Trump’s state visit was a ‘news bonanza’
Coffee House Shots
The Spectator
4.4 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 18 September 2025
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Donald Trump has been in the UK this week on an unprecedented second state visit – an honour that he said last night at a state dinner he ‘hopes’ is reserved only for him, to much amusement in the room.
Humility doesn’t come naturally to the President, but he does seem genuinely humbled by the pomp and pageantry that comes with a state visit. Meanwhile, Trump-management and grandstanding on the world stage seem (bizarrely) to come naturally to the Prime Minister. Trump's visit – which threatened to be derailed by the sacking of the US ambassador Peter Mandelson over his association with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein – has been a welcome reprieve from the tumult of domestic politics for Keir Starmer’s Labour party.
A tech deal has been agreed which involves investment from US tech companies in the UK to the tune of several billion pounds; there was some soft diplomacy between the Princess of Wales and the First Lady today, and this afternoon’s press conference wasn’t totally sidetracked by questions about Mandelson... although there are clearly some tensions bubbling under the surface, mainly on energy policy, Palestinian statehood and Ukraine. Was the visit a success?
Oscar Edmondson speaks to Freddy Gray and Tim Shipman.
Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
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Transcript
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| 0:46.4 | Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, the Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast. I'm Oscar |
| 0:51.0 | Minson and I'm joined today by Tim Shipman and Freddie Gray. Now, Donald Trump |
| 0:55.2 | and Kirstama have just wrapped up their joint press conference, which brings to the end, |
| 0:59.3 | the President's State Visit. It was, of course, a state visit that was compromised by the |
| 1:04.0 | sacking of Peter Manelson as US Ambassador because of his association with Jeffrey Epstein. |
| 1:09.2 | But Tim, it did seem with this state visit, like there was |
| 1:12.8 | huge opportunity for awkward moments, but they seemed to avoid too much awkwardness. Is that a fair |
| 1:19.5 | assessment? Yeah, I think so. I think Kirsteim would be very happy with how the last 48 hours |
| 1:23.3 | has gone. They've done a deal which should mean lots of cash coming the way of British tech |
| 1:28.7 | companies and most of the landmines that could have erupted in the press conference were avoided. |
| 1:34.5 | There's clear disagreement on stuff, Palestine, to a degree on Gaza and Putin and all the rest of it, |
| 1:41.9 | but they clearly had a reasonable chat in private. They agreed |
| 1:45.2 | to disagree on certain things. And Donald Trump really was on his best behavior. But the great |
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