Coffee House Shots
How Westminster reacted to the Trump assassination attempt
If you enjoy our podcast, why not subscribe to The Spectator 2 for more from your favourite podcast hosts and guests? You can get three months of The Spectator for just £3 right now if you go to spectator.co.uk/trial Hello and welcome to Coffee House shots The Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast. I'm Oscar Edmondson and I'm joined today by Kate Andrews and James Hill, who is currently in Milwaukee where he's reporting on the Republican National Convention. So it's two days after the failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump and we thought we'd use this podcast to maybe discuss some of the reaction from Westminster and look at how this latest example of political violence will impact our own politics here in the UK. But to start with James, as I say, you're in Milwaukee ahead of the Republican National Convention. Could you maybe take us through what the mood is like over there? Yeah, sure. So I stepped off the plane on Saturday, 20 minutes later by a dunking donuts. I'm filing a copy on the assassination extraordinary stuff, the attempts. Look, I think the mood on the ground here in Milwaukee really is. Donald Trump already had a very firm grasp of this party, he's adored by many of the party faithful. But I think that although slightly shocked, I think everyone here is very much more going to give Donald Trump an enthusiastic reaction when he steps out on Thursday to deliver his conference speech. The obvious thing for walking around here is even as someone is a veteran of UK party conferences, the security here is at another level. You have somewhat, incongruously, a secret service in blazing across the chest of men's proudly sporting pistols, Indiana State Police have been drafted in with their broad-beam hats. There's obviously the huge amount of security because I think even compared to UK conferences, this is quite a sort of high-end meeting where there's sort of less emphasis on the sort of delegates these days. And really, I think the kind of mood is one of welcoming back a sort of conquering hero, Donald Trump, Sawroft, an attempt to gun him down. And then an excitement because the two big questions I think dominating are about Trump's speech on Thursday, which we'll talk about later. And also, here's Ted to running mate, which we could see later today around four o'clock, five o'clock US time here, which could be around 10, 11 o'clock at UK time over the you guys. Yeah, as you say, we'll talk about the Republican National Convention maybe a little bit later, but Kate, you wrote on Coffee House in the immediate aftermath of the failed assassination, that today we're all maggot. And even it seems the Prime Minister who's been leading the condemnation on this side of the Atlantic, at least. Well, it's tomorrow now, Oscar. And I suspect that that sentiment is no longer around. I think the political debates are going to get stirred up quite quickly again. But the idea of it was to reflect what was said to have happened to Ronald Reagan when he was shot in March 1981. The story goes that when he went to hospital, he said to the surgeons, I hope your all Republicans and one of the doctors responded today, Mr. President, we are all Republican. And I think when you have such an incredible tragic and horrifying moment is what we saw on Saturday evening, you have to pause and put the politics aside and just show solidarity for people that, yes, you may disagree with, but certainly people that should never be literally under fire like that. We've had world leaders weighing in, expressing their deep regret about what happened, wishing President Trump a fast recovery. Kiyastama said he was appalled so that there was no place for political violence. And I think there's been a lot of emphasis from Stoma and his team. We have had other ministers weigh in as well on this idea that the UK remains so close to America. And this is always the pressure on particularly the Labour Party, given some previous comments from ministers about Donald Trump in particular is, can you get along with whoever is leading America because it's non-negotiable? It's a fundamental. And Kiyastama is going to do absolutely everything he can to show. Yes, it doesn't matter who's hand I'm shaking. If they're the American president, I will be shaking their hand. I will be standing side by side with them. And I don't think it's hard to condemn political violence, but Donald Trump has complicated the rhetoric, I think in a lot of ways. I was particularly shocked by the way that people were caveating, the way that they were talking about rejecting political violence over the past couple of days. There's a real hesitation on the part of some to go that whole way. But Kiyastama certainly did. I don't think that's terribly surprising given the relationship between the UK and the USA. And something I wanted to ask both of you about is that, obviously, America has a history of political violence, but it's certainly not an exclusively American issue. How should we reflect on our own culture of political violence here in the UK? Do you think MPs feel particularly safe? James, maybe if you start. Look, in this country, we, up until the First World War, we had a tradition in political violence. MPs were expected to prove their worth as a candidate by withstanding quite rough hustings. On one occasion, David Lloyd George was even killed, almost killed in one of those hustings of a crowd sort of being mob, trying to rush the stage, obviously there were the suffragettes and the tradition of that. And then really, I think post World War One, we had quite a sort of really sort of golden age of where our politicians were relatively safe in this country, other than from the threat of the IRA. And then, of course, at the beginning of the century, then we sort of had the return of Islamist terror on the streets. And then more recently, though, I think that we can be a little bit complacent to self-congratulate about this. I mean, if you talk to MPs, of course, they sit in the House of Commons around the chamber these days. They see the names of two recent former colleagues, Joe Cox, in 2016, and David Amos in 2021, bearing there. And so one of the things that struck me, I went back to Parliament when last week, when MPs reconvened after the election was, there was an exhibit there showing how MPs could have security doors installed in their offices. And that really brought home to me. I think if you look at how the security budget has, I think, increased massively. I think it doubled or trebled over the past 10 years. I think there seems to be a lot of concern about that. Part of that is social media. How many of those threats actually are borne out by reality is obviously a small proportion. But I do think MPs are certainly worried about it. And certainly, I think the Gaza vote and some of the consequences in certain communities of that is still being very much felt. And the rawness of that. So I think that political violence takes a different form on our side of the Atlantic in the UK. But we shouldn't dismiss it. And I think that it's going to be a particular issue going forward for different communities. And also, I think wind politicians certainly seem to be put off from it from talking to some of those who stood down. So I think that we have got a very different type of political violence culture. I think after a long time, we enjoyed a golden era from the 1920s onwards, I'd say, up until the beginning of the century. We've had it good. And I think now we've got our own things to worry about in the UK. So hopefully we'll learn the lessons and make sure we don't see anything like that, affecting prime ministers and our leaders here in the UK. Yeah, I agree with James. And you certainly cannot overlook David Amos, Joe Cox. And indeed, the attack on Westminster Bridge back in 2017, which saw an unarmed police officer, Keith Palmer, stabbed to death at the entry to the Palace of Westminster. So it's something that you have to remain vigilant about. It's not something the UK can pretend it is completely immune from. What I will say is that there was a pretty strong consensus about the way the election was going to go, not just during the election, but long before. That didn't create increased instability. That didn't create any kind of sense of fear. There was a complete understanding that when the election result was in, there'd be a peaceful transfer of power. Really, no questions asked. Nobody in the UK was sitting around wondering if that process might occur. The fact that Rushy C. Nack and Keith Thomas said nice things about each other wasn't no way surprising. It was the norm is what we expect. This is baseline stuff in a democracy to peacefully transfer power. I'm not trying to pat anyone on the back too much. But as an American, and is what we're seeing in America continues to unfold, you know, it's also really not something to take for granted. What I will say is that, and I think despite the polls, not only being in Trump's favor leading up to this assassination attack, but almost certainly we're going to see them continue to go in his favor. There's so much instability about what could happen next. There's, I think, a lot of fear and a lot of anxiety, not just about the safety of the candidates. That's in their tea, but about the safety of Americans. I mean, back in 2022, after the midterm, small businesses in some states were boarding up their shops because they didn't know how Americans would respond to the results. You know, I think that the sense of security in the UK is not replicated in the US. Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that. Back in 2020, one of the candidates who was a candidate again did not accept the election results, you know, got their supporters to go to the Capitol. Nobody really knows how the next few months are going to go. And that is in direct contrast to the UK where we knew how the election would go. Forget the result, even though I think it was, you know, pretty obvious to most. We knew how it would go. And we knew at the end of that, there'd be a peaceful process. And I just think in America at the moment that that is absolutely not guaranteed. And Kate, just finally, what can we expect from the Republican National Convention this week? I think we should expect a bit of a shakeup. Donald Trump has already said that he's throwing out a speech and he's going to write a new one in light of this assassination attempt. Increasingly across America, you know, not just at the RNC, you are seeing more calls for civility to take some of the toxicity out of the debate. It's still all very political, though. You know, I found it quite amusing that Democratic Senator Chris Coons was calling on Trump to use the RNC as an opportunity to call for unity to follow the lead of President Biden, right? It's not a neutral statement is saying, well, Biden got their first Donald Trump and you should follow the politics is still going to be all over this. But it will be very interesting to see if the rhetoric changes slightly. But perhaps James has already already seen if there has been, you know, some some change or if everybody's sticking to the talking points. Yeah, I mean, I think this morning, you know, this took theme about Trump re ripping up his speech to give one of unity. I mean, I suspect this will be Donald Trump's version of unity, which is unite with me, come and join me, which I suspect will be very different, perhaps to the kind of way in which we see some of the Biden interprets of unity, except for it with some columnist, honestly, entertaining kind of sorcanisms on steroids, because they seem to think that he was going to admit his own wrongdoing for this assassination bizarre stuff. But I think today, you know, each theme, each day has a different theme. Today's theme is make America wealthy once again. And that's kind of Trump's economic pitch. So it's a mix of kind of the stuff that Kate's likes, which is sort of tax cuts and free marketeer, deregulation, et cetera, with that kind of American nationalistic tinge to free trade policy, which was, you know, Trump coming in in the White House in 2016, then ripping up these free trade deals. So kind of talking about how it's capitalism, but for the little guy, there's a rolling series of press conferences every morning from the Trump campaign, which is 10 a.m. Our time here, which is 4 p.m. Your time. So we'll see some newslines out of that. And the big news, as we recorded the podcast is that Trump is expected to make his vice presidential nomination today. And I think we'll be couple of the three frontrunners for that. One would be JD Vance, who only was elected two years ago to the Senate. If he was became president, that would likely spark a very big shift on Ukraine, because Vance has been very critical of USA to Ukraine, much more critical than Trump. Or it could be Marco Rubio. He's probably the veteran of the three candidates, having been in politics for decades. And I think he's now a three term senator, flan from Florida. And then of course, there's the governor of North Dakota, Bergham, one of the wealthiest governors in the US and has been in office since 2016. So that's the big announcement we're expecting later today. And in give up to all, all they to all that on coffeehouse will be keeping lots of blogs going and hopefully send some pictures of what it's like at the RNC. Well, thank you so much, James. Thank you, Kate. And if you have enjoyed this podcast, then please do not hesitate to give us a rate or review, wherever you do listen to your podcast. It helps us out massively. And we'd love to hear from you. [MUSIC PLAYING]