I'm Gita Hai and we're going to be unpacking the politics of the day, including the

turbulent international relations under massive strain at the moment. Joining me in the studio is

the former diary editor of the Times, Patrick Kidd. I still think of you as a man. I'd occasionally give a story to and get a bottle of champagne in return. Well, that happened. I did 12 years. That was long enough. Those were the days. And then also on the line is the Times columnist, Sebastian Payne. Thanks very much for joining us, Seb.

Lovely to be with you, too. How's it going?

It's very jolly here in the studio. We'll drag you in here next time, but we'll start with you,

since you've beamed in. What do you make of, let's start with that message. message you know a man in the white

house in the Oval Office a commander in chief the most powerful man on the

planet and he manages somehow to be well I think pretty rude about Allah you

know the god for you know a billion and more Muslims around the, and he uses the F word in a message.

What on earth is going on?

I mean, I feel like we get tired of saying that we're seeing unprecedented things from

this president, but this has to be a new level.

And I mean, it's partly the fact it's just incredibly crass and unhelpful. I don't really know what the aim of that message was. I mean, because Donald Trump does make all these deadlines all the time about, you know, you've got to do it by this time and he may bomb more, may not bomb more. But, I mean, as you say, you know, the thing that he said about Allah is obviously deeply offensive to the millions of Muslims in America.

Many of them, I'm sure, will have voted for him for president.

But I think it just kind of how volatile this situation is and also the sense that the president really

have an off ramp for this, because when he first started the war in Iran, I don't think anyone thought it was going to be, you know,

he didn't think it was going to be this you know, he didn't think it was going

to be this messy and this complicated. And now he's clearly desperate for a way out. And I know this

might seem like a minor thing. But in that tweet, you know, by targeting energy infrastructure and

infrastructure in general, that is a war crime that he is threatening to do there and people might

just become desensitized to it. But I think it's important to not be too desensitized. I've just realized

how absolutely outrageous a lot of this is, but it is fundamentally a president who just doesn't have a

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