What Donald Trump's Nato Threats Mean for Europe, and Pakistan's Political Malaise 

Would really appreciate if you could start adding timestamps in the description or chapters on the video

This podcast is a political lifeline. So refreshing to hear people who know what they are talking about (and admitting when they don't) examining world events without spin. I only wish our actual politicians could be as candid and open in their discussions.

You guys are doing such an amazing job at covering world events. You are shaming the big news channels with your considered and balanced reporting of events …. Bravo!

I thoroughly enjoyed today’s wide ranging discussion. When Rory drew breath for ‘a quick introduction to Pakistan’ my mind automatically switched to ‘full speed mode’ to try and keep up. Amazingly rich content. Thank you both so much.

The UK really should wake up. The US-UK special relationship ended a decade ago or more. Like it or not the UK is in Europe.

The sanest podcast on youtube

Left of centre here, would never vote a Tory. But I really like you both, met Alistair once, nice man. Would like to have seen Rory as PM, both proper politicians. Loads of good content and a nice insight to both of your humanity

I cannot get enough of Alastair and Rory. The Leading episode with Robert Sapolsky is the best one so far - well worth listening to.

That European Army doesn't seem so bad right now, does it?

Here in Melbourne a house within twenty kilometres from the city is about a million bucks.

I very much enjoy your discussions. Best regards from Germany

Would love to hear your opinions on RFK Jr and his chances/difficulties he faces in getting on the ballot

I’m afraid the utter contempt and disdain with which politicians now treat the populations they are meant to serve has sadly now made any political discourse irrelevant.🇬🇧

'Little miss steps'. Bless.

Great podcast guys, more please.

Thanks Alastair and Rory. Would be great to see a president that was not Trump or Biden. Your channel should have at least 500K subscribers by now as it is fascinating and high quality. Certainly better than any uni/academic/news led political podcasts.

I listen to every show and I’m concerned how much the both of you agree on things.

Brilliant as always 👌

Good judgment relies on sound memory. If the considerations made are hazy, what hope the conclusion?

It seems extraordinary that a country with a population as large as America cannot find any (younger) candidates than Trump and Biden. Or less criminal than Trump.

I do hope you mention the date of the interview further on.

A note on the thumbnail (frame of video). It looks like the viewer has already watched some of the video due to the red at the bottom looking similar to youtubes watch time history. Making it seem like you have already watched a video. Not a problem when it's a recent video. But for older videos you might skip one thinking you've seen it already.

Thank you.

Jon Stewart called the election campaign Antiques Roadshow.....

None of the NATO countries bordering Russia fail to meet the 2% budget recommendation. Its countries like Germany, France, Benelux that have very low defence budgets because they expect US to take care of EU defence.

I get the impression that these guys hold the view that bad actors appear to be bad actors - i.e., those who appear to be bad actors are, and the rest aren't. Or, maybe they think there are no bad actors? It's hard to get a handle on.

I like the image of Victor Orban having his arm pushed up his back and being told 'Look here, sunshine.......'.

Using GDP statistics for economy, is a very crazy system, countries or government, should device another way of measuring economic performance of a country.

Please give some attention to Robert Kennedy who is running for President and what a fantastic candidate

The Jon Stewart piece on YT was worth a watch as he placed Bidden and Trump side by side to see which one forgets things the most.

Can you not debate the elephant-in-the-room, RFK Jr?

I think Iain McGilchrist with his fascinating take on the human mind and its impact on decision making, including politics would make for a thought provoking episode, just saying.

Great podcast but I’m really disappointed that you brushed over the Rochdale debacle and the way it’s been handled

Some time ago I couldn’t remember who the Prime Minister was. Turned out it was Boris, so eminently forgettable. 😂😂😂

Is Cardiff going to Wales? Discuss.

GMT was officially replaced by UTC in 1972.

Sheer Gold. Doff my hat to your "sticking to your guns" with Boris Johnson, Mr Stewart! You are a living testament to the human excellence that vouchsafed British hegemony for centuries. Your 30-40% estimate of a third candidate I do take issue with however, but thanks for the crash course on Pakistani politics. Brilliant!!! 💯

If we are being totally unbiased and honest - neither Biden OR Trump should be running for office this year.

At about 29:00 hard work can only get you so far with the amount of wealth inequality we have in Britain. Hopefully people are waking up to this as change is needed in our tax system

Where can I buy this on Friday

Unfortunately, the bill approved by the senate that would fund Ukraine's defense has to go to the house of representatives. The speaker of the house who is an idiot, refuses to bring it to a vote. The democrats may be able to work around this but nothing is certain

Are those hot air balloons on your wallpaper, Alister? How novel - rather nice!

Alastair, I maybe a big Ian Hislop fan, but I have become a huge fan of you and Rory's podcast. Can I say the discussions are so in-depth and reveal more information because of both of your insights from your careers. One thing I will say is I prefer the podcasts more when you two are actually in the same room. Thank you both for doing this podcast, I believe both of you are doing a great job informing the greater public with real facts and perspectives both in reflection as well as fresh perspectives from what you've both learned over the years. Please keep it up, your both doing a WONDERFUL job! p.s. Please do more podcasts in the same room with one another.

I am from the USA and you guys are nuts

The government has been helping companies outsource American jobs so long we need to outsource government jobs? The politicians don't do any work: Mitch McConnell, MTG, Lorena BlowBert, Ted Cruise, etc..

The same Andy Murray who fronted "Healthy Choices"?

The Rochdale issue not worth talking about? What?? Seem to have heard that before......

Yes, Robert Francis Kennedy - Junior ( RFK) bringing Hope back to the world despite all mainstream media's efforts to supress him via misrepresentation.

I'm curious of why AC called Sisi "the Guru of Egypt" An interesting take!!

Rory’s in-laws are absolutely away with the fairies. 😂

Surprisngly good discussion on Pakistan

An EU defense independent of NATO, without the UK, is simply unthinkable-a further complication arising from Brexit...

RFK! (Unless we could have Rory!)

Question: how did European countries (including the United Kingdom) manage to demilitarise their politics on their way to becoming democracies back in the day?

Biden’s age was an issue in 2020, it’s not a new issue. It’s a been an issue in the US with voters for a while now. You should get Jon Stewart on to discuss, his opinion is quite balanced. Biden has been poor demonstrating he’s capable, trump doesn’t need to because his base don’t care.

Sometimes it is wiser to revise some info for overseas driving tests

how do I get a ticket for Wales?

American presidential election - Robert Francis Kennedy - Junior ( RFK) - isn't it about time you did a proper full coverage of his candidacy gentlemen? And if not why not?

I guess time will tell if its a pre-election tour or post...

Makes me compare the present politicians with the responsible maintenance of the U.S. trains or owners car documentation

it (funding bill) has not got through the House, and that is not a given.

The Prosecutor was mot qualified to make psychological assessments and secondly it was not in his remit. It was a political hack job. Imagine being interviewed by Police for a traffic offence and them saying you were innocent but seemed stupid and had bad hygiene and that getting printed in the local press.

Hi guys, my first time watching you. I'm enjoying it. One question: how does American Psychiatrist Bandy Lee (plus her the 30+ colleagues )information, diagnosis and warnings on Donald Trump's psychosis fit into your narrative regarding dementia in Trump or Biden?

I’m in Glasgow October 2025 - damn

On the ground in America the economy (real perceptions of everyday people) is terrible. The govt figures do not at all match what real Americans are feeling as they are skewed by the small percentage of high wealth individuals in the same way our "roaring" stock market is skewed obscenely by just a few giant tech companies. I wish Rory you were right we might get a non Trump/non Biden President but on the ground here that seems extremely remote (more like 2-3% chance than 30%). Energy here is cheaper than UK but it is still way up as is housing, insurance, groceries, restaurants, services, etc. Our inflation figures that laughably exclude "volatile" energy, food & housings costs are meaningless. We have scale which gives us a bigger buffer but we are not in a dissimilar state to you in the UK. We each concurrently had the toxic seeds sown by Reagan & Thatcher now bearing fruit, seeds that were nurtured and encouraged by "New Dems/New Labour" with Clinton & Blair and ensured the awful crop we are now harvesting. We had the buffoonish populists Trump & Johnson exacerbating bad trends while only concerned with personal gain and now we have non-entities Biden & Sunak nobody actually likes. Exacerbating this maelstrom we both have dealt with Murdoch poisoning the media with lies for his personal profit. Whole swathes of people of people and regions in both our countries are so let down by our govts, the social contract so broken for them they are happy to just burn it all down.... and really who can blame them? That manifested itself here with Trump (to a lesser extent Bernie Sanders) and with you guys Brexit. We both have conservative parties that have destroyed themselves which is terrible for our polity. Neither of us seems to have any noticeable great hope on the horizon either as we seem stuck with Biden and you guys with Starmer. They may be nice people but does anyone believe there is great leadership or dynamism with either of these two to reverse the current malaise we are both experiencing?

I find it frankly bizarre that you can have a conversation about the possibility that neither Trump nor Biden will be president and somehow fail to mention that Kennedy is regularly polling over 20%. Are you just oblivious to American political life outside the Democrats and Republicans? Or are you deliberately shutting him out of the conversation? And I ask this as someone who isn't even particularly supportive of Kennedy.

The constituency link is there with the favoured STV, in PR voting recommended by the Electoral Reform Society. Multi member constituencies of about 6 Mps would usually give you a wide choice of party members to go to. These large areas are far harder to fiddle boundaries for party advantage. It's easy for the voter and the Irish love it. You can pick a slate of candidates from 1 party of a range, individuals, or avoid voting for someone you dislike in a favoured party. This gives most power to the voter and less to the party when compared to List systems as used by the EU. Ultimate proportionality could still be achieved by an extra vote in a regional list top up list, to give a chance to people standing who narrowly missed out. Of course it costs a bit more and an anti campaign would focus on that but good democracy and government costs money.

Would it be discrimination to stop anyone over the 65 from running for President so they didn't have this problem that they have now

Roosevelt was in a wheelchair. He performed incredibly well.

George monbiot on leading please.

Alistair...Taylor Swift a big deal!? You have to be kidding us!!!

House still has to approve funding for Ukraine

Mr Campbell has accepted the US economic figures without scrutiny. Derrr...

With regards to young people in the UK and their attitudes towards the Torys and attitude towards Brexit. I think that there is a distinct lack of political acknowledgment on this, akin to the red wall brexit vote in 2016. Take this with the research done a few months ago about millenials bucking the trend and NOT becoming more conservative as they get older and STILL hating brexit today, its creating a generation of voters who are about to move into the sapce that boomers occupy, that domenant voting block group, and they will push to rejoin. An intersting point to this is, if you look at conservative labour, lib dem, SNP, they all have a youth engagment programme, brexit parties like reform do not. And for any party trying to get voters on board young is vital, and for a party that has been so vociferous in its support of Brexit, you would think that they would realise that they need to convice younger voters of their cause. I think once there is a generational shoft in voting demographics parties like reform uk and politicians onnthe right who voted for brexit will be supprised to find the landscape has shifted dramatically under their feet. I dont know,.i just think its something interesting coming down the road that mainstream commentators dont talk a whole lot about, i knkw this guy did on question time, but not nearly to the extent it deserves discussion

I reckon it's better to forget something, because of senescence, that to have never cared enough to want to remember it. Guess who I'm talking about.

Please Please tell people that it is NOT 2% to NATO! it is 2% of GDP!

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire. Sounds a lot like Trump to me!

The military always wants big, shiny toys. Its that the best thing for our safety?

Sabine Hossenfelder would be an interesting scientist to interview.

Does Germany and other EU countries need nuclear weapons? Obviously nuclear deterrence works. Is not cheaper to invest in nuclear weapons to defend Europe and have peace instead of massive investments in ground armies and massive munitions manufacturing? Can you do article on nuclear weapons for Europe debate and all options for it?

Thanks for 10 minutes brief mention of Indonesia's elections. Now that Prabowo and Jokowi's son have won in a landslide result (probably more due to the large coalition of 7 parties and the lack of prowess in debates of the other candidates, rather than bad dad dancing or hashtags), it might be interesting to dig a bit deeper into the geopolitical consequences of this result as it is going to be pretty significant within Asia and the Middle East.

Do those balloons behind Alastair have politicians names on them?

Can we afford trident do we really need it

I can't believe we are back to talking about Trump being president again, I'm having trouble wrapping my head around that.

1:42 Expensive education and he doesn't know armadillos are mammals? 17:50 Seems we're nearly as bad at big boats as we are at small ones.

I enjoy, especially, Rory's intelligent approach to analysis of current events, and I must give a crucial statement on my own behalf that I despise Trump and Trumpism. However, as someone who is at least on the economic left in America, I feel like the burden of shouldering NATO with U.S. taxpayer dollars and, indeed, possibly the young bodies of men and women thrown into the maw of this hideous war in Ukraine--this is certainly NOT in the best interest of Americans. We have grave problems here--most notably economic ones. Alistair tends to slough off the concerns of middle class and working class Americans, but I can tell you that getting by even with two incomes is unbelievably hard right now. Perhaps worst of all is the lack of national health care here, which is a real slap in the face to those of us who follow our foreign policy debacles quite astutely: the pouring of billions upon billions of dollars into a war that will never be won, whilst Americans suffer under horrible medical and prescription costs, in tandem with very steep insurance prices that bankrupts one family after the other in America. And, why do I say this war will never be won? Why, we all know that without a massive infusion of infantry from NATO countries (one of Clausewitz maxims--wars cannot be won without infantry, which Ukraine no longer has) this war will never be won. We all know that a most certain political suicide by Biden and the Democrats would be Americans dying en masse on the Ukraine killing fields, a proxy war that is quite unpopular with most Americans now, especially since most people doing the fighting are the same class of people who ended up voting for Trump en masse. So, I believe both of you are misguided and quite speaking the language of the privileged elites when saying that you were breathing a sigh of relief about the Senate vote on more funding for Ukraine.

Italy's not below.

28:00 -> This is also a reflection of the age at which contemporary 25-34 year olds start a family, on average, as compared with 1990.

So disappointed at Rory’s dismissal of Sam Harris in both of his guest spots on the Making Sense podcast. It’s worrying- are Alistair and Rory getting more impressed with their own opinions than they are curious about others?

What tosh. Why should the prosecutor want to land cheap shots? Also, Inflation will explain why a wheelbarrow of cash can only buy a loaf of bread.

Ending default instantly for debts not less than 15,000 is the simplest way to sirt the housing ladder, the test of people who have git defaults on the record or are self employed wont be accepted, the banks need to be more forgiving with the acceptance terms

The question is not whether Biden is suffering from dementia, or is otherwise fit and healthy, smart and savvy, but rather if he has the energy to fully devote himself to one of the most challenging and important jobs in the world. This week's press conference did not inspire confidence. Obviously a leader can rely on a good team to carry the show, but voters will likely be worried and put off.

A mafia strategy, you have to pay or bad things can happen. He can't help himself...strategy of his life everyone but him pays for what they get.😅😂🤯

How can we (the UK) possibly afford to increase our military spending when we're absolutely broke. We can't even afford the most basic services, let alone F35s. 😞

This isn't two days old - it's recycled - but still well worth watching. 👍🤔( Green Fire UK) 🌈🦉

His vast experience in politics makes him more qualified to make important decisions, what experience does Diaper Donald have apart from repeated bankruptcies?

Great!

2:35 in my opinion, for what it's worth. You should be addressing what has been going on with Labour. If it is chaotic, surley that is worth discussing. Even for 5 minutes.

Young men may have given up on the Conservatives but they are broadly very right wing in the UK. They will vote for Reform and I bet a considerable portion of them would go even further right. Data is pretty useless when the sample sizes are either tiny or made up of the educated left wing youngsters.

29:07 -> American optimism springs eternal due to our numerous odds defying achievements, up to and including our very founding. We weren't exactly favorites in that scrap. As France and Germany can attest, Brits can be quite difficult to defeat. Yet here we are, and here we shall remain.