rory Stewart?

  Yeah.

• 44:27Alastair Campbell?

  From Russian accounts and from a lot of Maga accounts.

• 44:30Rory Stewart?

  Right.

• 44:31Alastair Campbell?

  So this was basically, they were, this was a perfect misinformation operation. Because it was a sandwich, there's the European leaders taking on Putin and taking and trying to get Trump involved.

• 44:42Rory Stewart?

  On coke.

• 44:43Alastair Campbell?

  But they weren't, Rory, they weren't, for God's sake.

• 44:45Rory Stewart?

  I also think it's a really kind of really remarkable story.

• 44:47Alastair Campbell?

  You're not taking this seriously.

• 44:48Rory Stewart?

  It's a really remarkable story because if the least likely people in the world to be snorting cocaine on a train. I mean, this is not the Bullingdon Boys, this is Keir Starmer and Friedrich Metz, who like.

• 45:00Alastair Campbell?

  I I noticed you didn't use Macron in that. You say that Macron might have done. Macron, by the way, who's coming on a state visit, Rory.

• 45:07Rory Stewart?

  He's at least a bit younger, at least a bit younger.

• 45:09Alastair Campbell?

  Ahead of the Trump.

• 45:10Rory Stewart?

  If you were trying to make up a story, it's the story that you'd make up that Keir Starmer and Friedrich Metz were like party boys who liked snorting coke on a train. It doesn't seem very likely.

• 45:19Alastair Campbell?

  No, it doesn't seem likely, but we're talking about it. And yesterday it was swamping social media, which otherwise might have been swamped with stories about Trump's corruption in the plane.

• 45:28Rory Stewart?

  Let's let's sort of get back to what's happening with the peace deal with Russia, Ukraine. So, as I was saying, initially, the story was that Trump was following Putin's talking points. Now, things have begun to shift. And we've got Kellogg, who's the US envoy, and Witkoff increasingly behind a vision for a deal. And it's a deal which would involve Russia having Crimea, but in return, no demilitarization of Ukraine. It's a relatively balanced deal where there's some kind of recognition for Ukraine. And it's something that, and this again relates to what you were saying.

• 46:11Rory Stewart?

  The policy of Starmer and Macron and Zelensky, which is to seem as helpful as possible, as open as possible to what Trump's saying, you gave an example of Zelensky saying, you know, I'll go and meet Putin, right, seems perhaps to be paying off.

• 46:25Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm.

• 46:26Rory Stewart?

  Because what it does is it pushes the pressure back on Putin. Now, of course, I don't think it's probably going to result in Trump turning against Putin, unfortunately. In a very, very optimistic scenario, if you were, you know, really hopeful for Ukraine, you would say Trump will eventually notice and Whitkoff and Kellogg will tell him that Putin's screwing around and he might impose secondary sanctions, which means, you know, sanctioning countries like China or India that are buying oil from Russia, or he would provide more aid to Ukraine.

• 46:58Alastair Campbell?

  Hmm.

• 46:58Rory Stewart?

  I don't think he's likely to go that far, but the signs are softening. Here are some signs of softening.

• 47:03Alastair Campbell?

  Well, he did say the thing last week, you know, is the guy tapping me up.

• 47:06Rory Stewart?

  Is the guy tapping me up?

• 47:07Alastair Campbell?

  Stringing me along.

• 47:08Rory Stewart?

  And you reminded us last week that he also attacked Putin on VE Day and said it was America what won the war and essentially Russia would never have been able to do it without the United States, which is an incredible statement because, you know, Russia's sacrifice in that war, you know, whatever it is, 25 million people killed. But what he has done in the last two weeks, and I've been talking to my friend and man I migrate, Shashank Joshi, he's pointed out that one of the things that's changed since we last discussed it is that Trump has now released Patriot missiles, which were promised. He's also allowed F16s to go out for spare parts. He's also allowed a small amount of the presidential drawdown money to go to Ukraine. So all of that stuff's, you know, sign of softening potentially.

• 47:49Rory Stewart?

  And so the middle best case scenario is not that he massively pushes down on Putin, not that Putin changes his position because Putin's quite wily and he'll keep saying, you know, we've got to address the root causes of this and we need direct talks.

• 48:02Alastair Campbell?

  The root cause is basically, I mean, Ukraine shouldn't exist. I mean, that's what Peskop is saying the whole time. I did think on the Russian reaction as well, Medvedev, so this, that you have this meeting with the four European leaders on the phone to Trump. And interesting, when they did their press conference, Keir Starmer in particular said that the United States were completely on board for this approach. And Medvedev put out a tweet saying, you can put your peace plan up your pan-gender arses, which I think is an act of diplomacy was, was kind of odd. Do you know the other thing that maybe, maybe just to close off on this, we, we talk a lot about. Trump's kind of vanity and the need to flatter him and his need constantly to be told that he's wonderful and to say that he's wonderful.

• 48:46Alastair Campbell?

  And he does seem to have this real loathing of the fact that Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize. Now, I would argue it was odd to give Nobel, the Nobel Peace Prize to Obama at the stage of his career that he, that he got it. Um. But it was very interesting on, the reason I think why he was so quick out there saying, I did the India Pakistan deal. When both the Indians and the Pakistanis say, uh, no, you didn't. And then Laura Luma, this right wing conspiracy theorist that he's very, very close to. Although she's criticised him over the plane, I noticed, but she came out and said, you know, surely he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize now. And it's clearly a really big motivation. So, and let's just say, I'm, I'm not convinced it's going to happen.

• 49:29Alastair Campbell?

  But let's just say that you do get some sort of peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. Let's, it's very hard to see right now, but let's say there is some sort of progress in, in Gaza. And let's say that India Pakistan does dial down. Let's say that as a result of what they've, the bombing of the Houthis, they do calm down a bit. Then, you know, that's obviously what's motivating him. So I think we see this, we're going to see a lot of flattery and, and I saw the, I don't, you saw as well as I did, the letter to Trump from five hundred and fifty Israeli securocrats, spies and military and, and commentators and so forth. And it was interesting how much they were very critical of Netanyahu, but unbelievably flattering about Trump.

• 50:12Alastair Campbell?

  And so I think we're going to, we're, we're in for an orgy of flattery in the next few days and an orgy of big deals. But let's see whether we get in.

• 50:19Rory Stewart?

  Well, just to, just to wrap up then with where Ukraine may go, because maybe we don't talk enough about the future. I think there's a standoff on the one hand, Kellogg and Whitkoff, who like the deal they've put on the table. Vance and Steve Miller on the other side, who basically think Russia's got all the cards and we should just submit to Russia's terms. Trump, who seems as usual to be flopping around from side to side, but the best case scenario, I think, for Ukraine is that Trump will continue to be prepared to sell weapons. He may not sell them directly to Ukraine, but if he can sell them to Germany and Germany can then push them on to Ukraine, and in particular Patriots, which is for the air defence and the HIMARS, which is for the long range missile strikes,

• 51:01Rory Stewart?

  probably Ukraine can hold Russia back. And Russia has had a very, very bloody time. They're really struggling to make progress. But Putin still thinks time is on his side. He still thinks Trump will blink. And so he's not giving up anytime soon.

• 51:15Alastair Campbell?

  Okay, question time tomorrow. We'll do immigration. I think we should talk about the Pope as well. The Pope seems to be a nice sort of chap. And we'll see what else our listeners want to hear about. See you then.

• 51:26Rory Stewart?

  Bye bye.