Latest / The Fourcast / JD Vance would back Trump third term, says close friend

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JD Vance would back Trump third term, says close friend · The Fourcast

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Welcome to this special edition of the Forecast from Cambridge
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University. I'm very happy to say that my
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guest is Doctor James or he's the associate professor of the
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philosophy of religion at the university and a very close
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friend of the Vice President, JD Vance.
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And that's one of the reasons why he's happy to talk to us
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today. James, good to have you on the.
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Program good to be with you. JD Vance, right, your mate, he
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said. He's on the record for saying in
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2016, Trump is irresponsible. You know, he's he's not up to
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the job of being president. And then, of course, that famous
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comparison, which he's been asked about, you know, ad
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nauseam, Trump, you know, could become America's Hitler.
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Explain your friend's journey from these really searing
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criticisms of the man who's now his boss to basically, you know,
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agreeing with everything the boss says today.
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What's happened in 2016? What's his journey?
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In 2016, I think you would have struggled to find anyone in
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American public life who would have said Trump running for
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president. Great.
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He seems so. He seems so responsible.
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He is what America needs. He's rational.
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He's predictable. He's got brilliant policy ideas.
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Nobody was saying that. But not everyone was saying he
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was Adolf Hitler in the making. Listen, I mean, that's that's.
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Quite an accusation I haven't seen.
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I haven't seen any evidence that he said he is out of.
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No, no, he said that, he said on the.
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On this point of view, he saw him as a strong man, and I think
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what? He knows he could become
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America's and. Everybody's calling Hitler
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nowadays. Everybody's Hitler.
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This is not a term that this is a term that is sadly being
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cheapened by its by overuse, I think.
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Look, let me just let me just finish what is striking about
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Vance's journey. First of all, it's a journey.
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Many vast swathes of the GOP class are still where Vance was
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in 2016. Vance is a very good
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exemplification of the principle that the willingness to change
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one's mind is the. Only sure sign is the only sure.
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Sign. That one's got one right.
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It's good old Keynes. When the facts change, my mind
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changes. What do you do?
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Sometimes you say it's hypocrisy or it's 2.
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Transactions. What's about ambition?
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He. Says I think he could be this.
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Trump comes along, does the opposite, does things that JD
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had been calling for implicitly hillbilly energy all the way
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through in terms of economics, economic populism, in terms of
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energy sovereignty, deregulation, border control.
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But even in 2020, at the end of the Trump administration, even
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in 2020, JD Vance is in the on the record.
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I think it's something. I think it's a mark of Trump's
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magnanimity that not only did he forgive Vance, calling him
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America's, possibly America's next Hitler, he made him his own
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vice president, some autocrat, you know, some some narcissist.
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Yeah. And so, yes, he's been on a
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journey. I think if you look at the
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strength of support he's shown from 2020 on one onwards, when
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he was running a very difficult Ohio campaign, it's very hard
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for us now to remember back in 2122.
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Trump is in. He's been written off by the.
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And actually, JD Vance's victory in that Senate, he was one of
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the few. The only the only the red way
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that there was that was his tiny little bit of a.
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Red one. It was a red trickle a.
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Red or red trickle. And it was Vance.
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And from there on in, from on the Senate floor at enormous
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political cost, very iced to take up very isolated views,
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isolations, isolated views, realist views on Ukraine and a
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whole range of other issues. It was a difficult thing to do.
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And he didn't waiver. Trump and Team Trump saw that.
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And that's why they thought that Donald needs a doe fur.
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He's our doe fur. And also, I guess JD Vance
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realised in this one example that if you attach yourself to
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Donald Trump and he attaches himself to you in some areas,
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that could be a winning ticket, right?
3:38
You know, had he, had he not won that seat, I wonder what he
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would. Have in the summer of 2022, it
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seemed. In fact, I remember how
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concerned I was at the time. Is this really a good idea?
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I know you see yourself as being ideologically aligned with
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Trump, but look, he's got 95 legal cases against, so the
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guy's going to be in jail, not the Oval Office.
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What on earth are you doing? And yet he stuck with him
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through thick and thin. Do you see JD Vance as the
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future President of the United States?
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Yes, I do. You do you think he'll be
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elected in the next election? Well.
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I think he will be the Republican candidate in 2027 and
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I think he stands a very, very looking at approval ratings for
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the Democrat Party, which are lower than they've been in
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living memory. I suspect.
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Look, not going to make predictions.
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This is a very, very time of unprecedented flux in American
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politics. Of course, my sense is he is
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dead set to be Republican candidate for the next
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presidential election. And I think he on, you know, my,
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my sense is he's got a very good chance of being in the Oval.
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Office does he see that's that way I mean has he told you that
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he that's. That's what he's.
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He doesn't think about it at all, I think.
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No, I think he. Why don't I believe that?
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Because he's very conscious of people like you asking questions
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about it. And he is absolute.
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If you took in every public pronouncement, including the
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actually and as well as private pronouncements, as we saw from
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the Signal a few weeks ago, he was very clear about what is it
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the what is the president's mind on this?
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What is the president's view? And my sense is he's got his
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loyalty to Trump is, is absolute. 2028 for him is a long
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way off. And I suspect that he he within,
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within MAGA, he is being acclaimed as the Doefur, as the
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most obvious successor to Trump. And indeed, that's why I think
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Team Trump pushed so hard for him when it would have been
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easier to appoint a more, you know, electorally attractive
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running mate. I mean, Trump himself was out
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polling Vance in Ohio in 2022. It didn't make any electoral
5:36
sense. It it I think what Team Trump
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recognised that was, you know, Vance was the future of MAGA.
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That if we want Trumpism to persist beyond Trump, then he's
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our man. So what is how does that tally
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with one plan that's been muted that, you know, President Trump
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talks about this quite openly. I might, might run for a third
5:55
term, maybe not. That would, you know, either
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require a change of the Constitution, which is tough, or
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there's this ruse that Vance becomes the the main candidate,
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Donald Trump runs as the vice and they do a Switcher route.
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This is what Putin did with Medvedev.
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But do you think that your friend would agree with that?
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Like he he wins the presidency and then says, OK, Donald, off
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you take, you know, off you go for another term.
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I find that hard to imagine. I I.
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I think he would keep his counsel.
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I think he I think if, if he were pressed, if the Constitute,
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if he were asked, if the Constitution permitted it, would
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you want Trump to run for a third term?
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I think he'd say yes. If but the Constitution.
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Doesn't, but the Constitution doesn't.
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So I think look. But even you are putting a
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little question mark over that. What?
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No. What do you mean?
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Do I think that they're actually going to, he's going to, he's
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going to run for it? No, I think that's completely
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fanciful. Look, as always with Trump, look
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at what he says. Look at what he does, not what
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he says. And as I keep saying to you,
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you've got to do both right? Because he says a lot of stuff.
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You've got to weigh them correctly and I think too many
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in the media classes, particularly in the UK, tend to
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focus too much on what he says and not enough.
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On that's because he wants us to focus on it, right?
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It's about the attention of the economy.
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I want to talk about, you know, morality and tariffs.
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Is it moral for the United States to impose a tariff of
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what is it 45% on the Soto, you know, a country that's simply
7:14
too poor to buy American goods? Is it?
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Is that Christian? Is that Christian behaviour?
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Let's. Just take a step back on the
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whole kind of tariffs question. It it is not, it's very easy to
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single out. Not just I'm glad you're saying
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that as a as a as an associate professor of the the philosophy
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of religion, we. Can come on to that, but then we
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can take. We want to take take a
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philosophical view of tariffs. We, we, we, we could take, we
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could take a look at Lesotho or we could take a look at that
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rock in the middle of nowhere with just Penguins on it.
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Yes, right now. So, so what's going on here, as
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I understand it from trade specialists and certainly not a
7:47
trade specialist. If you're trying to signal to
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the world that you are interested, you you are
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passionate about reducing tariffs and getting to the point
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of a fairer trade and freer trade, then you can't allow any
8:01
loopholes, right? You can't allow, you know, China
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to so funnel it's good through that's who to and so the
8:08
questions you. Know one of the Chinese were
8:10
using the sushi. I think that, well, that one
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just got caught up in the geographical drag.
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Absolutely right. And I think the question is but.
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That's the problem, isn't it? You know, this is a hammer for a
8:18
nail. Do you want to use, you know,
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something slightly more precise? Look, from the Americans point
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of view, this is not a nail. This is actually a deep
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structural problem in the post war international order.
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Coming from the country that is by far the richest on the
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planet, that's not exactly done, you know, bad out of the system.
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It's done very bad. That has done very, very well,
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but has also catalysing the prosperity of major emerging
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civilisational actors who are plainly hostile to not just
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American interests, but the interests of all of us across
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the West. And I think that's certainly,
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certainly. Through About China.
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And talk and talk is absolutely about China.
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And no one disagrees with the fact that China been very
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naughty when it comes to trade. And so the.
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Sealing property rights says. Not, you know, how dare.
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Is it fair? Is it moral?
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Is it? But that is the question.
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Well, no, because hold on. Because well, then forget about
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Christian, there's there's fairness in trade, whether
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you're a Jew or a Muslim as well, right?
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So right. But is it fair?
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Is it and is it necessary? And is it?
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If you're a. Art James or.
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If you're a Christian politician, if you're any
9:20
politician, to whom do you owe your first obligations and
9:25
loyalties? To the people whom you
9:27
represent. And from the American's point of
9:29
view, the people that they represent have been marginalised
9:32
and dispossessed. And but which people?
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Because when you're talking about the small businessman they
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know that imports Barbie dolls from China to sell in the well,
9:40
let me just finish to sell in the toy shop down the road,
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small family business, they're going bust.
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You're talking about the auto workers who we had in the Rose
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Garden. They might not get the jobs that
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they've been promised as a result of all this.
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You're talking about your mates on Wall Street.
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Well, they're really upset because they've just lost a.
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Ton of money. The Trump Pants administration
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are desperate to see a quick, concrete solution to what they
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see as an unfair trading environment.
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And the question is really a tactical one.
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Do should they spend the next four years carefully negotiating
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bilateral trade agreements with the Lesotho and other, you know,
10:17
other countries around the world?
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Don't bother with. The well, their view is this is
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not a nail. This is this, this is a serious
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problem that needs a bazooka. We've got to RIP the bandage
10:27
off. What you're seeing is an
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attempt, an extremely, you know, an attempt to deal with an
10:32
extremely complex problem. Roosevelt tried it in the 1940s.
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Reagan tried it in the 1980s to with with some success.
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He's attempting to reconfigure the entire global international
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order with respect to trade. And he sees in China credibly
10:48
and plausibly A hostile civilisational actor that has
10:52
done extremely well out of the United States, that is
10:55
artificially manipulating its currency downwards to make its
10:58
exports more attractive, that has been ripping off the
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American intellectual property for many, many, many years, and
11:04
that has been imposing consistently higher tariffs than
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America's been imposing on it. Same with the European Union
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with respect to tariffs. One thing that really strikes
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me, especially about him, your friend JD Vance is, and you
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know, he's smart. He's written a great book.
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The Hillbilly Energy is a is a superb book.
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He is smart, but he's also angry.
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And that anger comes across whether he's dealing with
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Zelensky in the Oval Office, whether he's addressing
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Europeans at the Munich Security Summit.
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Where's that anger from? I don't need to tell you, Matt,
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as a reporter, A seasoned reporter on the United.
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And that's for the flat. Over years, over many, many
11:40
years, that anger is one that you can see it in Hillbilly
11:45
Elegy. You see it in the book.
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You see it in that sense of pride that he has in middle
11:51
America, but also horror at what he perceives, I think quite
11:55
plausibly, as the economic devastation of the American
11:59
working class. But I'm talking about civility,
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or rather the lack of civility in something like dealing with,
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you know, President Zelensky in the Oval Office.
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I mean, that was appalling, wasn't it, the way he, you know,
12:10
behaved towards someone. And I know, you know, JD Vance
12:13
knows about the military because he served at the military.
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But here's someone who's basically prepared to give his
12:17
life for his country who didn't run.
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The Americans offered him a ride.
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He didn't take it. And he's, you know, defended his
12:23
nation from Russian aggression. And here's JD Vance basically,
12:28
you know, assaulting him in the Oval Office.
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Verbally, I will simply say that in the six or seven years I've
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known him, I've never known him lose his temper once.
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He's personally very equitable. But he did then.
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And and in that it well, look, we all lose our temper.
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Very easy to lose once, but. Onto the cameras at the Oval
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Office. Well, I think it was unwise.
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Choose your moments. Look, I think it was, you're
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probably right that it was unwise for a proper and
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important trilateral conversation or bilateral
12:57
conversation between the Ukraine, but between Zelensky
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and and Trump Vance to be conducted in the Oval Office.
13:03
Now I in front of the cameras and I think the kinds of
13:06
conversation, the sort of conversation you had there is
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the kind of conversation that is happening behind closed doors.
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Was it a setup though? No, absolutely not you.
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Sure about that. I had no question of the setup.
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If you look at the whole, the whole thing from start to
13:20
finish, it was actually very amicable conversation right up
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to the last two or three minutes.
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And you could see throughout the conversation that Zelensky was
13:27
pushing, as you would expect him to.
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He's pushing for his countries. He is a national conservative
13:31
too. He's pushing for his nation's
13:33
interests. Nothing wrong with that.
13:35
But he went into the conversation, I think he was
13:38
badly briefed. He was badly advised because
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what? Did and he didn't have a
13:41
translator which would have helped him.
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All sorts of that, all sorts of things he could.
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Even so, Even so, the, the fact that he's in, he's, he's their
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guest, he's in their office, he's in the Oval Office and
13:51
they're rounding on him. Listen, that is just
13:53
unacceptable, isn't it? I mean, even whether you agree
13:56
with the Ukraine policy or not, look.
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He's not just just in the Oval Office, He is in the cockpit of
14:01
a nation that is, whose generosity and support is, but
14:04
he's held his own nation. But he.
14:06
Wasn't being. Rude.
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Well, look, he really wasn't. And he has said thank you, you
14:10
know, for America's help aplenty almost every day.
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Look. Look look, I don't you can very
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easy to pick up on personal foibles or momentary lapse.
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This was a key moment there, wasn't it?
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And your old friend didn't come out of it in the minds of, you
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know, many people around the world looking any better for it.
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Was it was a key moment. It was a key moment.
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What would you tell Vance down the phone if he rang you up and
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asked you about that? Would you say, JD, you went too
14:36
far or would you say fantastic? No, I in fact, no, I certainly
14:40
wouldn't. It was not not my place to tell
14:43
him how to conduct him. A friend of his.
14:45
It's, I'm a friend of his, but, and it, it is, it is the duty of
14:50
friends to be critical where necessary.
14:53
He's also the vice president of the United States.
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And I think in that particular context, and we've been talking
14:57
about, he and I've been talking about Ukraine for the best part
14:59
of two or three years, and he has been mystified at the lack
15:03
of a serious debate in the public square all across Europe,
15:07
including the UK. And about what there has been
15:10
plenty of debate about. I think for.
15:12
Ukraine from how we're helping. No, look, I'm glad to say
15:15
there's been the support for Ukraine and the admiration of
15:18
Zelensky has been, broadly speaking, pretty, pretty.
15:20
Unanimous. And you're in favour of that?
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I'm absolutely in favour of that and I think he's in favour too.
15:24
What he is in favour of is a peaceful and prosperous Ukraine
15:29
and he is looking in a very clear eyed way.
15:31
How do we get Ukraine on the path to reconstruction?
15:35
How do we stop 2000 Ukrainians being centered in the meat
15:38
grinder every week? How can we reverse?
15:40
Which is all very, which is fantastic, you see.
15:43
How to get there when you've been a president who is bent on
15:48
accelerating the war and who is? Still who you're talking about.
15:51
I'm talking about Zelensky. When you've got somebody who.
15:53
Is trying to accelerate the war. He's trying to win the war.
15:55
He's trying to precisely. The war that he doesn't start.
15:57
There's a difference. And nobody and nobody.
15:59
Will hang on a minute, what do you actually mean?
16:01
So what I'm trying to say here is that every clear eyed
16:04
military analysis of the situation in Ukraine recognises
16:08
that there is no way that Ukraine can defeat Russia, No
16:11
way at all. But the other question is how
16:14
does Ukraine get or what's left of Ukraine tragically, how, how
16:18
do we, how does America exercise it's leverage with Russia as
16:22
well to get what's, what can survive from, from, from Ukraine
16:26
back on the path to peace, prosperity and reconstruction?
16:29
My sense is the perception the White House in on January the
16:32
20th on inauguration day was that if you're going to get
16:37
peace talks going between Russia and Ukraine, you're there's
16:41
going to have to be some kind of optical, optical rebalancing.
16:46
That is to say the demonizing of Putin.
16:49
Quite right. He, he, Putin is mad.
16:53
It is bad, but he's not mad. You've got to start to
16:56
understand him as a rational, though malevolent actor.
17:00
On the other hand, I think the view is that Zelensky has been
17:04
unhelpfully for him and unhelpfully for his nation,
17:06
cause lionized, indeed. Canonized front page of Vogue.
17:11
Yeah, there's been a lot. Of But like Donald Trump, he's
17:13
been on the front page of of of Time magazine.
17:16
Pretty Man of the year twice. Pretty stalionisation.
17:19
Pretty yes, that colonisation look.
17:21
Whatever. Look, I wonder how many spreads
17:23
we like. Obama But we like, you know, we
17:25
especially Britain, we like the underdog, absolutely.
17:28
And we like someone who resists aggression.
17:29
You're right and I think. And you're taking that away
17:32
from? Him one of the problems I think
17:33
we have in Britain, and partly it's a, you know, it's a feature
17:38
of our history, is that we suffer from bad cases of World
17:42
War Two brain. That is to say, every serious
17:45
geopolitical crisis on the continent, it seems can only be
17:50
refracted through a conflict that ended 80 years ago, which
17:53
we happen to do very well in. And so Vance's Chamberlain,
17:57
Zelensky is Churchill, Putin is Hitler, Ukraine is Poland.
18:02
And I just think that's an incredibly unhelpful way to
18:06
understand rational action by these nation States and very
18:11
different personalities, very different dynamics.
18:14
To be fair to him, on Trump's watch, there were very, very few
18:19
major, or if not, if any major conflicts.
18:22
Putin did not, would not, I think very if, if Trump had had
18:27
won in 2020, it hadn't been Biden.
18:29
I very much doubt that we'd have seen that that that.
18:31
Invasion the madman is right. So this guy is powerful.
18:34
He's unpredictable. Look.
18:36
I wonder if that that theory still stands there after the,
18:38
you know, the way that Trump is basically.
18:41
Look, do we think that Trump. Mollified do we think?
18:44
That Trump is just is predictable on anything,
18:47
including the question of a rival strongman undermining his
18:52
stated goals of achieving peace and prosperity in the Ukraine.
18:55
No I don't. I think the madman theory has
18:57
it's has it's merits. Your mate JD Vance, you know
19:00
he's smart. He may well be the next
19:02
president. I don't know.
19:04
But he's also quite mean, isn't he?
19:05
I mean, the stuff he said in Green and about the Danes was
19:07
just mean. It was, it was in politic, it
19:09
was uncivil. This, you know, the stuff that
19:11
he said to, you know, the Europeans at Munich, that's
19:14
mean. The way he treated the way he
19:16
treated Zelensky and the other was.
19:18
You mean you've been can? You talk to him and say stop
19:20
being so mean. You've been covering politics.
19:22
You're not mean. It's politics is.
19:25
I'm not a politician. I don't have to be mean.
19:27
I'm not representing the interests of millions of people.
19:29
I'm not standing. Representing my country, you
19:31
cannot be politics to pick fights with your friends and
19:34
allies. The question is to what extent
19:37
have they been good friends and allies?
19:39
And I think the remarks in Greenland were, look, has
19:42
Denmark, has Denmark really been doing everything that it can to
19:46
take seriously? The Greenlanders, all 57,000 of
19:49
them, who, by the way, don't want to become America's 51st
19:52
state in Canada in case. Canada and Vance was very clear
19:57
that that is a matter for the Greenlanders.
19:59
He was very clear in that, in that, in that, in those
20:02
pronouncements of the press conference.
20:03
So he's not, you know, it's but this, this question of niceness,
20:08
is he going to cuddle? Is he why isn't he more cuddly?
20:11
I'll talk about, let me assure you.
20:12
Nice is the wrong word. Civility, right?
20:14
So this is so, you know, just to get to the number of it.
20:16
America, you know, of course it's not been plain sailing.
20:19
And I know Americans feel that, you know, they've been
20:22
victimized by others and they've been taken for a ride.
20:24
And it's not Uncle Sam, it's Uncle Sucker, all that stuff.
20:27
But America has prevailed for 80 years, not just because of its
20:31
hard power, but because of its soft power.
20:35
The fact that it's got a message that people want to buy into,
20:38
right? Isn't it throwing all that away
20:40
with the way it's behaving right now?
20:42
I think actually you've seen certainly in this country a
20:44
rising tide of anti Americanism, of hostility towards America and
20:50
American culture and I think soft power and look, I know the
20:53
Foreign Office loves to talk about.
20:54
I think it's overrated. Tell that to the Hooties, you
20:57
know, I mean, have they not heard?
20:58
We're not talking about. The Hooties.
20:59
And we're not talking about Hamas.
21:00
We're talking about the Germans, the French, the Brits, the
21:03
Belgians. You're putting your
21:04
fingestyneans, you're putting your finger on something very
21:07
important. And I think this is a challenge
21:09
for every nation that becomes an empire, whether it wants to be
21:13
or not, whether it calls itself an empire or not.
21:16
The fact is there are two Americas.
21:18
There's the nation, and there's the global hegemon.
21:21
There's in, in Vance's words, there's we the people.
21:25
And America is a proposition in which anybody can sign up.
21:29
Yeah, but. America won the America won the
21:32
war against the Soviet Union without firing a single shot
21:36
right? Because it outspent them on
21:38
defence? Absolutely.
21:39
And because America had a message, call it soft power,
21:42
call it what you like, had a message that the rest of the
21:45
planet was more beguiled by than the Soviet.
21:48
And what was that message? That message was freedom over
21:51
tyranny. Yeah.
21:52
And part of the part of wait, wait, let me hold on, Let me
21:55
finish. Part of the power of that Munich
21:57
speech that Vance gave was that you Europeans, who we Americans
22:03
look to, who we see as the cradle of the freedoms that we
22:06
love, are failing to give expression to the stated will of
22:11
your people. To be free to enjoy free speech.
22:15
To be able to pray outside an abortion clinic without being
22:18
arrested. Nonsense.
22:19
He's trying. You know, this is the
22:20
administration that's interfering in the German
22:23
elections. Elon Musk appearing at Afd
22:25
rallies. Don't talk to me about
22:26
interference. Listen, Jamie.
22:28
Vance has dinner with the head of the Afd in the.
22:30
And why does he do that? And.
22:31
Why does he do that? But he doesn't talk to the
22:33
German, no. Why does it?
22:34
Why and why? Why?
22:35
Yeah, why you tell me so? So let well, I'll tell you
22:37
exactly why. There is a sense first of all,
22:40
that the previous administration, in fact
22:42
administration all the way up, but particularly Biden
22:44
administration had been using American power to press and to
22:49
astroturf organizations, to fund organizations that are plainly
22:53
contested and ideological in countries all around the world,
22:56
particularly in Eastern Europe, with particularly more
22:59
conservative countries like Hungary and Poland.
23:01
And the US administration said their view is, look, if you care
23:06
about freedom, if you if you share our founding vision of
23:10
what makes Europe great and what makes America get great,
23:13
freedom, individual responsibility, faith, family
23:16
and so on. And all the things that we
23:18
fought against the Soviet Union for, all the things that
23:21
energize, energized us from Second World War all the way up
23:25
to 1989, you've got to exemplify those values if you're going to
23:30
defend them. You describe yourself as a
23:32
national conservative. Why national?
23:36
Why not just conservative? It's exactly you said that if
23:39
you're not a national conservative, you're not a
23:41
conservative. It's a very good, very good
23:43
question, Matt. I think in many ways the
23:47
adjective national should be redundant when it comes to
23:51
stating one's political position in philosophical position in
23:55
politics as as conservative. I think that all conservatives
24:00
want to conserve what they love most, and the nation is one of
24:05
the things that one loves. It's not the most important
24:07
thing that the conservatives loves.
24:09
They love family, they love community, they love
24:11
neighborhood culture and heritage and so on.
24:14
But the nation is on high on the list of what a conservative
24:17
wants to conserve. So in a way, you're right to
24:21
pick me up on that. Why national?
24:23
I think the answer to that is that that adjective has forced
24:26
itself to the surface in recent years.
24:28
And as conservatism itself at the right itself has fractured,
24:32
probably since Thatcher under the influence of figures like
24:35
Hayek, economic liberalism, particularly neoliberalism.
24:38
Thatcher would not have described herself as a National
24:40
Conservative. No, she well.
24:42
Said I'm a conservative and I'm very patriotic of.
24:45
Course, in the 1980s she wouldn't have needed to use I
24:47
think the adjective because I think the the headwinds of
24:52
liberalism, particularly globalism and increasingly the
24:55
rise of empirics, sort of very self confident imperialistic
25:00
civilisational cultures like Russia and China are as it were
25:05
undermining national sovereignty, undermining the
25:07
basic principle that makes it possible for us to use the first
25:12
person plural when we're talking about our country.
25:14
That is a very what? Do you mean by that?
25:16
Well, here's what I mean by it. We, in fact, we use the word we
25:20
when we're talking about our fellow countrymen, generally
25:23
speaking, in a way that doesn't seem at all controversial.
25:26
And now that's very important. For example, if we want high
25:31
rates of redistributive taxation, you need to, there
25:35
needs to be that feeling that we're all in it together, that
25:38
we owe each other duties as fellow citizens, that we will
25:43
care for strangers because they are are strangers and we have an
25:46
obligation to them. And I think one of the problems
25:49
in the last 20 years on trade, on migration, on increasingly
25:55
supranational bodies that are increasingly disconnected from
26:01
electorates where there's a rising democratic, a democratic
26:05
deficit, there's a sense that there is no longer a we.
26:09
But what we have to say is just not cutting through to the
26:12
people who are supposed to be implementing what we have to
26:14
say. But the social contract is
26:16
fraying. But are you talking about your
26:17
we? Are we talking about the we that
26:19
is, you know, middle class and white and Christian?
26:22
There are lots of different ways aren't?
26:24
There. Well, look, I mean, one of the
26:26
things that struck me being a lone Brexiteer in Oxbridge was
26:31
that as a white middle class Christian Brit, I was actually
26:36
cutting against the grain of almost everyone around me.
26:39
And I found myself increasingly wanting to speak up for all the
26:44
Brexiteers among the staff who were waiting at our hand and
26:48
foot and the Browns. That's.
26:49
Brexit, which is 1 particular. Policy.
26:51
And not about the. Identity National conservatism
26:54
is born in 2016. It is born with the twin shocks
26:59
of Brexit and Trump. Something that is relevant to
27:02
you as someone working at university and that is the
27:05
decision of the federal government.
27:06
You know, also your friend JD Vance, who's not criticised it,
27:09
to cut the funding, the federal funding for Harvard universities
27:13
and six other elite universities in the United States because
27:18
they've decided to, you know, to stand against the administration
27:21
when it comes to certain requirements, restrictions that
27:26
they wanted to impose on these universities.
27:28
What do you think of that as an academic?
27:30
I think the question of public funding of the UK universities
27:33
is a very often sets up a very different set of policy issues
27:36
and questions and concerns from the question of U.S.
27:38
Federal funding of US universities, not least because
27:41
US universities have enormous amounts of money.
27:44
I mean, let's face it, Harvard has, is basically a hedge fund
27:48
with a university attached. It's got $53 billion under
27:51
management. You know it is not in desperate
27:53
need. It's not missing there.
27:56
Of taxpayer subsidy in middle America, especially when if I
27:59
could just conclude especially when the Supreme Court found two
28:03
years ago that Harvard for years has been practicing a policy of
28:08
race based discrimination against Asian Americans in
28:11
favour of more favoured ethnic minorities and and you know that
28:15
is something which deeply concerns the government, I think
28:18
concerns American taxpayers American taxpayers want to see
28:21
money go to intellectual cultures and institutions that
28:25
pursue freedom of inquiry. That model balanced reasonable
28:30
disagreement about issues that Americans care about The trouble
28:33
is as I as I know from having I just got back from Berkeley in
28:37
the United States I actually had a wonderful time and Berkeley's
28:39
making great great strides on this front.
28:41
But many of the Ivy League universities are simply not
28:44
reflecting the very real differences that are tearing
28:47
America apart. And one of the primary public
28:50
functions of university, in my view, is to inform an electorate
28:53
and to model good disagreement on issues that reasonable
28:58
Americans, reasonable citizens, disagree violently about,
29:01
especially in a polarised culture.
29:02
Right, so all. That the US can do effectively
29:06
is say, look, we expect federal subsidy from American taxpayers
29:11
to be spent in a way that reflects the public good and
29:14
does not privilege an ideologically captured client
29:18
class of American. Academic, but this is this is
29:20
about, you said it yourself, it's about the freedom to learn,
29:23
which is also the freedom to research.
29:25
These institutions would say that even though they have huge
29:27
amounts of money from the private sector, the kind of
29:30
money they need in order to do the kind of research that has
29:33
made American University is great, that has made America
29:36
great, you know, into the sciences, into medicine, that
29:40
is, that relies on federal funding.
29:42
And when that federal funding is cut because they refuse to do
29:46
certain things that the government asks them to do, you
29:49
know, that's bad news for America at the end of the day,
29:51
isn't it? I think these are very blunt
29:54
tools, but they are maybe the only tools available to an
29:57
administration that wants to restore American universities to
30:02
where they were. And I haven't seen any argument
30:05
from the left or right. What do you mean to where they
30:07
were? What do you mean by that?
30:08
Well. To where?
30:09
To where? American American universities
30:11
were at their very peak in the late 20th century.
30:14
They were great engines of research.
30:16
That's still great engines of research.
30:17
If I were an American, I would want to see universities
30:21
flourish, and I wouldn't in particular would want to see
30:23
universities reflect to the very real debates that are happening
30:27
off Harvard Square in Main Street America.
30:30
And as we know, American politics is getting more and
30:33
more polarized on a whole range of issues.
30:35
And nobody doubts that. Trump vans.
30:38
They were elected unambiguously back in November.
30:41
Thank goodness. That was no doubt at all.
30:44
Now, is it the case that every single policy action perfectly
30:48
reflects every campaign promise? No.
30:51
But my goodness, what politician can claim that they're able to
30:54
do that? I think that real moral scandal
30:56
would have been if they'd spent months and months, years and
30:59
years and saying, we're saying we're going to bring in tariffs,
31:02
we're going to try and sort out Ukraine.
31:03
We're going to try and get a. And then do nothing.
31:05
And then do absolutely nothing. That would have been a
31:07
Democratic. Outbreak, but Donald.
31:08
Authoritarian is saying we're simply exercising our executive.
31:11
Authority. You can you can implement the
31:12
will of our election. But you can live up to those
31:14
promises, but do it in the right way and do the more nuanced way.
31:17
You want them to be more cuddly? I can't make Donald Trump be
31:20
more cuddly. Doctor James, Always of the
31:23
philosophy of religion at Cambridge University, thanks
31:26
very much for letting us talk to you in your home.
31:28
That's it from the the special edition of the Forecast.
31:31
Hope you enjoyed it.