How Starmer won over the Donald

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

News, Politics, Government, Daily News

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 28 February 2025

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Unbelievably, Keir Starmer arrives back from Washington today after a successful meeting with Donald Trump. In fact, it’s hard to see how it could have gone much better. Top of the list of victories: it looks like some headway was made in avoiding tariffs on the UK and, on Ukraine, the pair discussed the prime minister’s call for a security backstop for any deal. Starmer described that part of the talks as ‘productive’ and said that a ‘deal has to come first’. There will also be a second state visit for the President.

The greatest victory however is winning personal and effusive praise from the President. The Spectator’s sister magazine in the US was the first to get Trump’s reaction. The president told editor-at-large Ben Domenech: ‘I thought he was very good. I met him twice before – you know, he came to see me twice before – but this time was the best. And I think we got along very well.’ How did he do it? Is this the start of a new bromance?

Katy Balls discusses with Freddy Gray and Kate Andrews.

Produced by Oscar Edmondson.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Spectator magazine is home to wonderful writing, insightful analysis and unrivaled books and arts reviews.
0:05.1	Subscribe today for just £12 and receive a 12 week subscription in print and online,
0:09.3	along with a free £20 £10,000 or Waitrose Voucher.
0:11.8	Go to spectator.com. UK forward slash voucher.
0:18.1	Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, the Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast.
0:22.8	I'm Katie Balls, and I'm joined by Freddie Gray and Kate Andrews.
0:26.7	And we're going to talk about Kirstama's press conference, in a way, two press conferences,
0:31.3	but before we have a Spectator US exclusive.
0:34.8	Freddie and Kate, you have bagged Donald Trump's first magazine interview. Tell us more.
0:40.7	Yes, this is not. That is true. The big story from Washington yesterday was not Kirstama and
0:46.2	Donald Trump. It was that Donald Trump had his first sit-down magazine interview in his second
0:52.0	term with the spectator, with the wonderful Ben Dominic, who has pulled
0:56.0	off a great coup for us. Ben rather canily tried to ask Donald Trump whether he preferred
1:01.7	Kirstama or Boris Johnson, and Donald Trump said they're very different and he demurred
1:07.7	slightly from answering. But it's a fascinating interview. I've seen the
1:12.8	transcript and you should look out for it soon on the spectator.com, the spectators US website.
1:19.5	And subscribe, of course.
1:21.2	Obviously subscribe. And Kate, we've got a few highlights up on the website, on the UK website
1:25.0	to linking back to the US one. What struck you from the interview?
1:28.9	Well, it struck me what a good time Donald Trump had with Kier Stomer. So it wasn't just that they
1:34.1	seemed to get on. It wasn't just that they seemed to make their politics align for a couple of hours,
1:39.6	at least. It was that they actually seemed to have fun together. Trump has told, president told Ben that their lunch ended up going on much longer than they expected.
	...

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