Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Claire Trevett: NZ Herald Political Editor on Joe Biden's mental capacity and the NATO summit
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Christopher Luxen has met with the US President Joe Biden.
- 0:03Speaker 1: This is a new meeting at the White House. There
- 0:05Speaker 1: was the dinner last night, now a new meeting as
- 0:08Speaker 1: the NATO summit ramps up. It's been a busy day
- 0:11Speaker 1: for the PM meeting with the Indo Pacific leaders before
- 0:13Speaker 1: heading to the North to the North Atlantic Council meeting
- 0:18Speaker 1: as well as bilateral meetings. He's got later this morning.
- 0:21Speaker 1: Joining me now is the New Zealand Herald political editor
- 0:23Speaker 1: Claire Trevette. Claire. Let's talk about that new meeting between
- 0:27Speaker 1: Luxon and Biden.
- 0:29Speaker 2: Yes, it's just happened here now. They've sent a photo
- 0:33Speaker 2: of the two of them together. It seems that they've
- 0:35Speaker 2: had something of a short chat before the next summit
- 0:39Speaker 2: meeting that's happening here. We're not sure of the contents
- 0:43Speaker 2: of that. We'll talk to Christopher Luxon in another couple
- 0:45Speaker 2: of hours and hopefully get a bit more out of it.
- 0:48Speaker 2: But they have had what seems to be a more
- 0:50Speaker 2: falsome catch up. He hasn't yet had a proper chat
- 0:53Speaker 2: with US President Joe Biden, but then at the dinner
- 0:57Speaker 2: last night, I think they'd had a handshake as they
- 0:59Speaker 2: came many kind of things, so he'll be pretty stoked
- 1:02Speaker 2: if he's had a better chat than that. It made him.
- 1:06Speaker 2: I think it made him a bit late for the
- 1:07Speaker 2: next summit, but it's probably worth it, so we'll find
- 1:10Speaker 2: out the full context of that chat a bit later.
- 1:12Speaker 1: He's obviously not going into Biden's mental capacity, et cetera
- 1:17Speaker 1: for good reason. Have you seen Biden since you've been there,
- 1:19Speaker 1: have you seen him speak? Do you have any comment
- 1:22Speaker 1: on his mental acuity?
- 1:26Speaker 2: Well, the most interesting thing over here is the all
- 1:32Speaker 2: of them are being asked about Biden, and the NATO
- 1:34Speaker 2: leaders are a bit nervous about it because Donald Trump's
- 1:37Speaker 2: less friendly towards NATO than Joe Biden is. You've had
- 1:42Speaker 2: George Clooney coming out. He dropped a real clanger of
- 1:45Speaker 2: an ophead and the worst thing he said was that
- 1:47Speaker 2: the Democratic Party leaders have to stop trying to fall
- 1:52Speaker 2: kind of one hundred and fifty five million people that
- 1:54Speaker 2: they didn't see what they know, what they thought they
- 1:57Speaker 2: had seen. And I've seen Biden, not in the flesh,
- 2:02Speaker 2: but I have watched him deliver the main speeches of
- 2:05Speaker 2: the NATO function. It's hard to tell with those because
- 2:08Speaker 2: they're Autoques basically, so he's more or less just reading
- 2:12Speaker 2: them out. But I mean he is you know, he's
- 2:15Speaker 2: not a young man, so we'll leave it to them.
- 2:18Speaker 2: But I think Nancy Pelosi came out in the end
- 2:20Speaker 2: and still the Democrats to stop talking about it until
- 2:24Speaker 2: at least after the NATO so much has ended, so
- 2:27Speaker 2: I suspect things to get a bit messy here once
- 2:30Speaker 2: NATO was finished and Joe Biden's no longer being made
- 2:35Speaker 2: a fool of in front of all these world leaders.
- 2:39Speaker 2: That's pretty much. It's pretty much conversation. But it's just
- 2:44Speaker 2: kind of if we were like there will be all
- 2:46Speaker 2: of them are being asked about Biden. Even in that
- 2:50Speaker 2: Indo Pacific Foe meeting, we weren't allowed to ask any questions,
- 2:54Speaker 2: but of course, you know, if someone inevitably does. And
- 2:56Speaker 2: one of the Australian journalists yelled out to Zelenski, asked
- 3:00Speaker 2: him whether he thought Joe Biden should step down as
- 3:02Speaker 2: the as the candidate. So that's the only question that
- 3:07Speaker 2: got yelled out, And you.
- 3:08Speaker 1: Can always you can always expect that from an Aussie,
- 3:11Speaker 1: you know that just ruthless. Hey, hey, this presser where
- 3:15Speaker 1: it could all come undone. So this is Biden going
- 3:17Speaker 1: on his own to a pressa after NATO. It's going
- 3:20Speaker 1: to be nine to thirty New Zealand time, so just
- 3:22Speaker 1: after we are off here, it'll be during Carrey's show
- 3:25Speaker 1: here on Newstalks. He b but do you get to
- 3:27Speaker 1: go to that?
- 3:29Speaker 2: I actually think we may have to be on our
- 3:31Speaker 2: way to the airport, so we're kind of hoping we will.
- 3:34Speaker 2: But everything's running a bit late here as well, so
- 3:36Speaker 2: it could get it could get crunched out, but we're
- 3:39Speaker 2: not sure. One other conflicting thing is that, you know,
- 3:43Speaker 2: christ Luckson's been trying to get a meeting with Ted
- 3:45Speaker 2: Cruz the whole time he's been here, and it's been
- 3:47Speaker 2: delayed twice. One last chance this morning, just before he
- 3:51Speaker 2: goes to the plane. So right, so yeah, I'm not
- 3:55Speaker 2: sure whether whether or not we'll get to say that.
- 3:57Speaker 2: We're hoping to clear.
- 3:58Speaker 1: Thank you very much for that. That's Trevette, who is
- 4:01Speaker 1: The New Zealand Herald's political editor with us live from Washington,
- 4:04Speaker 1: DC this morning. So for more from News Talks B
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