We Went To America…. What The Media Didn’t Tell You

If you value honesty, integrity and diversity, all things that are increasingly lacking in established media, then consider supporting us at trigonometry. As a member, you'll get ad-free and extended interviews, plus exclusive content. Click the membership link on the podcast description or find the exclusive episodes link on your podcast listening app to join us.

So Francis, it's been three weeks in the USA. We were here before the election, during the election, after the election, a week in New York, a week in Austin, Texas, a week here in Los Angeles. And we're wrapping up what he made of it. I actually made this point to someone this morning, which was, it has gone incredibly quickly. And at the same time, I can't remember my old life. So it's been those two things. And what did the homeless man say back?

Well, we had a very interesting incident with a homeless anyway. We did, actually. I don't know if you can see. So we've got obviously a swimming pool in that area there. A couple of nights ago. Subscribe. Yeah, subscribe. We need the money to be able to afford this. Yeah. So a couple of nights ago, two men were having a fight outside.

One of them won and after having won the fight he jumped over the fence and went to the back and thankfully we had one of our producers hear that and come and chase him out. Exactly, obviously we don't do that because we're the talent as we're not replaceable. Anyway, so what have I made of it is a good question.

It was very intense leading up to it. Everybody seemed to be on edge. Everybody I talked to, it didn't matter if they were a podcast or if they were just a regular person, everybody was very tense. And actually what I found very interesting is the general atmosphere of relief now that Trump has been elected. It's a kind of letting out all the tension. So what I'm seeing is people being far more relaxed than they were pre-election.

Yeah, well, one of the things, so before we came to LA, we arrived in LA the night before the election. A lot of people in Austin, Texas were like, oh yeah, so you're going to LA for the riots then, expecting that if Trump won, there would be some sort of civil unrest and all the rest of it. We haven't seen any of that, and I think the reason for that is,

that a lot of people realized Harris was just a terrible candidate, including people on the left. A lot of people who voted for her didn't think she was a great candidate. They voted for her out of loyalty to the party. And because I hate Trump. And because I hate Trump. Yeah.

So coming back to the beginning of our trip, though, at the beginning, we were in New York. We did some incredible interviews, a lot of which still haven't come out because they're a little bit more evergreen. But we obviously went to Bill Ackman before the election. He was one of the big

big finance business people who came out for Trump, alongside lots of tech oligarchs here in California. We interviewed Michael Moynihan before the election, but we also did those that are out, but we also did some incredible interviews, Batyong Sargon, Nick Freitas, a couple of others that may have gone out by the time this has gone out about Israel and Palestine. That was incredible as well.

Yeah, what was really interesting with that is when we're talking to people like Batia, or talking to people like Michael Moynihan, who you could tell they were on the left, you got a sense that the left no longer represents vast swathes of people.

So Batya Angar Sargon, who you would think would be a traditional stalwart of the left, what she talks about, a traditional left-wing talking points, the rights of working-class people, the dangers of globalization, mass immigration, et cetera, et cetera. Well, she's far right now. Well, she's exactly. She's far right. And what are they? That's just going to get clipped, doesn't it? Yeah. And I'm going to get an irate message. Why did you call me far right? And I went because you are welcome.

But what you now see is, and you saw it with the Trump rally that we went to, in which your president called us garbage. He's not, no, he's still president. He's still president, he's my president, not Kamala. Anyway, is that what the right have got now is this broad coalition of people that you wouldn't normally see in Republican parties of all. You've got, I was going to say Maya too, see, not Maya too, see, that would have been a turn up for the book.

You told Sea Gabbard, you saw Elon Musk, RFK Jr, who did his speech. So that was really interesting. And for me, I think, that was a real eye-opening moment for both of us. For me, actually, it wasn't so much that, because that's something we could have seen without going to the Trump rally. For me, the eye-opening thing was, and I've said this in a couple of episodes that we recorded,

The real eye-opening moment for me was I think that like many, many people, especially those that don't live in America, you and I are fortunate we get to come here regularly and travel and meet people and so on. But for most of us who don't live in the US, and actually for a lot of people who perhaps don't get to travel around America, even if they do live in the US, if you live on the coast, if you live in California or New York or in DC.

The sense was for many, many people, I think, that the media are not honest.

but they're also not exactly lying outright. The sense was the media are hyperbolic. They exaggerate. They embellish. They, you know, extend something beyond the treatment. So when they say that Donald Trump is a fascist, well, he's not a fascist, but he's unauthoritarian is what a lot of people would think. Well, he's not this, but he's that, right? And when we went to that Trump rally and we saw with our own eyes,

The day that we went, there were hundreds of newspaper articles and hundreds of mouthpieces in the legacy media saying, this is a Nazi rally. People like AOC, lots of politicians on the left, lots of media. I know you like AOC. I can just see your eyes glazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's wonderful.

All of these people were saying, this is an arty rally and Trump is Hitler. And then we went there and we stood in line for three hours. It was people of every background. It was New York. So there were lots of Jews there. When we get inside, there's Israeli flags everywhere.

And every time anyone talked about Israel, it got a big cheer and lots of applause. And I just went, ah, they're not exaggerating. They're not embellishing. They're not being hyperbolic. They're just lying. They're lying. They are using these terms that have a very specific and important meaning. And they are just abusing them in order to try and win. And you know, I remember,

when we had Tulsi on the show. And I think the title of the episodes was the Democratic elites just want power or something like that. And I remember listening to Tulsi thinking, oh, you're exaggerating. You know, you're moving in the Republican direction now. Of course, you're going to say something like this. But she was right. She was right. They had a candidate who was not elected.

who didn't go through a primary process to replace a candidate who clearly just was not capable of being president or running for the presidency. Or having a job, let's be honest. Or having a job, let's be honest. And they thrust that on the people of this country and said to them, you have to vote for this.

Yeah. And one of the things that actually told me that indicated to both of us how much of a busted flusher Democrat Party are, is that when we were walking into the Trump rally, I looked around and there was a group of protesters and it barely was in the double digit figures of the number of protests. So this sense of outrage, this sense of this is, you know, this is disgusting.

I don't think people really believe that anymore, a lot of people, and I also don't think that they have the energy for it anymore. And I think a lot of people, like you said, just looked at Kamala Harris and went, I mean...

Okay. That's what everybody on the left seemed to think. There was nobody who actually looked at her and went, this is a good candidate. There was nobody who was infused by Kamala Harris. There was no one. And that was borne out by the election results, where you looked across at the country,

I mean, who, why would you vote for her? Well, I think, as we're recording this is true at least, Trump improved his position in every single county in America. Apparently, I can't remember the stat. She didn't win one county that was on her own back.

Whatever. The point is he won the popular vote. He won the Electoral College by a landslide. He won the House. He won the Senate. And the Republicans, even though the Supreme Court is obviously independent, the Republican presidential appointees to the Supreme Court are already prevalent. And over the next four years, if it's four years, if it's not more, and we'll talk about that, we'll continue to dominate the Supreme Court for a long time.

The right, the center right now has an absolute lock on power in this country. And not only that, it's not the thing that's very interesting about the Trump administration that's incoming is it's not, if you think about the prominent people in it, none of them are politicians. Yeah.

No, sorry, that's not true. I mean, Tulsi is a politician and are of care politicians, but some of the key figures is what I guess I'm getting. They're not politicians. Hulk Hogan. Tony Hinchcliffe. Yeah. Not that he's going to be in the administration. Yeah. But you know, Trump himself and Elon Musk, they're the two really, really big forces within that, right? They're business guys. And

What that means is having the mandate that they have now, they have an opportunity to really change the course, not just of American history, but I think of world history. And this could be, it's not necessarily going to be, because governing and talking are very different things.

But they have the opportunity to fundamentally change the course of Western civilization, to reorientate it back towards its founding principles. Freedom of expression, freedom of the individual, growth, capitalism, business, success. That's the opportunity here. And it just feels like almost every Western country in recent histories become

It's kind of become, it's like there's some kind of octopus of bureaucracy that's sort of like hanging over all of it and constraining any freedom of movement and freedom of innovation. And it feels to me like they have a historic opportunity to just get rid of all these people who, like at Twitter when Elon came in and fired 80% of the people who were just clearly leaching off the system.

I think we'll probably find, if they're successful, that there's a hell of a lot of people in what we in the UK call the civil service who are actually not remotely necessary and who have been the handbrake on the American cart. Look, I think those are all very interesting points.

You know what I notice more than anything is that the Republicans were the party of positivity. We can make a change. We're going to make America great again. This is going to be an incredible country. We're going to prioritise business, growth, innovation.

You look at the Democrats and they're like, oh, we're going to stay woke. It's just like joy. You're just listening to them going, I just want to kill myself. They're so miserable. It's just going, there's no positivity there. There's no energy. There's no ideas. What did she say? Vote for me because I'm not him.

Yeah, that was basically the argument. Don't vote for me because I'm not him and you go, is that enough? And then she called him a fascist classic. Then Biden came out and went, these people are all garbage. I'm like, that's a way to win votes, isn't it, mate? Yeah. Well, and they've doubled down on that since, but I think actually one of the most interesting points that I think we talked about this with Joe when we were on his show was that

I still remember this line when Trump was talking about this report about what would happen if China and America went to war. And he said they did this report, which said that America would lose. And he was like, first of all, why would you release that report? And then he paused and went, and secondly, it's not true. We'd kick their ass. And the whole Madison Square Garden just erupted.

And that, to me, I think, is actually where the majority of Americans are. This is one of the big differences between people in Europe and people in America. Americans are unashamedly, you know, pro-strength and pro-success and pro-wanting to kick ass. That's just how they think, you know? And to a lot of Europeans and Brits, it seems crude and, you know, to match on whatever.

But I have to say, it's refreshing. It's refreshing to be in the country that hasn't given up on itself. Absolutely. And they talk about managed decline, which is what a lot of people do in the UK, in Europe, and some of the elites over in this country. And you go, is this meant to inspire me? Is this meant to make me want to go out and work hard and change my life?

And people go, look, politicians don't matter, but politicians do matter. Of course they do. And if they're sending a message of, well, everything's going to slowly collapse, you're thinking to yourself, so why should I bother? Why should I work hard? But then you've got Trump, whatever you think of him going, we're going to do this, we're going to do that. That's an inspiring message. That's what we want from a leader. We want leaders to be inspiring. And if they're not inspiring, they're not leading.

And that doesn't mean that you can't have quite difficult conversations with people and say, look, we're going to need to make cutbacks here. There's going to be problems with this and whatever else. But you've got to want to follow this guy. Do you want to follow Kamala Harris? I wouldn't follow into a fucking coffee shop. So to me, there was never any choice.

And that is the thought of the left. But they've learned their lessons because Latinos are our white supremacists. And we've joined white people. So both of me is now white supremacists, which I'm delighted to. Congratulations, mate. Thank you. You've finally reached your destination. A-a-a-a. I love Hitler.

Speaking of which, one of the things I think is important to address is you and I have always said, I think quite truthfully, that we are in the middle, in the center, we're independent. I think in this country in particular, we would be considered sort of probably center left still. But I think it's fair to say that when we saw the election results, we were neither surprised nor, frankly, I don't even know how to say it. I was relieved.

I was relieved. And it's not because I'm on the Trump train, but it's on one hand. On the other hand, if you offer me a choice of two things, which is what an election is, then ultimately that's what you're presented with. And I just, I thought without question, one of those two things was better than the other. And I was actually surprised by the extent to which I felt relief.

The problem was, is there wasn't a choice. Yeah. There wasn't a choice. I couldn't name you a single Democrat policy. And I followed this election pretty carefully. When I was preparing to come over here, I was reading much. I know what Trump wants. Forgivable loans for black men. Oh yeah. Stop marijuana businesses. That's the one I remember. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like a hack joke from an open mic comedian. Fuck off, mate.

But it's, but you just go, is that it? And the moment it was all of this identity, politics, politics, and you're going,

It's not 2017 anymore. Those days are gone. It's over, but they haven't got the remit. It's like she was quoted as, I saw a clip of her going, stay woke or whatever it was, and you've lost white blue-collar men. You've lost ordinary regular white men. You've lost vast swathes of the Latino vote, just with saying that, because they're going to hear it as Socio Lima.

and you're gonna hit the vast waves of everybody else. And that's, I think, a large part of the reason why black men, a large wave of black men, just refused, just went to vote for Trump. Well, look, you know, the Democrats are still gonna get the majority of those votes, but I think a lot of the things that we talk about, obviously on the show, have been important, but another thing that was very important is the economy. And one of the things that I think people who don't spend time here don't understand is

Inflation figures are not the same as people's experience of reality. They hit different people differently. We are here in LA. You go to a coffee shop, you buy four lattes for us and our team. It's $25. I know. But the good thing is that they're going to pay it back. Aren't you, boys? We mean not a chance.

Anyway, my point is that things became very, very expensive for people. And I think for a lot of people, it was an economic thing. And they know from previous experience that their life was easier and better under Trump. And I think they were willing to give him a chance for that reason as well. Yeah, I think there were a lot of people who just looked at the options if we're honest, didn't like Trump, but just went

I have no choice. Well, they make the elections over. Yeah. And the good thing is, yeah, the left has realized all their mistakes. Yes. And they're now rapidly adjusting to the new reality and are working on progressive solutions for the future that are going to be appealing to the American public. Absolutely. Everyone's a fascist now. Yeah.

I don't, I still see like people on CNN just like correcting each other about whether you're allowed to call a trans girl a boy and all this other shit. And just going, no one gives a shit.

No one gives a shit about any other stuff. You lost. You lost because of shit like this. Yeah. And it's again that thing of having these 2017 arguments. You can't talk about what is the correct thing to call agenda fluid transracial dwarf when people can't afford to buy butter. Because they're going, I don't care. There's eight of them. And I'm never going to meet one.

But I'm going to need to make toast for my kid tomorrow. So I don't care what you call Gabriel or Gabriel. It doesn't matter to me. You have to say Gabriel, didn't you? Yeah, I did. That's my answer. Gabriel. Gabriel. But it's... Transgrille. Transgrille. Look, whatever you want to call yourself, none of us care. We just want life to be affordable.

And you can't blame people for that. And also, I just think a lot of people in a country like the United States, which is a melting pot, which is a country that is incredibly ethnically mixed,

People instinctively know that focusing on individual groups and having different messages, you know, we're going to say this to the black people, and this to the Latinx people, and this to the the, and the other. I just don't think that really matches what America has driven forth through the ages. America, obviously, as we all know, has a complicated history with

racism and slavery and all of these things. But the point, I think, of America is that a lot of people here are very sensitive about that stuff. But the solution to all of that in their minds is to move forward together. And I think they just got very, very tired of being divided. And we saw that at the Trump rally that we went to. It was incredibly diverse in terms of lots of black people, lots of Jewish people, lots of women, lots of people from the Latinos.

You know, different groups all represented because a lot of them are just tired of this division, I think. You know what identity politics did? And I don't think we talk about it enough. It made everyone political.

And most people aren't political. And you know what? That's a wonderful thing. Most people aren't that engaged with politics. They just want to be left to get on with their lives, make a few bucks, have a nice house or a decent fat house where they can have a family and they can live a good life.

and this crap was injected into every aspect of our lives, from the emails we received, to the meetings we attended, to the jobs that we applied for, and all of a sudden we were thinking, oh, but how do I frame this in this way? Oh, and as a white man, oh, and as a black woman, and it's all of this stuff that was pumped into our brain, and we were thinking,

I don't have the capacity to think about it. I don't want to think about it. I just want to live a normal life. And that was taken from us. And I think that's a lot of the reason why people voted for Trump is because they see him as a berserker who's going to go in and just attack all of his nonsense and let people live a life that will be non-political.

Well, the interesting thing on that is, the big question really is, because there's a big difference that someone said to us the other day between relief and happiness. Dennis Prager, we talked about this often, he said, I was relieved, I don't know if I was happy. And that's why I think it's the right framing, because the truth is, we do not know how this Trump administration is going to perform.

Nobody does. The one thing we do know is that we talked about it earlier. He's got a giant man there having won a landslide. And more importantly, in some ways, if you remember the period between 2016 and 2020, it was defined, I think, most clearly by the media

endless outrage about Trump. So what they did is they would get outraged about anything he did, and then they would say, look at how divisive he is when they were the ones that whipped up the hate. And a lot of people in that time listened to the legacy media.

But what I think this election shows is that that is no longer the case. I don't think they hold the monopoly over the dissemination of information anymore. If you look at the media that both candidates did, actually, you know, Harris was more reluctant, but she still did a bunch of podcasts. Trump, he went on Joe's show, he went on Theo's show, he went on Lexa's show, right? He went on Andrew's, Andrew Schulz's show.

The media no longer has a stranglehold on this. And so not only does Donald Trump have a landslide victory in the political realm, I think the media environment is completely different. And I think all the lies that they told about Donald Trump, you know, the fine people hoax, which is completely false.

or during the election when they claimed that he wanted to kill Liz Cheney when he was simply using a metaphor. I just don't think these lies are going to wash anymore in anything like the same way, which means that he has an opportunity to govern without being distracted by all his nonsense. And that means he has, I think, a unique opportunity to simply do the thing that the American people hired him to do, which means end illegal immigration,

You know, in our conversation with Rob Schneider, I think he made a very good point that I think Trump talking about mass deportations isn't really gonna be what it sounds like. I think he's just gonna deport all the people who are here, who are criminals. But I don't see him, you know, I hope, you know, dragging grandmothers who've been here for 50 years and, you know, chasing them out of the country and stuff like that. I think he will end illegal immigration. That's the most important thing.

If you can deliver on the economy, that's obviously huge. Israel and Ukraine, if you can wrap those two conflicts up in a way that's actually going to deliver long-term security for Ukraine and long-term peace in the Middle East, that would be incredible too.

And then, domestically, there's the end to censorship, the end to lawfare, all of these things. If you can deliver on that and just ignore the media, just ignore the media who they never liked him in the first place. Like, why would you listen to people? I disagree with that. They used to like him.

before he ran for press. And they were all his best friends. But once he decided that he became an arty the moment he walked out, he went down that escalator. That's when he became an arty. Prior to that, he was this great, big, successful business guy. Then he became an arty. Well, now, all these people who just, they were never fair, they were never interested in the truth, they were never interested in covering him in a balanced way.

from what I can tell, he doesn't have to listen to them anymore. So, you've got a clear mandate, you've got a clear policy agenda, and you don't have to worry about the media. This is a gigantic opportunity. And if he can take it, then play the movie forward. Four years from now, it's J.D. Vance or Talcio, whoever is going to be his reply, or Vivek, whoever is his replacement, we don't even know who that might be.

Why if all those points have been delivered, the economy is booming, the wars have been ended. Why would anyone?

vote for the Democratic president who didn't vote for Carmel at this time. Why would anyone change their vote from Trump to or from the Republicans to the Democrats at the next election? If he can just govern and simply deliver, the Republicans have an opportunity to lock this country's political system down for a generation. I quite agree with you. I think the Democrat party needs to take a long hard look at itself and be honest.

That's my best joke. That is your best joke, mate. Yeah, I'm going to do that at the Comedy Store, tonight. Actually, they'd probably agree with it, give it a little clap. Anyway, but yeah, look, the Democrat party needs to have a long, hard look at this himself, and they need to be honest. I don't think they're going to do that, realistically. Well, they're not doing it now. They're not doing it now. No. But, you know, a week is a long time in politics, as they say. Yeah. So we don't know.

The one pushback I would have to you in that is there are going to be, shall we just say, Minji elements in the Republican Party who are going to be like, oh, but you've got to think about this. We're thinking about a long-term strategy. So they might try and kind of, how shall I put it, ameliorate some of Trump's more

Progressive idea, shall we say. I don't know if that's going to work or not, but there are going to be machinations in the Republican Party. I don't know on what issues. So what issues? It's a good point, actually. Definitely not immigration.

maybe to do with the Middle East? I don't know. I honestly don't think that's likely made, just simply because he's just won an overwhelming victory. The Republican Party is no longer the Republican Party. Yeah. It's the Trump Party.

And that's actually very interesting because it's a populist party. And even when you were talking to a lot of people who were like, yeah, populism's dead. I think this victory has actually shown the world that populism is still very much alive and well. And it will continue to be alive and well. Look, all the populism is

Normal people who are increasingly feeling that there's a giant separation between them and the people who govern the country. That's all that popularity is. And as long as that gap remains, populism will remain. So Donald Trump is the champion of that cause. He is the one leading that resistance to the elite disconnection from ordinary people.

And, you know, I hope that this election inspires similar results across the Western world, because we have to... We cannot continue to be governed by people who do not have any connection to the needs of the ordinary person, who pursue policies that hurt ordinary people, and they do so for their own ideological reasons.

That's not sustainable because, like in this country and we know that in the UK, things have got really bad.

We need politicians that are not openly contemptuous of the vast majority of people. And that's what we see with our politicians in the UK. And that's what we see with politicians here calling people fascist, we're into people as garbage. Joking aside, that is a disgusting thing for a president to say about half of this country.

You look at Hillary Clinton, the deplorables. This needs to end. Well, at least Biden had the excuse of like not having a brain. Yeah. Right. But there are a lot of people who operate like. Yeah. And you know, and you look at our politicians. You look at what David Lamy said about Trump. He needs to be fired. He should resign or be fired. I mean, David Lamy, for people who don't know, he is the foreign secretary of the United Kingdom. And he did like student politics

virtue signaling about Donald Trump calling him the KKK and whatever. And now that Trump's been elected, he's like, congratulations to President Donald Trump. We're looking forward to working together. And if I was Donald Trump, I would make him wait in the reception room for like two days just to sit there and think on what he'd done. Exactly. It's the height of unprofessionalism. I would actually have a printout of all the comments he'd made and just leave it on the table as he comes in for a meeting. That's what I do.

The fact that we have these people in charge of our country is embarrassing. Of course it is. It's student politics in the real world. It doesn't work and it comes back to bite you in the arse. And America is Britain's biggest ally. This is the most valuable relationship internationally that Britain has. And we've got these clowns, absolute clowns.

who are in charge of that relationship. And Donald Trump, by the way, he is a very pro-British president. He loves the royal family. More than Biden, by the way. Way more than Biden. So on all this stuff, I just, I despair at what we have in the UK. I really do.

I think, actually, starma, I mean, Trump said starma is very left wing, which he is. But I can see starma and Trump actually getting on very well. Starma is a pragmatist, you can tell. Because he's intelligent. He's a smart guy. People in our space are like, he's stupid. I'm like, he's not stupid.

And I was talking to a lawyer, actually, in New York, who knows him. Actually, ironically enough, in the queue for the Trump rally. And he used to work very closely with Starmer. And he actually told me he said he was an incredible lawyer. Very, very, very short. Very short. What he said was also very interesting. He went, I don't think he's going to be a good politician. I don't think he's a good politician. I went, why? He's too ideological. He was a human rights lawyer. But Starmer is a pragmatist. He's an intelligent man.

I look at Lamy and I just think there's no reason for you to be there. You've been promoted above your ability level and I don't understand how somebody like that can become foreign secretary. It's embarrassing. It is embarrassing. So that's where we are. But this is, I think, the great hope is that if Donald Trump can demonstrate that open borders is not

You know, there's this sort of feeling like not having a border is now the default setting. Well, if you can demonstrate that that's not required, that's not the case. There's a lot of feeling around the West that, you know, no growth is the default setting, that we're all supposed to just bumble along the bottom. Managed decline. Managed decline, right? If you can demonstrate that that's no longer than that. If you can demonstrate this idea that the government needs to crack down on free speech as much as possible, otherwise people are going to say problematic things.

if you can really reaffirm America's commitment to freedom of expression in a way, and also, by the way, use American global power around the world to stop Europeans doing the same thing, to stop European censoring eggs, to stop European censoring Facebook, to stop European censoring Instagram, and all of that stuff.

that there's a real possibility of that becoming the beginning of something where we elect leaders in European countries and in the UK. They're not going to be like Trump because American culture is very different. But in terms of policy positions, people who are willing to make a stand on those issues and a public that's willing to back them. Absolutely. Because if you look at what is happening in the UK and the rest of Europe, we are horribly divided. We are horribly divided.

unhappy economies are faltering to put it mildly. There is low growth, people are struggling. This cannot continue as it is. And also we have the problem of Islamic fundamentalism. I would not see us anybody really having an honest conversation about that. All what happens is it's swept under the carpet, we put our fingers in our ears and we say la la la and then we move on to the next thing.

There has to be a time where we start having a more honest conversation about that issue and the economy and everything else. And just telling people to shut up, which is what Labour is doing, whether online or in the real world. I'm afraid you can only do that for so long, but you're kicking the can down the road and there is going to be a very unpleasant reaction.

You know, one of the things I really love about America is the fact that you have competition within the country. And what I mean by that is, you know, we're sitting here in LA. A lot of people that we know have left LA and have gone to other places. And the reason they've done it

despite the fact that LA is literally paradise, except when people jump into your backyard and scare the shit out of you, is paradise. It's absolutely paradise. The weather is incredible, the nature is incredible, the foods, everything is amazing here.

But during Covid and around this last eight or so years, the policies that the people who run this state and the city have pursued have made life a lot more unpleasant for the people who are here. And what did people do? They moved to other places. Now,

The reason I mention this in this context is the big debate in the last century has been between the people who lean towards capitalism and the people who lean towards communism. And I'm not saying Starmer is a communist or anything of the kind. I'm just saying these are two different perspectives on the world. And what communists

care about or socialist care about, people on that side of the left care about is they fundamentally, the primary objective is to make sure that the pie is evenly divided, right? That's not how Americans think. Americans think let's make lots of pie.

And then I've seen their portions make you all right. Well, right. Let's make lots and lots of pie, and let's make sure it's divided according to contribution. And if you contributed a lot, you get a big chunk of the pie, and if you didn't, you get a smaller chunk of the pie. And they're less worried about the equal distribution of pie, and they're much more concerned with how do we make sure that we're generating growth? How do we make sure that we're building and creating things?

And they do not have the same lunacy that we do have in Europe, which is this idea we call net zero, which is simply economic suicide. It's unilateral economic disarmament. It's where we destroy our economies by refusing to produce cheap energy. And then we outsource that to other countries, where they make things that are dirtier, and then we ship them back, and we pretend that we're green, right?

They don't have this absurdity here. One of Trump's primary policies is drill, baby drill. It's producing energy. Well, that is an experiment of the kind that California and Texas and Florida have run. So if we in Europe watch America over the next four years,

explored in terms of economic growth while we struggle and continue to get poorer and poorer. That contrast is inevitably going to have an effect. And a lot of people are going to say, well, I'd quite like some of what they're having in America. I'd quite like our economy to be growing because most people don't know this. The British economic position is our GDP per capita, which is what matters, has not even recovered from 2008.

We're still below that. We have not recovered and it's grown very slowly and the Labour government is just talking about raising taxes and continuing to not do things that will boost growth. That's the choice and if that choice is available that will be a very powerful influence on how Europeans think I think about these issues too.

Look, the UK is a low wage, low growth economy. And that's the truth. I always, whenever we talk to Americans and we talk about what the wages are in this country, in our country, they burst out laughing. They think it's hilarious how little that we are paid. When you factor in how little we were paid, how much we're taxed, it is input we've got.

a population catastrophe on the horizon. Young people can't afford to buy property. They can't afford to get on the house now. They can't afford to get married. They can't afford to have kids. And you've got what is Labor doing for them?

What is it? What? Taxing them more? They're doing the same thing the conservatives did for 14 years. Yeah. Which is burying the head in the sand. Exactly. And so at this point, you look at it and I go back to it. It's unsustainable. It is unsustainable. We are at crisis point and we are doing nothing to arrest that. So,

If America can become a beacon, if they can show a different way, if they can show people that actually this is how you turn an economy around, this is how you improve the population crisis, this is how you actually save the West.

And that is something I think that everybody wants. Yeah. And look, a lot of our audience are going to say we've become American, but I think there's a truth to this. We have got fatter. That is true. But I think there is a fundamental truth to it, which is, you know, we talk about America being the leader of the free world. Well, what does leadership mean? Leadership is about inspiring people to follow. And if America can deliver,

As I say, I think if the Trump administration is able to deliver half the things they promised, that would be an incredible achievement that would allow them to stay in power, the Republicans to stay in power for a long time. And then that is guaranteed to spread to the rest of the world. However, the one possibility we haven't discussed, and I do think it's a real possibility, is that for whatever reason,

And I don't know exactly what those reasons might be, but I can think of some. The Trump administration fails to deliver. And I think that's possible. I think we have to acknowledge that that's a reality. Of course it is. It's a reality for all sorts of reasons because no one's perfect, but also, can these big egos that undoubtedly exist within this administration, can they stick together? Because it's one thing to campaign on being against the left.

and to campaign on things that you're promising. It's a whole different thing when you've got someone like RFK and Donald Trump, who do have different views on many things.

to continue to work together over a long period of time. You know, what about the succession of crisis? Donald Trump is in his last term, two years from now. Well, sorry. Right now, everyone around him will already be thinking, I want to put myself in position to succeed him. So you've got JD Vance, you've got RFK, you've got Tulsi, you've got lots of, you know, maybe Tucker Kahn, lots of people who... Tucker. Lots of, look, he was scratched by a demon.

I don't even know what to say about that. But it wasn't a dog and there were four of them in the bed. He slept in a bed with four dogs and he woke up with a scratch and he was scratched by a demon and demons, by the way, invented nuclear weapons. I don't know what to say about Tucker anymore. It's a conundrum. But anyway, I mean, it's not really a conundrum. What do you mean?

I mean, if I came to you and I went and you went to me, how would you, how was your kid last night? And I went, I sat with four dogs and you go, I would, I would end it there, to be honest. Yeah. And I got scratched by a demon. I mean, what would you think?

I would think why didn't those dogs protect me from the demon? I mean, that's not what you would think, but yeah. So, look, Tucker is what Tucker is, but I take your point, and also as well, it's a broad coalition of people who think very differently. Yeah. And we have seen, time and time again, with the composervative party in the UK and the Labour Party, it is very difficult to hold this British broad coalition of people together.

particularly once you get into government and the stresses and strains of leading a country like America. Yeah. And also, the obvious difficulty within the Republican movement now is that there are some people who are, you know, faith-based conservatives, who have religious views about issues like abortion and, you know,

all sorts of other things that are to do with morality and personal conduct, etc. And you have a lot of people who are, you know, disaffected liberals, who don't share those views. And I think the temptation for a lot of people on the right now will be to try and

push Donald Trump, who I think actually is more of a disaffected liberal than he is a kind of traditional conservative. They will be like, well, look, we've got this huge electoral mandate. Let's look at abortion in a different light. Let's look at other issues of that type in a different like marriage and gay marriage and all sorts of like that would be the temptation for some people to roll back some of the things that have happened in the last 20 years on those issues.

And the more they move in that direction, the more they're likely to lose the people who have recently joined that coalition. So there is the potential. I'm not saying this will happen, but just as an outside observer, that is a natural fault line within this coalition, which is why Donald Trump was very, very smart in the way that he approached the abortion issue in the election, where he just basically made it an on issue. And he was criticized by people on the Christian or the religious right, like Lionel Rose, our former guest.

because he wasn't seen as being strong enough on that issue from a conservative perspective. That is a natural fault line within this coalition. And whether that gets exposed or gets exploited or is a naturally occurring problem, that could be another thing that affects. And the third thing, of course, is running a country's heart. It's very, very hard. Last time they had staffing issues,

Are they gonna have them this time? Nobody knows. So it's, I think the sense of relief and actually happiness that a lot of people feel I think is quite warranted, but there is the possibility that it could go the other way. And as we both know over the last eight years, something always happens. Yeah. And you don't know what that is. You know, Donald Trump was gonna be reelected in 2020 and then COVID happened. Yeah.

So, and also there's...

which we're not talking about is the debt. Yeah. The debt is continually increasing. It is becoming unsustainable. Is he going to tackle the debt or is he going to do like a lot of presidents before him and just increase it and just again, kick the cannon down the road for someone else to deal with? I guess what we understand is the argument is you grow your way out of it. And if you boost growth and debt becomes a smaller percentage of your GDP and you can start paying it off,

That requires long-term economic growth and a plan to tackle that. That's a big challenge. That's a big challenge. Now, I'm sure it's possible, but that is something that remains to be seen. And that ties into not just debt as some abstract thing, but that ties into the strength of the currency and how reliable it is and whether the rest of the world eventually tries to move away from the US dollar as the world's reserve currency.

Make no mistake, there is a lot to do. And whether Donald Trump and his administration is able to do that is what will determine the course, not just of the Republican Party, not just of America, but the world. Exactly. So we will wait and see. But I think we're going to see one thing. It ain't going to be boring. It's going to be a lot of fun. It is. So it's been a pleasure. It's the end of the trip. What's the one thing we're not talking about?

that we really should be. Well, I think for me, it's, you know, I've been one of the people who's been very vocal about the fact that I think the West has been moving in the wrong direction. And the one thing we're not talking about is that we have a choice. We as a civilization have a choice.

Do we accept decline and surrender and roll over? Or do we fight? And I think the American people made their feelings known. I think it's time for the rest of us to do the same. What about you? Optimism. To me, this was the difference. The two main

I would say outlooks between this election with the left and the right is the right was talking about optimism and the left was being pessimistic. And I think it's time for a little bit of optimism. And I think everybody could do with being a little bit more optimistic. And I think, I know this is ironic me saying this, but you look at the young kids

There's not a lot of optimism there. You're looking at our generation. There doesn't seem to be a great deal of optimism. You're talking about the UK? I've talked about the US until a couple of days ago. I think we need to be a lot more positive. We need to be a lot more optimistic. And I think we need to start thinking about how we can make positive changes. Because if you sit and stew in a

in a sea of pessimism, I don't think that's going to change or do anything. And I also think it's time as well that people realise that you are the master of your own destiny, you have control over your life and what you want to be.

And it's time for people to start going out and doing that. And I hope that people in the UK are going to have that attitude moving forward. We'll wait until we land a Heathrow and then see how you feel. Oh, yeah. Then it's crazy. You know, then it's raining, it's drizzling. I ask somebody a question. They look at me like I'm doing them. Like they're doing me a favour. And I'm like, fuck this. There we go. And now the optimism turned off. Yeah, I'm never going back.

If you value honesty, integrity and diversity, all things that are increasingly lacking in established media, then consider supporting us at trigonometry. As a member, you'll get ad-free and extended interviews, plus exclusive content. Click the membership link on the podcast description or find the exclusive episodes link on your podcast listening app to join us.