Will Trump "Annihilate" Or "Negotiate" With Iran?

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2:00I don't know the prime minister is my dear. I'm Andy and I'm not looking my best right now. I see that he was just a mirror of a down. Oh, no, no. Oh my god. Thinking about it like a panter helped. Do we play music now? What do we do? And what will you do? Stir it all up. Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio and this episode is going to be quite meetings focused because the Lib Dems have been having their annual conference in Brighton. So in the second half of newscast we're going to talk about what happened there. And then a very different kind of meeting is happening in New York right now. It's the UN General Assembly, Unger. We're basically every prime minister, president, chancellor, actually the German chancellor isn't going this year. And leader of a government descends on the United Nations to do a speech in front of their fellow world leaders. And there's of course lots of other diplomacy happening around about it. So it's just a very good moment to sort of take the temperature of the entire world. The person with the virtual thermometer in our Washington DC bureau is Katrina Perry.

3:00Hello, Katrina. Hello, Adam. Good to talk to you. We've had two very different afternoons. We have. It's a tale of two speeches. Yes. So the speech you were watching was Donald Trump's speech to the UN General Assembly, which actually is still going on as we're recording this episode of New Suscastic 20 pass for UK time. And then I was watching Davey's conference speech to the Lib Dems in Brighton, more of which later. So let's talk about the leader of the free world, rather than the liberal Democrats first. Yeah, Katrina, I watched the whole thing. Where should we start? Where indeed, I mean, like every year when President Trump addresses the UN General Assembly, it's the definition of the wee business as he, the term he uses himself. It started off with him, lauding all his great achievements as he sees it as he's done here in the US. And then it basically hit on every continent and every possible part of the world, because the US is involved in many parts of the world.

4:00He spoke about Iran, how he was facing the choice of potentially annihilating Iran. He spoke about Ukraine, how he wanted to get a deal done there. He spoke about the Western hemisphere, how he was going to see regime change in Cuba, at which point the Cuban delegation walked out. He spoke about all of the boats that they've been bombing there. He spoke about the deal with Greenland. I'm sure I've left something out. He touched on many, many topics. A very good summary, but let's listen in detail to the bit about Iran, because a lot of people's ears pricked up at this, because it feels to me that he's giving us a little bit of a preview of the near future of that conflict. Here's what he said. Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before? Maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world? Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?

5:06Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations? But I believe we'll make a deal right after the election, because it doesn't make sense for them not to. They're waiting to see how I do in the midterm election, what they don't realize is that I'm not running. I did that already, and one in a landslide, we won in a giant landslide, and I'll be here for two and a half years. The Republican Party is running, and I'll be helping them, but I am not running. So is that his theory or kind of everyone's theory that actually there could be a big breakthrough between the US and Iran after the midterms in November? I think that's his theory, and we have heard him say that a few times over the last 10 days or so, including using that word of thinking about annihilating Iran. And again, he said this point about, you know, I'm waiting till after the midterms, nothing's going to happen then.

6:10But there's no evidence whatsoever that there is any kind of talks, process underway, unless there's something happening deep behind closed doors that nobody has any idea about. Nobody is leaking a badge because when you speak to those who are closely linked to this, they all say there's no negotiations going on, including the vice president, by the way, JD Vance, who is the chief negotiator for this. So I think this is a question of Donald Trump needing to be seen to be saying something that he is thinking about this because, you know, he mentioned the midterms there and how he's not thinking about that he's not worried about it because he's not running. Well, he is actually worried about the Republican party colleagues who are running because should the Republicans lose control of both of the houses of Congress that would make all kinds of difficult problems for Donald Trump. So he, but he needs to be addressing this war for the domestic audience because it's so, so deeply unpopular here. And I'm now just trying to think myself into the minds of the Iranians in Donald Trump's mind in this scenario, and it would be that they are thinking, oh, the straight of ormoo's being open again,

7:16but mostly closed again, which is put up the price of oil is putting up the price of of petrol or gas in America and that therefore voters will react negatively to that. And so if the Republicans get get crushed in November because of the high price of petrol in America, then that would force Donald Trump to the negotiating table. Is that that's what he thinks their rationale would be. That's what he thinks the logic is, but there was a sort of implicit threat as well. There wasn't that and what he said, I'm here for two and a half years, ultimately, you know, he is the president. The book stops with him in terms of foreign policy and deals like this. And the sort of informed thinking is that the Iranians are waiting out to see what happens with the midterms that they don't want to do him a favor essentially by having some kind of deal that might alleviate the price of oil and plenty more besides fertilizer and the kind of knock on impact that those rising prices and the sort of squashed supply chain have had on a whole host of things here in the US. And you mentioned the walk out by the Cubans, which I imagine is quite a classic piece of diplomatic theater, but what was it that he said that incents them so much?

8:24Yeah, I mean, I've been watching UN General Assembly meetings for well over a decade now and the walk out is, I love it. I'm that kind of nerd. I love this, but the walk out is sort of part of part of the theater of the whole thing. And this year was the turn of the Cubans to walk out. And that was because when Donald Trump was speaking about the Western hemisphere, our hemisphere as the Americans like to call it, he was talking about all the hard work as he put it that Marco Rubio, the secretary of state is doing. He gave him a shout out, Marco Rubio in the room listening to the speech as well. And he said that there would Cuba would fall words to that effect was what he said. Because of course the US has been levying very intense sanctions on Cuba for some time now. There have been several complete blackouts on the island already this year causing really difficult circumstances are humanitarian crisis there for the people of Cuba. And Donald Trump saying there would be a there would be a regime change Cuba will fall and that is a key policy position that he and Marco Rubio are working on.

9:29And Donald Trump is classically going over his a lot of speaking time, which was the whole schedule out of whack also makes me wonder if his first face to face meeting with Andy Burnham, who's also in New York might get delayed as well. So why don't we delay our discussion about that until after it's happened. And I'll try and catch hold of Chris Mason when he jumps off the plane on Wednesday lunchtime for the next episode of newscast. But Katrina in terms of other bylots that are happening is which is the diplomatic name for a conversation between two leaders. He's also going to speak to Zelensky from Ukraine. Do we have any idea where Trump is on the pro anti warm cold to the Ukrainians scale. I mean, he seems to be on the very warm to the Ukrainians scale at the moment that meeting is due to happen as you say in and around this very kind of back to back meetings list that president Trump has. And we are, you know, president Trump addressing in his speech there there will be a deal we're pushing on. We hope something will happen again, no real indications of that at this point in time.

10:30But we'll wait to see what happens in that meeting. We are expecting both of the leaders to make remarks after they have that bilateral. But I just wanted to mention one other thing Adam in relation to the speech that Donald Trump gave because he talked about AI as well. That's been a big theme of hunger this year and he said that officially America was now going to relabel AI. So instead of artificial intelligence, it will now be called super intelligence and they're going to use that term on all official US documents that won't be AI from now on. And he said that's because artificial intelligence that title gives a sense that the thing is fake and he said it's very much not fake. It's fantastic and it's amazing. So no AI, SI. But you know what that's interesting and that's where there is a bit of commonality to use the pretentious word with that. Davey from the Liddems because Davey is also talking about super intelligence. And I noticed that that SI acronym cropping up a lot more in the last couple of days.

11:30And I wonder if what a lot of people are doing is just using that to distinguish between the fact that the AI that helps you out with your document that you're doing or your question that you've got that sort of souped up search engine is everyone seems to be fine with that. It's actually these big, big models that are doing their self improvement where they can design the next version of themselves, which is actually feels like a different type of technology. And that's maybe this is an attempt to just get people to focus on that so that they chill out about the other stuff. Yeah, branding exercise or rebranding exercise. Yeah, who knows. We'll see if we if we see the SI term being used by more of the leaders as younger this week. But it seems that there's a bit of a clash coming because you've got Andy Burnham saying we need more regulation of AI at a global level. And it sounds like that's going to be quite a big bit of his speech to the UN General Assembly. But actually Trump's been quite low to do kind of any regulation of AI at all.

12:30Indeed he has and you know expressly saying that this is about competition with China, but he did say in this speech, which was a slight turn in his attitude towards it. He did say we have to be careful. It's amazing. He said, but we have to be careful about it. You know that there is great power there and there might need to be some he didn't use the word regulation, but sort of control or agreement on how it's used. And that's what everyone's going to be looking at. In fact, when President Xi comes to the White House later on this week, because it's such a big issue between the two countries as to how they talk about it. Do they talk about it as SI or AI and if there's any kind of agreement coming from that summit. Yeah, also I'm just thinking of another potential niggle for the Trump at Burnham meeting. So when when Burnham was on the plane to New York with Chris and the other political journalists, he talked about how the UK had been kind of early on in the wave of political disruption.

13:31And I think he was referring to Brexit. And he said this phrase about our politics being affected by outside influences, which people are sort of reading between the lines and saying, does Andy Burnham think that Russian propaganda or Russian bots or Russian cyber hackers had something to do with Brexit? And I'm just thinking Donald Trump hates that stuff being brought up, doesn't he? Because it reminds him of what he calls the Russia hoax. This idea that he was never elected properly the first time round. Yeah, and he mentioned that Russia Russia hoax actually during his speech earlier. I think there's a broader theme there, though, which the UN Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez touched on in his speech, which was about power. And how there's a cleaving between the countries that are very powerful and the countries that are sort of subjected to that power and had that impact what happens in other nations, the actions of the powerful countries. And then in complete contrast to that, Donald Trump stands up and talks about how powerful America is and how it's getting ever more powerful.

14:32So there's always a contrast as the United Nations General Assembly, people say it's a talk in Chop-Jump, and nothing actually happens. But when you put the different speeches that the leaders say up against each other, it's quite instructive. And we'll be watching that when Burnham and Trump meet later. And the body language, as we always like to watch and dissect as well. And then of course, we'll hear the big speech from Andy Burnham, which will be later this evening here, I guess, early hours of Wednesday morning there. Now talking of talking, there's some quite funny clips of Donald Trump being presidential, but being totally silent because there's no audio. And that's basically the broadcasters who club together in the pool, like we have here in the UK, where they share out photo ops, are refusing to cooperate with the White House, because the White House has banned several outlets from the press room. And so you've now got the spectacle of a silent Donald Trump in lots of places. Just explain the backstory. Who got banned and why? So CNN MS now, which is the spin off of the Comcast deal, it used to be called MSNBC, and then Politico.

15:40There were the three media organizations that President Trump banned on Friday when individuals from those organizations turned up at the White House on Saturday. They weren't let in and their press passes were confiscated. And CNN was supposed to be the pool camera. So the designated TV organization traveling with President Trump to Onga in New York and then sharing that material with everyone else. Well, they were removed from that duty and the other companies who make up that pool said, well, if you're not letting CNN go, then none of us are going. So essentially there is no TV footage of the stuff we're used to seeing so often, President walks up the steps into the plane, President walks down the steps of the plane, President talks about his new helipad at the White House, which is what happened. Yesterday, there was no one there to film it. So the White House filmed it themselves, but there was no sound. You couldn't hear what was going on because there weren't the professional TV networks there with the big sound boom poles collecting all the audio. So there's an element of this back firing on the President, but he sort of then played his next hand in launching Trump TV essentially last night, which so far is kind of showing a loop of what you might want to see.

16:54Mike called Donald Trump's greatest hits, a whole pile of speeches that he's made in the past. So is he trying to get around having to have TV reporters at the White House at all who knows, but that's where we're at right now with that. So it was you'll be one of the first people to know if that's the case. Sorry, Doris closed locked. You can't come in. It doesn't mean though you get occasional moments like this. This is Donald Trump arriving at the UN General Assembly and spotting CNN and he had this go at them. So it's an honor to be here. I'm surprised that CNN is here covering me. You shouldn't be here. You should not you should not be here covering me. You said you weren't going to cover me. You shouldn't be covering me. But I will tell you it is an honor to be at the United Nations. And we're making a lot of progress. Our country is doing really, really well. Thank you very much. Almost like he's enjoying this dispute, but it's heading to the chorus, isn't it? It is. It'll be in court tomorrow actually Wednesday. So the three organizations that have been banned CNN MS now in Politico are all taking a case challenging that ban.

17:57So we'll see what happens. The White House perspective on this is there in control of the security for the campus around the White House. And they can let in and out whoever they want from the media organizations perspective. It's not about individuals that are being banned. That's not the case on this occasion. It's entire media organizations being prevented from reporting on the president in a public office in a public institution in a public building. No, not to sound like a conference or meeting or summit a holic. We've learned that the next G 20 me take up the world's 20 richest countries is going to be in Manchester next year because the UK is hosting it. We learned that from Andy Burnham's playing right across the Atlantic, which of course means Donald Trump Air Force one and his limo the beast heading from Manchester, heading for the Northern quarter. For people who have not witnessed the presidential machine touching down. What do man unions have waiting for them in next November? Well, if all the hotel rooms haven't already been booked out, they will be in about five minutes, I'd say.

19:02So you can just you can expect a descending of security. And that will happen a couple of weeks, possibly even a couple of months in advance. Secret service will go. They'll check in every bin, they'll seal up manhole covers. I hate to be the bear of bad news, but a lot of roads will be closed traffic will be absolutely crazy for whatever period of time president Trump ends up being there. I mean, maybe he goes and stays at Turnberry and just comes down for a meeting or a dinner and goes back to his property. He does like to stay in his own properties. But you'll have that you'll know that I have piles and piles of protesters both from within the UK and people traveling to protest against Donald Trump's appearance there. And you know, I mean, who knows where the world will be at that point in time. I'm also just thinking having been to these sorts of things, the quite like a more remote location where you can control the access a bit more, which might make you think of a sort of posh hotel and cheshire in the countryside or something.

20:04Andy Barnum is so Mr Manchester and kind of the inner city that it surely got to be in the inner city. Anyway, you don't need to. I'm not testing you in your master's job or brain. I look forward to telling giving you some tips. I'm very limited, but I look forward to learning all about it. Yeah, I'll be able to be in solfers next to the BBC. Who knows. Right. Katrina, great to catch up with you. As always, talk to you soon. See you soon. Bye bye. Now to pick up on the conference theme, Ed Davy was doing his speech for the Lib Dem party conference in Brighton earlier today. A few things in it that we knew about already because they've been quite heavily trailed improving maternity care in England after all those scandals. He wants to set up a new international super intelligence AI regulator, which would be modeled on the international atomic energy authority. And then the thing that was less trailed but had been sort of hinted at was a whole load of tax cuts about 17 billion pounds worth.

21:08And what Ed Davy wants to do is increase the threshold for the tax free allowance. So the amount you can earn with that paying any income tax at all, you want to increase that up to 15,000 pounds a year. And then the rate at which you start paying the 40 p rate, he wants to increase to about 56,000 pounds a year. And the Lib Dem leader said that they would pay for that by having a much closer relationship with the EU on defense and rejoining the single market, which they reckon would raise something like 27 billion pounds a year for the economy by the time they got round to doing it. But before Ed Davy's speech, I decided to have a chat about all things Lib Dem with the party's deputy leader and their treasury spokesperson Daisy Cooper. So here is my chat with Daisy Cooper, who was in a very sunny Brighton. Daisy Cooper, hello. Hi. I'm sat in a windowless studio. You sound like you're somewhere exciting. Paint the picture for me. So I'm in Brighton, I have to say it is glorious, beautiful sunshine. I'm at the front of the Brighton Centre.

22:08So the sun is pouring through the window, got floor to ceiling windows. And I'm actually a bit roasted tasty in my suit. But yeah, it's pretty beautiful here today. Sorry about the windowless window for you. No, it's fine, it's fine. Thank you very much. We should just acknowledge the slight metanus of this situation in that we're talking now. And it's the morning. We're going to be talking about Ed Davy's speech, which is in the afternoon. He was talking the other day there and he acknowledged the frustration that sub-Lib Dem MPs your colleagues have had, that the party's not breaking through more. Are you one of the MPs who's been frustrated? No, like we did get our best result ever at the last German election. And it's really quite hard to like overstate just how flipping well we did. It was the best result ever. I became the largest third party in a hundred years. And what we've done in the first two years of this parliament is to try and really consolidate those areas. So to be really blunt, where we won MPs, where we didn't always expect to win those MPs, we've been building up our local government base, building our local party. And in the local elections this year, we really felt like, you know, with our eighth consecutive year of winning in local elections, that we consolidated that.

23:10So we're in the midpoint of the parliament. We're now using this conference to unveil a bit more fighting talk and to use it as a springboard for the next couple of years until the next general election. But why hasn't all that success locally and geographically translated into a higher position in the polls? Because the Lib Dems are sort of kind of flat on about 10, 11, 12%. Well, that we're in five party politics these days. And all five of those parties are within about ten points of each other. And you will know that under first pass the post, those polls mean very, very little for parties that aren't the two biggest parties. What really matters to us is the real results that we get in the ballot box. And you know, if five party politics in first pass the post, when we're within ten points of each other, that can be very, very messy. So what we've been doing is building on our ground game, winning every single year in council elections. And that's why we're now the second largest party in local government. Although I am old enough to remember an era where the Lib Dems used to clean up in by elections. And I was just checking this parliament, we've had six by elections, I think. And the Lib Dems of 1-0, what happened to your old flair for winning by elections?

24:13Well, as you know, in a by election, by elections are very different from general elections. And depending on where the seat is, there's normally only one or two parties that can win those seats. Frustratingly for us, there hasn't been a seat this time around where we felt like we're the strongest contenders. You know, in the last parliament though, you remember we had four by elections, about ten by elections, I think in the last parliament. And four of them, we absolutely smashed them and got the record of history in terms of the size of the majority that we won. But that was the last parliament, so that doesn't really count. And also, isn't that just proof of how less well you're doing in this parliament? No, far from it. We've got our best results ever at the last German election. We've been really building consolidating those seats. We've had eight consecutive years of getting gains in local government with more than doubled our seats in Scotland, in the recent Scottish elections. If you look at those real results, we are doing really, really, really well. Right? Other parties might be noisy, but they're going up and down in the polls all over the place. We are building our ground game, we are winning in the ballot box, and we are determined to keep on winning.

25:14People keep writing us off, and every single time we show them that we can do it. Right, let's talk about some of the policy issues that you've been discussing in the Sunshine Embright in this week. So, first of all, one of the big things that's going to be an Ed Davies conference speech later today is a new AI treaty, a global treaty setting up a new AI security infrastructure. Just talk us through what you want to achieve with that. Yeah, well, I think most people were incredibly shocked. I was shocked last week. And when we heard those revelations from somebody who had been working at an AI company saying that a super intelligence could kill us all. I mean, that they're words not mine. And quite frankly, we need leaders around the world to get a grip of this, and to be very proactive about saying, we can't allow a handful of big tech bros to develop this technology that poses an existential threat. And so, that's why today, Ed will be calling for a global pause on the development of artificial super intelligence, and saying we need to have an international treaty, an international agency, in the same way that in the 50s,

26:17we negotiated one in the face of the existential threat from nuclear weapons. Oh, yes. So, you're saying this would based on the international atomic energy authority, the IAA, which makes me wonder what you would call the AI version, the IAAI, you need to come up with a good set of initials for it. So, does that mean that Prime Minister Ed Davie, and he's talked this week about the fact he would like to be Prime Minister, what he would share a giant global summit of every country in the world and all the tech bros, and basically say, sign here or else. Pretty much, yeah. I mean, this is really important. If you look at key moments in human history, countries have come together, and they have signed international treaties, they've created new organisations, whether it's the United Nations, whether it's the international energy atomic agency, we've shown throughout human history that, face with existential threats, leaders can perform in the moment they can get together, they can create the international structures, and an international rules-based order to deal with those existential threats.

27:17We think that the threat that is now posed by this new development of artificial superintelligence is equivalent to the existential threat that was posed by nuclear weapons. So, yes, we want Ed is calling today for leaders around the world to step up, to create this new organisation, and to get a new tricky in place. Okay, one of the other things you're talking about is tax cuts. It sounds like a Davies going to talk about some other potential tax cuts in his speech, and I suppose we'll have to wait for that. But one of the things you've already talked about this week is a 10p cut to fuel duty. How much would that cost the treasury under the Lib Dems, and how would you pay for that? Sure. So, when we announced our plans for a fuel duty cut earlier this week, it also included cuts to railfares, to busfares, and to electric vehicle charging on pavements as well. And that complete package would come to just under 2 billion pounds over the next three months. And that 2 billion pounds is expected to actually be raised in additional revenue because of the stupid illegal war in Iran, because energy prices have gone up.

28:21The treasury is actually getting additional taxes through higher energy profit levy taxes, but also from higher VAT returns of the higher gas. So, because the treasury is expecting that 2 billion pounds in the next three months, we're saying, don't just put it into treasury coffers, pump it back into the economy, give people some breathing space, use it to help them with the cost of traveling, and in do so doing, actually it would help tackle inflation at the same time. And so, what that would be 2 billion over three months as a sort of one off, you're not suggesting it would be 8 billion a year, so each quarter being 2 billion. So, obviously it depends on what happens in Iran. We've said 2 billion over the next three months, but of course- It doesn't sound very solid then if it depends on what happens in the straighter four moves. Well, this is the world we're living, right? We live in the world where international events and illegal wars suddenly hit us left right in center. What we're saying is, one of the consequences of this illegal war in Iran is that petrol prices have gone up, and therefore so have the VAT returns and the energy profit levy.

29:27And as the government gets that money, we're just saying, pump it back into the economy. In terms of certainty, we can't control what Donald Trump does in the Middle East, but what we're saying is, let's not just sit back and say there's nothing we can do about it, there is something we can do about it. And we're saying for the next three months, whilst we know we're going to get those 2 billion pounds, let's spend it on this. Of course, if the war continues or gets worse, it's entirely possible that the revenue continues, the Treasury gets more money, and we would then look to extend it even further. Except though, I mean, you're the Lib Dems Treasury spokesperson, so you will have seen the release from the Office for National Statistics today, which is the latest update on the public finances and how much the government is borrowing. And that suggests that at this point this year, the government is already borrowing 8 billion pounds more than they expected to. That suggests to me there is actually less money to play with, rather than more money to play with, like you're suggesting. Well look, we're in this really precarious position, and everybody knows that the fiscal position is very, very tight.

30:27But what's really frustrating me is we are now 2 years into this Parliament, and Labour has squandered the opportunity to grow the economy. We have got to get serious about economic growth. If this conference here in Brighton, I've unveiled a plan for growth. It starts with a new, our course for a growth and defence partnership with Europe, because the prize would be enormous if we join the single market, and the customs union, we can grow the economy that helps us to get debt under control as well. And the problem is that the Labour government are just not serious about growth, and they've got us not getting serious about growth very, very quickly. What you're talking about, it sounds a little bit like what Mark Carney, the Canadian Prime Minister, says he's going to have with the EU, which is this new associate membership. Is that what the Lib Dems are after as well? We want to go further than that. I don't really know what a state membership would look like for Canada. But our policy is to have a new growth and defence partnership with Europe. That would involve joining the single market, joining a new customs union, and striking a new defence deal that would combine both financing of our defence and integrated supply chains as well.

31:33And if we could get that new deal with the EU, we think we could get it within one year. That means we would grow our economy, we would be stronger, safer and more prosperous. That's the level of ambition that we need from this government. I would say getting that in one year seems quite ambitious. When you look at the fact it's taken more than two years just to negotiate this veterinary agreement on plant and animal exports, which everyone said was pretty easy for Kirstaarmer to do, and it's still not being done even now with Andy Burnham in charge. Two things I would say, first of all, Labour has always seen Europe as a tactical issue rather than something that is absolutely central to growth. Secondly, they didn't really negotiate very well. The reality is that the world has changed. It's in our interests to have a strong trading and defence relationship with our closest neighbours. I mean, if it was a clearer day today, I would probably be able to see it from the Brighton coast, right? We need to have that close relationship to boost our economy, we need that close relationship with Europe on defence. We have a very strong defence sector in this country, and I think that Europe sees a growth in defence partnership as a very attractive proposition.

32:36The reality is that Norway joined the single market within two years, but we have that previous relationship. We were in the single market before, we were in the customs union before, we know how to negotiate these things quickly. We've gone through all the pain of looking at disentangling our legislation. We know exactly all the things we need to negotiate. We think it's entirely credible that we could do it within a year. I've not been to Lib Dem conference for a couple of years, because that was my old job going and chasing you all around the halls and corridors. Thank you for the warm welcome. It struck me as a place full of people who wouldn't necessarily like the idea of spending more money on bombs, weapons, fighter jets, missiles. Has the Lib Dem kind of, has the Lib Dem crowds changed and there are no more up-presenting money on defence? The world has changed, that's what's happened. And don't forget, we're the party of Paddy Ashdown. We've always been a party that's been very strong on our international obligations. We've always known as a party that the best way to secure peace is to make sure that you can protect yourself and stop war.

33:38And that's why for months now we have been calling on the government to issue defence bonds. We think that could raise 20 billion pounds in the next two years and give that really big cash injection. And when we propose that to the conference, I've been talking about a growth and defence partnership. Other spokespeople have been talking about our growth and defence partnership. Ed has been talking about our growth and defence partnerships. And every single time the members have given a huge warm welcome because they know that we're living in a scary, scary world. And we need to beef up our defence spending now. One of the other things your members have been talking about this week and in fact voting on was this motion that effectively says that the new guidance on single-sex spaces brought out by the Equality and Human Rights Commission so that their guidance is now in line with the Supreme Court ruling from a couple of years ago. Basically your members are saying that that is wrong and that's transphobic. So is that now lib-dam official position that the Equality and Human Rights Commission and by extension the Supreme Court are wrong on that issue? So we have internal democracy in our party and I'm really proud that at every conference the members get to vote on the issues that they want to have debated on the final couple of days of our conference.

34:44And one of the things, they were three different motions they wanted to talk about, Trump's tariffs and AI and all sorts of other issues. But one of the issues was this guidance that the government had issued. But fundamentally the Supreme Court ruling, all of the various reports, recognize that we need a system that works for women and works for trans people as well. And our concern, our existing party position which was simply confirmed by the motion was simply to say, look we want to review of the guidance. That's all we're asking for, a review of the guidance because at the moment it's clear that it isn't protecting everybody. And we're in the really unfortunate situation where businesses, and I hear this as Treasury spokesperson, businesses have seen that there's been settled law on the use of toilets and all the rest of it in public spaces for 20 years or so. And all of a sudden this new guidance comes along, they've got actually no understanding of how to implement it. It's confusing and costly for businesses. They live in fear of legal cases. And everybody's rights do appear to be protected in a very practical way. So we're simply asking for the guidance to be reviewed to make sure that it works for everybody in a practical day-to-day kind of way.

35:48And if the guidance ends up being the same after the review, you'd be okay with that because what you've just suggested is that you think the guidance is wrong. But what we're saying is the guidance at the moment doesn't appear to do what it's supposed to do, which is to protect women and trans people and make sure that they're all respected. And they all have spaces that they can use. If the guidance stays the same, I think the problem might be that the government and many organisations will face a lot of litigation in the course. And that isn't good for people, that isn't good for business, it's not good for the government. So we'll keep going round and round and round. So I hope the government listens and they do just commit to review this again to make sure that we have a proper debate in Parliament and vote at some point in the future. Okay, right, a few more things before we have to let you go back to Lib Dem business. Has there been any more cross-party talks about social care? As I understand it, there haven't been any just yet, but I hope there will be soon. The first conversations obviously happened in the first couple of weeks. We have genuinely welcomed what Andy Burnham has to say. We think he's genuine on this.

36:48Both he and Eddaeby have said that they want to, they're with some political capital on this. I think it would be fantastic for the country, fantastic for everybody who needs care and for family care as well if we can indeed get to that. But we need the Prime Minister to make sure himself that these talks do continue, that they do happen, and that we can try and find a solution to social care as soon as possible, hopefully in the next year or so. We have only one set of talks on such a big and important issue, doesn't feel like it's very urgent. Well look, the Prime Minister has been in post-7 or 8 weeks now, I think, roughly about that. Keir Starmer said he was going to make this a priority and have cross-party talks, and there was only one meeting as far as I'm aware. So the fact that we've already had one meeting is progress on the last Prime Minister, but we will hold his feet to the fire. Don't worry about that. This is a priority for us. As you know, Eddaeby has campaigned on this for ages, we will make sure we get those talks. Eddaeby's been talking about how he would like to be Prime Minister. I'm just wondering is that something you see in your future that you would like to do? Look, Ed as a party leader is obviously a candidate for Prime Minister, and by virtue of that, I would be delighted to support him in that role.

37:54And then after that? Let's not get carried away. Have you ever had a dream where you've been Prime Minister? I have all sorts of peculiar dreams on them, I'm not going to share them with you this morning. Let's not get into dream analysis. Actually that would be quite a good fun. You could have imagined a whole spin-off podcast based on that, Politician's Dreams. So, are you talking about your podcast? Is it true that the Lib Dems are launching a podcast? Are the Lib Dems launching a podcast? I mean we've got a little podcast corner around literally around the corner, so it's entirely possible that we might. Okay, well, I look forward to your forays into podcasting. And thank you very much for this foray into podcasting. See you later. This is Angus Maximus. This partner has one pound of a pound of hot sushi cooked to honor Angus' feet. It's more expensive to the quarter pounder. The battle of clothes! And for only $5.99 even regular juice can afford it. Like that guy! You need that big old burger! Yeah! He holds it. And for only $5.99 even regular juice can afford it.

38:55Like that guy! You need that big old burger! Yeah! He holds Angus Maximus. For only $5.99 the whole scene is. A bill for a limited time of participating restaurants, tax on included, not valid for use within a combo or in combination with any other offer or discount. Welcome to the haunted library. Have you come and search of a tale? This podcast invites you to browse the shelves and find stories that will linger long after you've left this place. From Gothic masterpieces to pulpy penny dreadfuls, join me Colin Morgan with new episodes twice a week. Find the haunted library wherever you get your podcasts. With Cricket Wireless you can count on reliable nationwide 5G. Because Cricket Wireless is on the AT&T network, which means you can start listening to that new album that just dropped at home while running errands and at the gym. Without any hiccups, find plans with unlimited data for every lifestyle and price point.

39:59Switch to Cricket today! That was Daisy Cooper, sort of previewing our Davies speech, which has happened and which you can read all about in tomorrow's papers. Talking of tomorrow, Chris Mason will be touching back down on British soil after his flying visit to New York for the UN General Assembly. And his first stop we hope is going to be the newscast studio. So he can tell us exactly what went down in that first face to face meeting between Andy Burnham and Donald Trump. And that is what has gone down on this episode of newscast. So we'll see you again very soon. Bye bye. Newscast. Newscast from the BBC. Well thank you for making it to the end of another newscast. You clearly ooze stamina. I gently encourage you to subscribe to us on BBC Sounds. And then without having to do anything else, our meandering chats will miraculously make its way to your phone.

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