The Starmer-Trump love-in
Political Fix
Financial Times
4.2 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 28 February 2025
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Donald Trump showered praise on Keir Starmer during the UK prime minister’s visit to the White House this week, describing him as ‘special’, a ‘beautiful man’ and a ‘tough negotiator’. Host Lucy Fisher speaks to George Parker — who was there in the Oval Office — plus fellow Political Fix regulars Miranda Green and Stephen Bush about the upshot of the visit, from a potential UK-US trade deal and tariffs exemption to the PM’s failure to clinch a watertight US ‘backstop’ in Ukraine. The team also discussed the government’s changing spending priorities, ahead of development minister Anneliese Dodds’ dramatic resignation on Friday.
Follow Lucy on Bluesky or X: @lucyfisher.bsky.social, @LOS_Fisher, Stephen @stephenkb.bsky.social, @stephenkb; Miranda @greenmirandahere.bsky.social, George @GeorgeWParker @georgewparker.bskyb.social
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Presented by Lucy Fisher. The executive producer is Manuela Saragosa. Original music and sound engineering by Breen Turner. The FT’s head of audio is Cheryl Brumley.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What a beautiful accent. I would have been president 20 years ago if I had that accent. |
| 0:08.0 | Thank you very much. |
| 0:10.0 | Welcome to Political Fix from the Financial Times with me, Lucy Fisher. |
| 0:17.0 | A special man, a terrific person, a tough negotiator. Donald Trump lavished praise on |
| 0:24.2 | Kirstama after their meeting at the White House this week. So how did the PM pull off such a |
| 0:29.9 | diplomatic coup? Coming up, what we can conclude from their encounter. Plus, more ammo, less aid. As the world changes, so do the UK's spending |
| 0:41.0 | priorities. Joining me to talk about it all are political fix regulars Stephen Bush. Hi, Stephen. Hi, |
| 0:47.2 | Lucy. And Miranda Green. Hi, Miranda. Hi, Lucy. And fresh off Starmer's plane from Washington, |
| 0:59.3 | making a heroic effort to join us on Friday is the FT's political editor, George Parker. |
| 1:00.1 | Hi, George. |
| 1:03.5 | Lucy, I don't know if I'm feeling fresh, but thank you very much for having me. |
| 1:16.6 | Well, George, we've got to kick off with you because you were there in the Oval Office as Kier Stama and Donald Trump met. They answered an extraordinary number of questions there. |
| 1:19.6 | Then, of course, they had a press conference later in the day on Thursday. |
| 1:22.6 | Take us inside the room. What was it like? |
| 1:25.6 | Well, it's an extraordinary thing, a Donald Trump press occasion, and in this event, it was the room. What was it like? Well, it's an extraordinary thing, a Donald Trump |
| 1:29.3 | press occasion, and in this event it was the Oval Office, and they have what they call the |
| 1:34.0 | spray at the start, which is normally a sort of banal sort of interchange between the presidents |
| 1:39.8 | and whoever happens to be meeting him. In this case, the Oval Office was packed full of journalists. |
| 1:45.5 | There were security guys there. One of them told me off of putting my phone down on the |
| 1:49.9 | president's desk, packed in there. And then Donald Trump holds course. And in this case, |
| 1:55.5 | he just took questions for, I think, probably 25 minutes. I got to ask him a question as well, |
| 2:00.3 | which my kids were very |
... |
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