Pod Insights The Rest Is Politics 306. Did Kamala Harris' speech scare Trump? About this episode Was Kamala Harris' closing speech at the Democratic National Convention powerful enough to shake the Republicans? Who were the most successful speakers at the DNC? What are some key differences between American politics and the UK?
Join Rory and Alastair as they react to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and Kamala Harris' first speech as the Democratic nominee.
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Transcript 9,245 words · 11 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:04 Rory Stewart? This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.
0:06 Alastair 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.
0:19 Rory Stewart? I actually had a NordVPN thank you. I was in the new Starbucks here in Crete. And of course, the thing flashed up, saying this is an unsecured public network. And I was able to go to my VPN. 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.
0:42 Alastair Campbell? Well, I think, are you not really sort of proud of me that I managed to do this? Or should I say Fiona managed to do this?
0:49 Rory 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/risterspolitics. That's nordvpn.com/risterspolitics. And the link is in the episode description.
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2:29 Alastair Campbell? Hello, welcome to The Rest Is Politics with me, Alastair Campbell.
2:32 Rory Stewart? And me Rory Stewart. And Alistair, you have an American flag, I noticed, on the wall behind you.
2:37 Alastair Campbell? I did get given, as we were leaving the convention last night, there was an awful lot of stuff being given out, lots of memorabilia, lots of banners and stuff. So yeah, I suspect it will stay after I leave Rory, but it was quite a night. And it's also, it's very nice to see already coming through in the comments, we've got lots of people from, we've got Pittsburgh, we've got Pennsylvania, but we've also got Melbourne, Auckland, London, Lake District. So thanks to everybody for joining us. So I am still in Chicago, having been here for the whole of the convention. Rory is in Scotland, where I will be tomorrow, talking about my children's books at the Edinburgh Festival.
3:18 Alastair Campbell? But it has been quite a week Rory, I must say. I assume you watch Vice President Harris.
3:24 Rory Stewart? Yes, so quickly, just for people joining us, and thank you all for all these people joining us from everywhere, Norway, Prague, Denmark, Sydney, Minnesota, fantastic, Kazakhstan, really?
3:35 Alastair Campbell? Yeah, well, there's nothing wrong with that.
3:36 Rory Stewart? Brazil, very good. Yeah, so Alistair and I were together at the convention. We had an incredible epic day, which involved starting at, I think, eight in the morning, and then rolling through to one in the morning, which took us right the way through from AOC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the incredibly charismatic Congresswoman from New York, Hillary Clinton, finishing with Joe Biden, who gave a nearly hour-long speech, finishing at midnight. And then we recorded the first episode. And during the day, we'd been meeting the most incredible variety of different people, which will release our conversations with them on an independent feed, which, sorry, not an independent feed, on our main feed, but it will be branded as DNC.
4:19 Alastair Campbell? Yeah, the first one's up, Rory, it's on the leading feed, which is the splendid pollster, John Anzo.
4:28 Alastair Campbell? So we've got him, then we've got this amazing old guy, Bob Mulholland, who's, we've billed as the lifelong attack dog. We've got a young buck, we've got veteran congresswoman, and we've also found the only Donald Trump lover at the at the convention.
4:43 Rory Stewart? Yeah, so people listen, get a flavour of those five, five things, four of which we we did together. I was particularly, I mean, I loved your polling guy and your campaigning guy, but I was also really taken with Rosa Delaro, who's the veteran congresswoman, who I think is just a kind of wonderful human being and who was, to be serious for a moment, about these conventions. I mean, largely, these conventions are about making speeches and laying out a platform for an election without much detailed policy content, but she has had one thing in her head for most of her career, which is getting child tax credit through. And she was the chair of the very powerful Appropriations Committee in in the House and managed to
5:27 Rory Stewart? push through for one year to get child tax credit under the Biden administration coming out of Covid, and it made an incredible difference to poverty. I mean, literally, millions of people lifted out of poverty, and then it was dropped. And so she's been fighting tooth and nail to get it back in, and she managed to get it inserted back into Kamala Harris's commitment. So we were all given child tax credit stickers. Anyway, enough enough about when we were together. Tell us, tell us a little, just give us an overview first of the the three days since in general, before we get into the specifics of Kamala.
5:59 Alastair Campbell? I mean, it's it's been slightly overwhelming because there are so many speakers, like literally dozens of speakers. Now, okay, you'd say, well, the Labour Party comments, the Tory Party comments, there are dozens of speakers, but they tend to, they're in debate, they're having arguments, they're saying different things. But of course, what this was about was essentially people saying in different ways, the same things again and again and again and again. So Donald Trump is terrible. Kamala Harris is going to be a great president if she wins. Joe Biden's a fantastic guy. Abortion's on the ballot, you know, how all this sort of issues that they they they want to talk up. And it and it's, so I got to the end of every day.
6:41 Alastair Campbell? And sort of you try to remember kind of highlights, great lines, great moments. And it's almost like there's a surfeit, you've got so much kind of coming at you in the head. I've not been able to sleep at all. And if if so, you start to think of. You know, you so you mentioned on day one AOC and Hillary Clinton. I guess on the next day, if I was picking for one highlight, it would probably be Michelle Obama's speech. I actually thought it was in a way more powerful than Barack Obama's. Barack Obama is a wonderful orator, but I've heard him do that sort of stuff so many times. Whereas what was interesting about Michelle Obama was that, remember, she famously said, when they go low, we go
7:23 Alastair Campbell? high. Now, she was reasonably high, but she was really putting the boot in into Trump. And Donald Trump has hung over this conference like a kind of bad smell. I'd love to know whether there's an AI tool that could tell us whether Trump's name has appeared more than anybody else's, including even Kamala Harris during this this convention. So then you have this mixture. I'll tell you one thing I've noticed, Rory, this this rolling right through. So you mentioned AOC and Hillary. I mentioned Michelle Obama. Yesterday, obviously, the main the main event was Kamala Harris, but you also had Elizabeth Warren. You had
8:04 Alastair Campbell? Kamala Harris's sister. On every day, there has been a real sense that this is women, that women are right front and centre, and often women of colour. And I think that is partly related to her, partly related to the centrality of the issue of war. But I think it's also a way of targeting Trump as basically becoming the kind of incel guy, as opposed to somebody who can bring the country together.
8:31 Rory Stewart? Yeah. So again, for for people who haven't, in the way that Alistair has, literally sat through 25, 30 hours of this. And you can sit through it. I mean, I think that's another difference from a Labour or Conservative Party. There's no way on earth that you would stay in your seat for four, five hours.
8:47 Alastair Campbell? Well, yeah, Rory, yesterday, yesterday, yesterday, you had no choice because there were so many people trying to get in. You had to get in there about three hours in advance. Now, we were very, very lucky. We struck lucky, Rory, in that we found this guy who offered his seat in one of the boxes, the sort of corporate boxes. So that meant we could sort of come and go a bit. But if you otherwise, you had to literally get in there three hours before, otherwise you wouldn't get a seat.
9:12 Rory Stewart? And and the result, though, is that it's so, I mean, it's so well done that you can do it. I mean, that's what astonished me. On that first night with you, I think, I guess we sat for. Well, we left at midnight, sat down just after seven, so four and a half hours, I guess, we sat there. I would never sit for four and a half hours without moving through a Labour or Conservative conference, I'm afraid. And that's, I think, the main message that I took away from it. The quality of the speaking is unbelievable. I mean, what the Democratic Party revealed in the last four days is they are able to mobilize some of the most astonishing public speakers that you've ever seen. In fact, if you were doing a a class for students on public oratory and communication,
9:57 Rory Stewart? you could take probably twelve of those speeches and play them to them, and every one of them has a different style and mic. And I don't, I'm afraid, sadly, I don't want to be rude to Britain, but I do not think we could produce half a dozen speakers of that quality.
10:11 Alastair Campbell? No, and if you think that not that long ago, there were something that you'd hear people say right around the world is how can a country of three hundred and fifty five million people produce a choice between Biden and Trump?
10:21 Rory Stewart? Okay. Right.
10:23 Alastair Campbell? But actually, I agree with you, and and some of them quite surprising. Pete Buttigieg, who I think is an amazing television communicator, I realized this week is also a fantastic orator. We had Gretchen, we had
10:35 Rory Stewart? Gretchen Whitmer.
10:36 Alastair Campbell? Gretchen Whitmer last night. She was absolutely brilliant.
10:39 Rory Stewart? Governor of Michigan, yeah.
10:40 Alastair Campbell? Yeah, Josh Shapiro was
10:42 Rory Stewart? Governor of Pennsylvania.
10:43 Alastair Campbell? Was absolutely superb. Matt Kelly was good. And then you had all these, the way that they they brought speakers out who weren't famous, weren't well known, some of the most powerful, like yesterday, a woman who actually has become a Congresswoman, who whose son was killed by shooting and talking about guns. And then this amazing, where Matt Kelly, Senator Kelly came on with his wife, Gabrielle Giffords, who'd been, who survived an assassination attempt. So they took, they use these interweaving, personal stories with this sort of big picture. And as I said the other day, for example, on abortion, which really has been such a big thing this week.
11:24 Alastair Campbell? And I think that goes back to my point. I think women, I think they are deliberately using women. And as you say, and it's interesting how many people mentioned to me, the woman, the the delega that Katie Kay interviewed on Rest is Politics US, just these incredibly articulate young women. Who now are going out of here and they're going to try and persuade their friends and persuade their mothers and persuade their fathers. So that's the sort of energy that's been going. But the other thing, Roy, the speak, I totally agree with you and it did. I was talking to my Fiona this morning, who'd been following it at home and just as closely as I have really. And she did make a point, which I think, you know, I was with quite a few people from the Labour Party over here.
12:05 Alastair Campbell? There's a joy in the politics in this that that sort of, I don't really think we're getting in Britain at the moment. And we've got to find a way of getting that.
12:14 Rory Stewart? We've got to find it. And one way of articulating it is that the way that the Democratic Party chooses to tell stories of coming from very, very difficult backgrounds
12:28 Rory Stewart? is completely different to the way that the story is told in Britain. So it's actually the case that in Britain, if you look at the British Cabinet at the moment, there are people from very, very tough backgrounds. But America firstly has a myth, which is that it's only in America that these stories will be possible. It's obviously not true.
12:47 Alastair Campbell? Well, she did a bit of that as well last night.
12:50 Rory Stewart? Many countries in the world, including Britain, where people from minority ethnic backgrounds and very poor backgrounds have made it to very senior political office. But the difference is that in Britain, when people talk about that journey, they often talk about it more as from a sense of injustice and class inequality. Whereas in the United States, it's celebrated in its most positive possible way. You know, people talk about, you know, and Pete Buttigieg did it. He talks about his improbable journey. He talks about Kamala Harris's improbable journey. In the case of Pete Buttigieg, you know, it's a story of a veteran from Afghanistan who's gay and ends up with.
13:31 Rory Stewart? Two kids and ends up being on the main convention stage and Kamala Harris's case is this incredible story of her night old mother, but in every case, it's positive. The story of them coming from difficult poor backgrounds. And my goodness, inequality is much more an extreme in the United States than it is in Britain. I mean, that's the other thing that makes this so confusing.
13:52 Alastair Campbell? Yeah.
13:53 Rory Stewart? You know, objectively speaking, socio economic class based inequality in the US is much worse than in Britain.
14:00 Alastair Campbell? It's very good. Just jump in there.
14:02 Rory Stewart? Britain is negative. Yeah.
14:03 Alastair Campbell? It's really interesting you said that because last night we were with sort of people who were a few Brits, obviously mainly Americans, couple of Aussies and obviously political geeks. I'm not talking about, you know, people that you're going to meet on a bus, but it was interesting how when they would talk about Britain, for example, how, how often they would say, you know, we love Angela Rayner. And the other thing, Roy, that
14:29 Rory Stewart? She's joyful though. She's got a certain amount of joy. I like Angela Rayner. Yeah.
14:33 Alastair Campbell? Yeah. So, and it's interesting how, you know, you've got a bit of this when you were here, but I've got a lot more of it because I've been here all week, is how many of these young Democrat Americans listen to our podcast and they say, in part because they have always had this sort of respect for, for Labour, for the, for the British, for British politics and so forth. And it's interesting how two or three of them that I bumped into, you know, mentioned, you know, my favorite interview was that one you did with your, with your deputy, the, the Angela woman. And I just think as Labour go into their party conference coming up soon. By the way, we should answer, there's quite a few people saying, why did you, why are you doing this stuff for the Democrats when you didn't do it for the Republican
15:16 Alastair Campbell? Convention? I'll be absolutely frank about this. We weren't going to do either until the Joe Biden change. That's just laying out our facts there. I was going to stay on holiday.
15:27 Rory Stewart? But incidentally, for, for what it's worth for people here, I think it would have been impossible for us to get passes for the Republican Convention. Trump's team has very much decided that people like us are not welcome. So we wouldn't have been able to get in.
15:41 Alastair Campbell? Although one of our, one of our five interviews, Roy, the one that you, you'd sadly had to leave, but is this guy who, who is an advisor to Trump and a friend of Trump. And it is interesting because The other interview that you and I did yesterday, you were online, that we'll put out probably next week with another American pollster, Frank Luntz, who was fascinating. And he said to me that he thinks I have Trump derangement syndrome and that whereas when we were New Labour chasing Tory votes, we always tried to work out what our opponents were thinking and what people who voted them were thinking, but we sort of so loathe Trump. And I thought it was a very fair insight. You and I probably just cannot understand
16:24 Alastair Campbell? how anybody can vote from that man. So that stops us talking to them and thinking about them. So actually, I found that conversation with this guy very, very interesting because he explained Trump in a way that Trump never explains himself.
16:36 Rory Stewart? I'm looking forward to that. Looking forward to that. Can I just so quickly, because I, just before we move on to the sort of bigger issues, just one last go through these speeches, because they have been extraordinary. I think Tim Walmsley, if people haven't yet seen him speak.
16:53 Alastair Campbell? Yeah.
16:53 Rory Stewart? I mean, as an introduction to why that is a phenomenal vice presidential pick, that speech at the Democratic National Convention, he is not just approachable and likeable, he's incredibly smart.
17:09 Alastair Campbell? Yeah.
17:10 Rory Stewart? He makes some very interesting points about freedom, positive freedom, negative freedom, but he does it in a very relatable way.
17:17 Alastair Campbell? And that's him stealing from territory that the Republicans think they own.
17:21 Rory Stewart? Exactly. He's brilliant at weaving his personal life story. In fact, he went to a high school with only 25 children in it, and using that and moving forward from that. But he's also able to communicate in a way that actually I'm not sure many of them were able to very, very clearly, what's our policy.
17:42 Alastair Campbell? Yeah.
17:43 Rory Stewart? He said, you know, you remember, he said, "This is the bit where I want you to concentrate on and clip for your family. Three things we're going to do. We're going to drop taxes for middle classes, we're going to reduce the restriction bills, prescription bills, and we're going to deliver affordable housing." But he does it so warmly and naturally. And I think there's an article which I really enjoyed reading, written in the New York Times, back, I think in 2008, when he was still just a high school teacher, about a class he taught on Rwanda in 1993. He taught a genocide class to his high school.
18:20 Rory Stewart? Where he'd asked them to predict where future genocides might happen. And he took them through Cambodia, he'd taken them through Germany. And his class, a year before the Rwanda genocide, predicted Rwanda as being the place where the next genocide. Now, why is that interesting? That, along with the fact that he has been thirty times to China, that he taught in China for a year. I mean, means that this story that this is a team with no foreign policy experience is missing something important. It's missing the fact that I think Waltz is a far more sophisticated worldly man than this sort of coach Waltz branding is giving him.
18:57 Alastair Campbell? Yeah, I also heard that Kamala Harris has met, is it one hundred and forty different world leaders in the time as vice president? Just sticking with with Tim Walz, and I agree, and funny enough, seeing, if you remember, I said I thought that Kelly would be the pick. And I still think he's obviously got amazing strengths, but interestingly, when he spoke, it just didn't quite work as a as a as an oratorical event, whereas you're absolutely right, Tim Walz did. I think we should just briefly, the one bit, I find, you know, you get exhausted at these things. You can get quite emotional if you're not careful. The one bit that really got me emotionally, and I felt myself slightly welling up, was when the cameras inside the hall and on television cut to his son.
19:44 Alastair Campbell? And and he and I didn't know, I knew that his son had special needs as we, special educational needs, we call it, and had speech issues and neurodivergence, et cetera. But it was just so powerful, him sort of standing up, the joy coming out of him is saying, that's my dad, that's my dad. And the response for the next N hours, these republic, these MAGA Republicans tweeting the most vile stuff. And I think the other thing, there's a very, Morning Joe. The the TV thing here has put out a thing this morning, which we should put in the in the show note in the newsletter. And it's it says a tale of two speeches. And it's these
20:25 Alastair Campbell? clips of Kamala Harris last night, talking about bringing the country together, talking about positivity, talking about the role of education, whatever it might be, all the positive stuff. And then interspersed with Trump with just this sort of everything's terrible, it's all.
20:42 Rory Stewart? So I I watched the Trump live thing.
20:45 Alastair Campbell? Yeah.
20:45 Rory Stewart? And it it was the most disturbing speech. He's in it's very strangely timed. He is standing on the border. And he is reading from something that looks almost as big as the Bible. An intonation of atrocities rapes and murders committed by what he calls Kamala's migrants or Kamala's migrants. And he just goes, in Coney Island, a place that I know well, I set up my business in Coney Island, they dragged a woman from the car and then they and and my mother who was watching it with me, who's from the right, said this is very disturbing because unfortunately, this man sounds like he's kind of enjoying
21:30 Rory Stewart? this stuff. I mean, it was so brutally explicit, these atrocities, one after another after another. And as you say, so unbelievably negative.
21:38 Alastair Campbell? What's um, the last couple of days, I've spoken to quite a few of the kind of Democratic Party strategists and people who work with Clinton and people who work with Obama and some who are still involved with Biden and Harris. And it's it is interesting how the delegates storming out last night were really kind of, oh, we're on our way. This is just fantastic. What a week, what a speech, etc. You get down with the guys who've been in politics and campaigns a long time. And and their baseline was all this has been great. But it's now going to get utterly brutal. And this party has to be ready for what is going to be the most vicious attempt at character assassination there has ever been. And but I think, as we have discussed with some of the people that we talked to, that
22:22 Alastair Campbell? I think they're really struggling to work out how to attack her. She it what struck me last night was even though she had a very quite short, but very powerful attack on Trump with this new backdrop that they whisked in a few minutes before she spoke, looking slightly like this courtroom where she was the judge, and she was judging Trump. But I don't get the feeling that he's occupying her head in the way that she is so clearly occupying his. He was live tweeting or live social truthing her speech in a way that, I mean, and it's interesting, I watched on one of the channels this morning, they did
23:04 Alastair Campbell? a focus group of about six or eight undecideds who'd watched the speech together. And by the end, eight it was, and by the end of it, six said they were voting Harris, they would vote Harris, one said Trump, and one said they were still undecided. And the thing that they kept coming back to was, she looked presidential and she was so positive.
23:25 Rory Stewart? Yeah. And she's got this electric smile, hasn't she? I mean, it's something that unfortunately,
23:34 Rory Stewart? Hillary Clinton didn't have that huge, sort of very natural, warm smile.
23:39 Alastair Campbell? Bizarrely, though, she does have it in real life.
23:41 Rory Stewart? Yes, yes, she does. But she, exactly, she does. No, no, no, I think Hillary Clinton is one of those sad things you see so often in politics, which are people who are unbelievably impressive one to one and in small groups, but don't somehow electrify the stage.
23:59 Alastair Campbell? But what I think you said, where you're on to something with Tim Walz, is I think both of them, and you had this sense, the stories of the families, even that little thing about the two little nieces who came on to explain how you pronounce Kamala. It was like, you've got a sense that these are normal people, that you can imagine being with these people and having a nice time. Whereas Trump's people are just, they're kind of, they are weird and they are a bit vile.
24:25 Rory Stewart? Okay, let's take a quick break and we'll be back in a minute.
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26:21 Rory Stewart? You pointed to Buttigieg, and I know I'm talking too much about styles of speaking, but just, again, if people are looking for another speech to watch from the convention, Pete Buttigieg is just six to seven minutes long, so it's a really great clip to have a look at. Yeah. And, my goodness, he's whip-smart. The first thing he does, which is very clever, is he says that J.D. Vance has said that people who don't have children don't have a stake in the future. And then he says, "Well, I served in Afghanistan with a lot of young men who didn't have children." And I think you'll find that they had a bit of a stake in the future of the United States. But then he does this thing, which I thought was the most moving bit of all, which almost
27:05 Rory Stewart? had my mother in tears, which is he said, it was just very simple, he said, "I don't presume to know." What's happening in your kitchens? But when you're sitting there early in the evening discussing the day or sitting up late at night trying to address the bills. I think the one thing that every American would dream of is not having a politics, which is a rerun of some TV wrestling death match.
27:36 Alastair Campbell? Hmm.
27:37 Rory Stewart? And I I thought there was that and that again is touching on your point here, which is if they can pull this off, this phrase, which appeared in almost every speech, because it's so scripted, these speeches, they have more in common than separates us. They've clearly decided that the Joe Cox line from Britain than divides us should become and separate.
27:58 Alastair Campbell? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
27:59 Rory Stewart? Um, is what they're running and and gosh, for me, of course, that's so exciting because I do sometimes feel with Labour in Britain that they can be quite sort of non generous to the other side. And clearly, this is a a team that's decided to be generous to Trump voters and to unify them.
28:17 Alastair Campbell? Yeah, I mean, and and one of the things that this Trump supporter that I spoke to said is that, you know, if I'm sitting in that hall as an undecided, but kind of leaning towards Trump, and these guys are trying to bring me back, I'm not hearing that much. I'm not hearing that much for me. But actually, last night, I thought very directly, and it was interesting, we had an amazing view last night because she she was on the stage down there to our right. But we were right in front directly into the massive sort of fifty foot screen. And it was so it was always interesting to to note the bits where she looked direct into the camera. And one of those bits was when she said, she basically talked about the divisiveness without mentioning Trump, about the hatred, about the polarization, et cetera.
28:59 Alastair Campbell? And then said, I will be a president for all of you, whether you vote for us or you don't, whether you're here or you're there, I will be a president that brings it sees is sees her job as bringing this country back together again. And I think that that that has to be the pitch now. And also, again, talking to these strategists, they they say that what has to happen now, that they should get a lift out of this in the polls. Um. Not guaranteed, but they should get a pretty good lift. And they've all, they all say this thing the whole time. It really kicks off on Labour Day. That is when you are into the campaign and then it is, it really does depend on how the other side come at you and what they come at you with. And what she has to be putting out there is kind of answering this policy stuff.
29:41 Alastair Campbell? You know, on the economy, it was deliberately vague last night because it wasn't the place for it. But there does have to be messaging on that. There does have to be, how are you going to do it? Immigration, how are you going to do it? And, and meanwhile, define the attacks that are coming out of them before they come.
29:55 Rory Stewart? So Blair McPherson, who came in on the thread a couple of minutes ago, said, I'm a little confused. She read a speech on a prompter that ten other people wrote for her. That's what she pulled off. It was well done, but let's see in an interactive environment, nothing on policy. So I guess he's, he's, he's hitting the same point as you there.
30:13 Alastair Campbell? Yeah, and, and I think that, you know, these, I've been involved in loads and loads of conference speeches. Um. Interestingly, by the way, I, one thing I did discover, there is a kind of, a bit like, it's sort of TV shows, there is a writer's room. Uh, where these guys kind of all are hanging around and you, you do this bit, you do that bit. So. But I thought that the, the story, what she was trying to do with that speech was reveal a bit about her life story without making it all about her. I thought the focus again on her mother was very much part of this. We're talking to, talking to and about women a lot here. Then to talk a little bit about how that shaped her politics and the prosecutor and the belief in the rule of law, et cetera. And then to sort of lift the veil a little bit on policy and then to have this section on foreign policy where,
30:58 Alastair Campbell? interesting what you thought about it, Rory, I, I thought on the, because the Gaza issue has been pretty intense there this week. They didn't allow a Palestinian speaker to take the stage. And I think that was because they would have been worried maybe about the reaction, which would have been kind of overwhelmingly positive. And that would then be taken as being sort of, you know, two fingers to Israel. And there is the politics here on that. You get a real sense of, they want to be on the side of Israel. But then really not happy with Netanyahu in the government.
31:27 Rory Stewart? So in her speech there, for people who didn't watch it, she was doing what Alice's friend Emmanuel Macron calls the en même temps. So she, she actually literally used the phrase at the same time.
31:37 Alastair Campbell? Same time.
31:38 Rory Stewart? So she said, I will always be behind Israel. I will support their right to defend and their ability to defend themselves. So she's saying, I'm going to continue to arm Israel. And then she said, at the same time. You know, the killing in Gaza. And then she talks about hostage return. And then she talks about
31:57 Alastair Campbell? Ceasefire.
31:57 Rory Stewart? Ceasefire. But then she's talked about dignity, freedom and self determination for Palestine. Now,
32:03 Alastair Campbell? And that was, by the way, that was the bit that really got the whole going.
32:08 Rory Stewart? Yeah. And that's what people want to hear. Now, that of course, a two state solution is, has remained theoretically US policy for a long time. But, um, but
32:21 Rory Stewart? the more she leans into the self determination, the question is, and this is what we don't quite know with her yet. I mean, it is true that she is relatively inexperienced on foreign policy. And, and, and one of the things that she will be criticized for by the Republicans, quite understandably, is that they're trying to give her credit for everything in the Biden administration. So they're trying to say, if a factory was built, she built it. If the economy is doing well, she did it. You know, Ukraine, she tried to take credit for. I was there. I warned President Zelensky. I mobilized 50 countries into a coalition. And Biden is generously giving that to her. The truth is that a vice president is a relatively powerless figure. She will have helped with some of those things, but absolutely not would anyone objective think she did those things.
33:03 Rory Stewart? But they need to say that because they need to find some way of defining her on foreign policy and security. And that's fair enough. Um, what we don't know really is where is her heart? I mean, is she actually going to take risk on this? Is she really going to put pressure on Netanyahu? Is she actually going to do what the Labour Party in Britain sometimes sounds like it wants to do, which is actually give full recognition to Palestine?
33:25 Alastair Campbell? Yeah. On, just on the foreign policy, the other thing I thought was, was really interesting.
33:31 Alastair Campbell? Because there's no doubt that one of the things that has driven Trump's ability to attract a lot of support is that if people have to decide between America being the, the big power in the world.
33:45 Alastair Campbell? And or constantly getting involved in military intervention abroad, they're kind of willing to sacrifice the power for the lack of the military, which, which has surprised me, given the history and so forth. But she was unequivocally, I thought one of the most powerful parts of the speech was about NATO and Ukraine. And, and, and just on that, the, the, the extent to which I was talking to that guy I mentioned, Dan Balls, the 78 year old veteran Washington Post guy, I was talking to him at breakfast this morning. And making the point that the other day Donald Trump was on record as saying that five days before the invasion. Of Ukraine, Harris met Putin and clearly failed to dissuade him, right?
34:29 Alastair Campbell? Harris has never met Putin. He, she, the person she met was Zelensky.
34:34 Rory Stewart? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
34:35 Alastair Campbell? Now, if, can you imagine, if this was, just imagine though, but really it's not even in the papers today. It's not even on the television.
34:41 Rory Stewart? It's all over, it's all over social media though, isn't it? I mean, sorry, sorry, not the criticism. His, his, Trump's criticism is all over social media.
34:47 Alastair Campbell? Exactly.
34:48 Rory Stewart? So, so I was watching the Commerz speech with an unnamed right wing person who, when she said, and I met five days before the thing, Zelensky said, oh, that's not true. And had somehow got the whole thing in a muddle. And that's thanks to Trump, who's been all over social media, muddling everybody up.
35:07 Alastair Campbell? But don't you think if that had been Ronald Reagan or Richard Nixon, who'd, who'd, who'd said of their opponent, they met five days before this person launched an invasion of a sovereign country. Don't you think that would sort of have destroyed them?
35:23 Rory Stewart? It's absolutely, well, I mean, certainly in a British context, you know, the demands for apology, clarity and resignation would be completely overwhelming. I mean, you know, we, we get very, very angry if somebody misspeaks about something in the House of Commons. But I don't think on record has somebody actually accused, accused their opponent of having met Putin and sort of somehow encouraged them to invade, yeah.
35:46 Alastair Campbell? Yeah. What did you think of the, the, the kind of, of her speaking style? Because one thing I really liked, and as you were there the other night, it's a massive venue. Okay. You know, tens of thousands of people, they literally were sort of hanging from the rafters and there were thousands of people trying to get in. But why, one of the things I really liked about, and this is a real skill that a lot of politicians are scared to have, a lot of the time she spoke very softly. There were times when you actually had to lean in slightly to kind of to pick it up. And I think that was very, very deliberate. She was, she was being soft but strong. And when she was like doing the thing about, you know, Trump loves dictators.
36:30 Alastair Campbell? I'm going to take that because he wants to be one. I'm going to take those guys on. And she had these different sort of gears that she went through. And I know, you know, Catty said when we did our four way, if when Biden pulled out, she said that Catty Kay said that she was, she felt maybe Kamala didn't really have the sort of the public speaking skills. I thought last night was, she showed that she does. And the other point that lots of people have been making, including Republicans that are journalists that I've been talking to, is they are pretty shocked. And if you're a Democrat in a good way, if a Republican in a bad way, by the extent to which she has improved on virtually everything that she's doing.
37:13 Rory Stewart? Yes.
37:14 Alastair Campbell? Now, what you said earlier is right. When you get into the debate, when she does the debate with Trump, that's going to be a big risk moment, no doubt about that. Because he will try and make it into, you know, the death of the wrestling death match that you mentioned. But I just get a feeling that people think, you know what? This one's been underestimated.
37:31 Rory Stewart? Well, that's right. And I, I think that's important that she came into this with people thinking one of her very weakest points was making public speeches. She was seen to generate these kind of slightly rambling word salads. And she was generally, you know, seen as relatively uninspiring and that she'd underperformed as vice president, which is why people were cautious about her taking over. What she demonstrated last night at the convention was that she is absolutely capable of giving the big speech. I mean, in response to the guy and the question that prompted this part of the, in the chat that prompted this. Look, it's true that, yes, she's reading from a teleprompter and 10 or 11 people have written the speech.
38:15 Rory Stewart? But what she did there is show that she can deliver with incredible confidence and ease. And that's not, that's not easy. I mean, I, you know, I challenged the person to say, I mean, take, take, compare with Biden. Biden can read from a teleprompter. But my goodness, we all felt, who are sympathetic to Kamala Harris, relief that it wasn't Biden up there and that it was Kamala Harris speaking. Because there is so much more fluency, life, joy in the international. Now, what she hasn't got. I don't think she's got actually the skills of Tim Walz as a public speaker. She certainly hasn't got the skills of Obama. I mean, Obama was unbelievably funny and his pauses and his intonations and, you know, that great moment that most people probably would have seen
38:58 Rory Stewart? in a clip now where he says, you know, we've seen that movie with the bluster, bumbling, the chaos. We've seen that movie before and the sequel is usually worse. But I mean, he, but with Obama, of course, it, there's a form of delivery there that come
39:13 Alastair Campbell? Oh, yeah.
39:13 Rory Stewart? Isn't achieving.
39:15 Alastair Campbell? No, no. The one, the speech that a lot of people felt was the most potentially vote shifting. And you and I probably find this quite hard to understand because we're not really in that world, but it was Oprah Winfrey.
39:28 Rory Stewart? Right.
39:29 Alastair Campbell? Because, and it, and it was, I mean, I've never seen her in the flesh before. It was a brilliant piece of public speaking, really was. But of course, she's doing it without being a politician.
39:42 Rory Stewart? Yeah.
39:42 Alastair Campbell? And then I also thought yesterday, for example, one of the, you know, we'd already had the basketball coach, but yesterday, one of the sort of massive stars of American basketball was another one coming out for her. Beyonce did not appear, Ori.
39:55 Rory Stewart? Oh, no.
39:56 Alastair Campbell? I, I, I, I told you authoritatively the other day, be told a hundred percent Beyonce is going to be introducing Vice President Harris, but it, but it didn't, it didn't happen. But it was as a, as a spectacle. And it was also interesting how through the week it kind of got, you know, first day was about, really about Biden, second day, the Obamas were, were, were center stage. And then it sort of was morphed much more into now being about Walz and Harris.
40:23 Rory Stewart? Well, literally, just to finish, and this is why the people working on it are actually proper script writers who studied Robert McKee's story and write film scripts. I mean, even the first day was scripted into five distinct acts with each scene leading to another act.
40:40 Alastair Campbell? Yeah.
40:40 Rory Stewart? And, and that, that, that's, that's something I wanted to touch on because
40:46 Rory Stewart? I often, when I'm complaining about politics, can get a bit grumpy about politicians not being themselves, not being truthful, not saying what they really think. But this convention was a reminder of when the whips are sometimes right, when it's sometimes important to just shut up about what you really think and what your views are and show loyalty and be a team.
41:08 Alastair Campbell? Or as John, as John, as John Anzalini said to you, Rory, stay in your lane.
41:15 Rory Stewart? Stay in your lane.
41:16 Alastair Campbell? Yeah. And that was, that was. Your lane is get her elected.
41:18 Rory Stewart? Exactly. Because this, this congressman, who I have a huge admiration for, had commented, had made some criticisms of Kamala Harris. He pointed out that, that she hadn't really rewarded or reached out to the people who'd put their careers on the line to challenge Biden and bring this change, which has been so successful. He pointed out that some of the weaknesses in her foreign policy team and the sense that she's probably just going to take over Biden's aides and it'll be continuity stuff. But what she saw in that John Anzaloni interview, which we're, which we're playing now on leading, is the absolute ferocious anger of the party organizers
42:01 Rory Stewart? saying this is not the time to be showing a single chink of disagreement. And that's what probably the noblest example of this was, was AOC, because AOC.
42:11 Alastair Campbell? And Bernie.
42:12 Rory Stewart? And Bernie.
42:13 Alastair Campbell? And Elizabeth Warren last night.
42:15 Rory Stewart? Right. Because these are real celebrities in their own right with huge left wing constituencies, millions of people. They're sort of, for British listeners, they are the kind of Jeremy Corbin's of the setup. And they could very easily have really leant into the Gaza issue, really taken this as the opportunity to assert their principles, their integrity, their independent views. But they chose to say that beating Trump is more important than that.
42:40 Alastair Campbell? Just on Bernie Sanders, the one, the one bit of script writing that I thought was a bit odd was that Bernie Sanders did talk about the need to get politics, get money out of politics, okay? Whilst all around us, people were fundraising like hell. And, and the person who spoke after was the local governor. Who is a multi, multi, multi billionaire.
43:02 Rory Stewart? Pritzker.
43:03 Alastair Campbell? Pritzker.
43:04 Rory Stewart? From Illinois, yeah.
43:05 Alastair Campbell? Who had this, who had this line, he was taking apart Trump and he says, you know, it basically to be like, if you want to, if you want to be a real billionaire, and so he was very openly about his own wealth. So I felt that was the one bit where I thought the script writers maybe, or maybe Birdie just went off on one. But no, it's been, it's been a remarkably disciplined week, very focused, lot of energy, definitely a feeling of unbelievable relief that they feel they're back in the game. But lots of people say this is going to be nasty, brutal, tough. And it is way, way, way from being in the bag. And so that's what makes it so compelling and so interesting.
43:48 Alastair Campbell? But I do think maybe my final point on this, just to, to bring it back to our domestic politics. And there were lots of, you know, not lots, but there were quite a few of the Labour campaign people around. I do think there's, that, you know, Labour do right now, I know they've got so many difficult things to deal with, but so have these guys, they've got so many big challenges. But there has to be a bit more kind of joy and, and hope and, and a feeling that it's not just about kind of deal with the bad stuff we've been left, but actually there's a sort of big vision for the future. And it doesn't always need sort of massively detailed policy. People talk to you about the vibe, and I hate the word, and I hate that vibe doesn't sort of create anything.
44:30 Alastair Campbell? But what it does do is it, it gives you this sense of energy that then creates ideas and momentum and motivation. And, and so I, I hope Labour, the lesson I hope Labour take out of this is that going into, don't just make the Liverpool conference about, you know, the Tories are terrible. We're going to try and clear up the best, best we can, actually give a real sense of energy and positivity about the future.
44:54 Rory Stewart? Wonderful, wouldn't it? Just sort of, just let's maybe finish on this. Is it possible in Britain to stand up and say what almost every speaker said? So imagine that you substituted Britain to the United States, stand up and say. This is the greatest country on earth. Only in Britain would somebody from my background have been able to end up as the deputy prime minister and would someone from my background end up as the education secretary or the treasury secretary. This is an incredible country with incredible opportunities.
45:23 Alastair Campbell? Well, the best thing about that, Roy, the best thing about that is that you can say that from the Labour perspective.
45:30 Rory Stewart? Because Labour was in office when these people were young.
45:32 Alastair Campbell? No, but no, but because the story that they don't have here in America is, for example, the point about that I make relentlessly about three more prime ministers coming from one school in England than from the Labour Party. This is why the Labour Party can project this positive vision because we are the only country where etc, etc, etc. And I also think the other thing, I think one of the really nice ways, I've mentioned the Olympics, is that they've woven in these stories about success in other walks of life that aren't just about politics. And that's about what sort of country we are, what sort of values and so forth. So, no, I think that that's, I think we're on to something with this.
46:14 Alastair Campbell? I think that this is in times of such challenge and negativity. And I think we probably are more cynical than Americans. There's a lot of, there was stuff, there was stuff happening last night that you couldn't do in Britain, I don't think. I mean, well, the example that I would give, maybe, is this band of drummers came on. They were absolutely brilliant, but they ended up with this guy with incredibly long hair, playing his drum, being held up by his fellow drummers, upside down with his hair kind of hanging down. And you're thinking, in 20 minutes' time, we're supposed to be watching the next president and like this is going on.
46:51 Alastair Campbell? But, and then some of the, I think if you tried as a British political party to, and people, the journalists in Britain complained that Labour and Tory have way too choreographed, etc. If you tried to do a conference choreographed quite to the extent that this is, I think you'd have, you'd have people, you'd have the media saying, no, we're not going to bother covering this because of the sort of cynicism. But that being said, I think this sense of don't just have the negative mindset, have the positive mindset about what we can do and think about the people who can project that. Exactly.
47:27 Rory Stewart? Have the variety.
47:28 Alastair Campbell? Exactly.
47:29 Rory Stewart? And not just a boring bunch of people in the cabinet. I mean, what she didn't do was just bring out in Britain, certainly in Conservative Party Conference. Most of the main speeches are just the secretaries of state, one after another, many of whom are pretty poor speakers. They chose not to do that. They chose to find a relatively junior congressperson from Texas, who was phenomenal.
47:49 Alastair Campbell? Yeah.
47:50 Rory Stewart? They chose to find, you know, the mayor of a small town who was phenomenal.
47:53 Alastair Campbell? Yeah.
47:54 Rory Stewart? So I think, yeah, that would be fun if Labour could say, well, maybe there's an amazing councillor that is just an incredible speaker that we can bring on, et cetera, et cetera.
48:04 Alastair Campbell? Yeah. Good. Well, listen, lovely to see you. I shall see you next week when you'll be in England, I think, and I'll be in Scotland.
48:11 Rory Stewart? Very good. Okay, well, looking forward to it. And listen, guys, thank you so much for the thread. We have been watching the thread, but there seems to be a lot of debate about Never Trumpers, a lot of debate, which has been in the right hand corner of my eye, and thank you guys for contributing it. From some people saying that Kamala Harris doesn't stand a chance, that she will not be able to overcome the problems on immigration and cost of living. For people who haven't been following the thread, there have been lots of people coming in saying that we are missing the fact that if you're following Trump on social media, he is still very successfully characterising her as extreme left wing, even if that isn't true.
48:51 Rory Stewart? And I think all of that's good and we should return to that in broader discussions around the United States. But my goodness, that was a phenomenal thing. I mean, I thought that was better than, you know, better than going to a musical, better than going to your ABBA Live. What was it called? That ABBA thing you go?
49:07 Alastair Campbell? ABBA Voyage, ABBA Voyage, yeah. Just my final point, Reba, you clearly were really, really struck by Tim Walts. But somebody made the point, this relates to the way that American media and American politics has changed. They said, Tim Walts reminds me of everybody's dad before this country got the wretched Fox News and people just started shouting at their televisions all day long.
49:33 Alastair Campbell? So.
49:34 Rory Stewart? You'd be very, very lucky to have him as a dad because I think we're underestimating how smart and well informed that guy is.
49:40 Alastair Campbell? Absolutely. Great. And he's lucky to have the kids he's got too.
49:45 Alastair Campbell? Okay, see you soon.
49:47 Rory Stewart? Brilliant. Bye bye, Anister. Thank you again. Bye.
49:53 Speaker 07 Mr. President, my company told me of the explosion on our rig.
49:56 Speaker 08 On October 2nd.
49:57 Speaker 07 Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.
50:02 Speaker 08 Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us out. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.
50:09 Speaker 09 What would happen if I stopped drilling? You're stalled, you're freezing there, that's what.
50:14 Speaker 08 With great power comes great deniability.
50:17 Speaker 09 I'm not the first daddy.
50:18 Speaker 08 Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.
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50:33 Speaker 08 Espolone Tequila, 40% alcohol by volume, 80% proof. Copyright 2026, Campali America, New York, New York. Drink responsibly.
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