Up next in 10
Luke Harding is a best-selling writer, back with a new book called 'Betrayal: Trump, Putin and the new age of conquest'.
He speaks to James O'Brien about his theories on Russia's war in Ukraine - and how the US President ties into it all...
Luke also touches on the British role in the supposed betrayal, discussing the imprisonment of long-time Farage ally Nathan Gill for taking bribes from the Russian state.
Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp
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0:00
Really, I think Trump has pretty much checked out with Ukraine
0:02
Certainly, American peacekeeping efforts have stopped. Another reason why he went into Iran. Another reason why he went..
0:07
Look over here, look over here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, again, as I said, the genre is almost dark comedy
0:13
apart from the fact that people are dying. The biggest betrayal is obviously Donald Trump and Ukraine
0:18
I mean, since he came back, he's cut all direct US military assistance. He's tossed Volodymyr Zelensky last year from the Oval Office
0:24
And he keeps mysteriously repeating Kremlin talking points. And basically my thesis, or one of them, is that he swaps sides
0:33
He actually supports Russia. He's the most pro-Russian president in US history
0:37
And either he actively wants Russia to win in Ukraine, or he doesn't really care much what goes on there
0:45
I mean, you frame the question, don't you? Which I've heard a couple of other people ask as well
0:51
Philip said Brian most recently on this program. If Trump were a Russian agent, what exactly would he do differently
0:57
And when you actually think about that, when you try to answer that, it's terrifying
1:02
It's terrifying. And the point is, this is this chaotic, protean president with people coming and going and the cast being swapped like in reality TV
1:11
And the only constant that we've seen, James, over two non-consecutive presidencies is his sort of fealty to Putin, his submissiveness
1:19
And it really is bizarre. bizarre. I mean, I write about the Alaska summit, you remember last year, where Trump is waiting for
1:26
Putin to descend from his plane. He starts applauding wildly and looks nervous
1:31
The word compromise does appear in the text. Well, yeah, compromise for those not familiar with KGB methods, compromising material, which
1:39
I'm sure by now, James, has been gathered on you as well. But the point is..
1:43
There isn't any, mate. Not so sure about that. But anyway, the point is that this is what the KGB and its successor
1:50
the FSB, which Putin used to run, does, which is to target upwardly mobile people in business
1:57
and politics, particularly from America and the UK, and to try and seduce them or use them
2:02
instrumentalize them. And the thing is, we don't know what Putin has got in his vault. But it's
2:08
clear, I think, that Trump knows what he did. And Putin knows what Trump did as well. And I think
2:16
this is one factor among others which explains Putin's leverage. Because the leverage is the most extraordinary element of all of it, isn't it
2:24
This idea that, you know, it may just be because, as you say, he's chaotic or it may be because he is compromised
2:29
but he just is a puppet on a string when it comes to Putin's interests
2:33
Well, I mean, it looks like, and I think the other striking thing about our dark times
2:38
this sort of new age of imperialism, is that it's not just the Russians who, let's remember
2:43
stole Crimea in 2014, began a covert war in the east of Ukraine the same year
2:49
It's not just them who want to kind of reconstitute a great empire. It's the Americans as well
2:54
I mean, we've seen Trump threaten to annex Greenland, menace Canada, rename Lake Ontario, Lake America
3:01
And it's the sense that they're kind of dividing up the world, like the famous James Gilray cartoon of people sitting there with knives and forks
3:08
from the 19th century. and this is not the America that you and I grew up with a shining city on a hill a place of freedom
3:16
global leadership and so on it's predatory unreliable and grubby and it's striking how
3:22
quickly that has that has happened um I was delighted to see a reference to something I
3:27
began to worry I dreamt in some sort of fever dream going back to when Fiona Hill warned I think at a Senate hearing that the conversation she had reached her ears
3:39
about a deal being done by which Putin would be left to steal the rest of Ukraine
3:46
and Trump would in return be able to take over Venezuela unmolested
3:51
And you sort of that's so grim and Bond villain-like in its content
3:58
that I seriously began to think I'd dreamt it. I had to double-check that it did actually occur
4:04
It's all true, and it turned out to be prophetic. I mean, you know, go Fiona Hill, but that's precisely what happened
4:11
I mean, things move at such a pace you forget. But just to remind everybody, in January
4:15
Donald Trump kidnapped the president of Venezuela. and the problem was it was quite a successful operation that they paraded them on tv and chains
4:25
in new york and all great and i think this emboldened him to next attack iran yes um and
4:32
look at the the quagmire that he's ended up with in the middle east how do you do you you manage to
4:37
do something that a lot of us struggle to do which is to simultaneously report the reality while
4:43
recognising that the reality is completely warped? Because there's a danger of bringing a slide rule
4:48
a traditional toolbox, or, I don't know, the Queensbury rules to a knife fight
4:53
because Trump is so obviously unhinged and Putin is so obviously depraved
4:58
that you almost can't say 2 plus 2 equals 4. Certainly when it comes to Iran
5:04
Trump will claim victory on Monday, announce another ceasefire on a Tuesday, threaten Iran with imminent destruction on a Wednesday
5:10
claim that they have been destroyed completely on a Thursday, and then go back to threatening them again on a Friday
5:16
I mean, do you just get your head down and crack on, or do you have tactics
5:20
I'm going to have tactics. I think the most important thing is truth
5:24
Do you remember that? Vaguely. It'll never catch up. The idea of truth
5:29
In other words, that we don't fall for both sides of them, that he says this, and, you know, they say that
5:35
A lot of the media still does, doesn't it? We're distracted by say, by speech
5:39
whereas actually what we should look at is what they do. Ah, yes. And my other tactic, I think, is to be there, is good method
5:46
So I've spent much of the last five years reporting from Ukraine, including the front line. And as well as the geopolitics and the crazy swirl of international relations
5:55
what I try and do is give voices to the people caught up in this, you know, old people or families
6:01
those who are displaced or bombed or killed or maimed, so that history isn't abstract
6:07
It's actually something that affects you and me. They are the victims of the betrayal, really
6:12
They're the ultimate victims of the betrayal. But for a kind of quirk of geography or genetics, that could be us
6:19
And we're talking in Ukraine about the biggest war in Europe since 1945 with a thousand kilometer front line
6:25
with ballistic missiles and drones raining down on Kiev, where I live for much of the year
6:30
This is not normal. And of course, you bring China into it because it's just a form of green light for their imperial ambitions
6:37
We're back to the Gilray cartoon. We look at the ongoing intimidation of European states
6:45
And that brings us to the news that has broken in the last couple of days
6:48
with regards to the drone attack at Leipzig Airport. Again, you know, we're looking at Russia being blamed for a drone attack at a European airport
6:59
And you must be one of the least surprised people on the planet. Yeah I mean they tried to blow up a plane Let be clear They tried to blow up a plane at a German airport And I think again there a sort of conceptual issue here This is something which eludes many politicians which is that the Russians say very clearly they are at war with us by which I mean the UK
7:19
the collective West and so on. And there's a squeamishness to acknowledge that we
7:23
therefore we are at war with them. But once you start from that basis, you can understand the
7:27
drones, the disinformation, the bribery of politicians from the Reform Party or UKIP
7:33
to be precise, the attempts to meddle in our politics, to undermine our society, and also
7:39
to incite us. I mean, you've had a bit of experience with this, so that we shouted each
7:42
other all the time. You know, we don't have a civilised conversation and that the moderate
7:47
centre of politics somehow collapses. So this is the KGB playbook. It's being rolled out
7:53
across Europe. The Russians especially hate this country and this town. They think it's full of
7:59
tea-drinking MI6 spies. Probably you're a spy, I'm a spy, who plot ceaselessly against Russia
8:06
And it would be funny were it not actually quite serious. And had the guardrails that were largely
8:14
policed by the United States of America not collapsed so completely. Let me steer you back
8:19
to the thing you just mentioned, chapter 11 of the book, looks at the bribery of Nigel Farage's
8:24
close friend and protégé Nathan Gill on eight counts of bribery, ten and a half years at the
8:28
Bailey, sentenced last year because he was accepting money to parrot Kremlin talking
8:35
points in the European Parliament and beyond. What's remarkable about this story is I know that
8:40
the alleged Ukrainian-born Russian spy who bribed Nathan Gill, I mean, in fact, he sent me an angry
8:47
email two days ago from from from moscow accusing me of being a member of the perfidious liberal
8:52
establishment but that story again so but but but the point is that that british politicians sell
8:59
themselves quite cheaply nathan gill was getting 5 000 euros and in used notes wrapped in a rubber
9:05
band under a table in brussels to repeat kremlin nonsense um in in the european assembly you know
9:12
European Parliament. And what is... Some of his colleagues happy to repeat Kremlin nonsense for
9:17
free, though. Well, that is the question. The question is that other members of his party
9:21
but bearing in mind Gill's office was next door to Nigel Farage, was saying the same thing. They were joined at the hip. And witting or unwitting, paid or unpaid
9:29
they were happy to do Russia's bidding. And you have to ask yourself why, and also ultimately where
9:35
their allegiances lie. Did you expect that story to have longer legs, a longer tail
9:41
Nathan Gills, did you expect the ramifications perhaps to reach some of his
9:45
former colleagues and indeed his mentor, Nigel Farage? I mean, look, I tend
9:49
to write about foreign politics rather than domestic politics but if it had been a Labour
9:53
politician who'd taken money from a Russian you'd expect that the din, the noise
9:57
And a very, very close associate of the current leader. Yeah, would have been all enveloping
10:01
and somehow because it's Nigel Farage he gets a free pass but I do
10:05
think that the flow of money into UKIP and reform the associations with Moscow
10:10
and Maga is catching up with Farage. And I guess he doesn't come on your show
10:17
but he seems to have been quite quiet. He's always welcome, Luke. I just want to make that absolutely clear
10:21
14 years we've been waiting for, or 12 years, I think. We've had the door open since he last stormed out of it
10:27
But, you know, I'm nothing if not an optimist. Back to Ukraine. There's some nice stuff, isn't there
10:33
There's some sort of silver lining territory. It a scant silver lining in some ways of course but they are now a world beating authority and manufacturer of drones and drone technology The status of Ukraine if and when peace is finally achieved is utterly different
10:48
from what it was before the illegal invasion. Yeah, I've been going to Ukraine for nearly 20
10:52
years and there've been several Ukraines. It changes at warp speed and really now they've
10:58
actually surprised everybody, including the Americans and the Brits, by holding off this
11:03
kind of Russian monster. And now bringing the war to Russian territory. You heard Zelensky
11:09
recently saying, you know, warning that Russian airspace is unsafe because it's full of marauding
11:13
Ukrainian drones that have been blowing up oil refineries and warehouses and so on. And Vladimir
11:18
Pichin, he genuinely expected to seize Kiev in three days and to raise the Russian flag
11:23
you know, above the main street. And that hasn't happened. And of course, he's escalating
11:28
which is what he does. Which leads to the obvious and probably unanswerable question about how you
11:33
see things transpiring. Well, I mean, my assessment is pretty gloomy. I mean, I think the war will
11:40
continue so long as Putin is in the Kremlin and it will end or pause only when he's removed
11:45
horizontally in a coffin like Leonid Brezhnev. Remember him in the 1980s. So unfortunately
11:51
he is bound up with the war. He has a kind of, he's given a kind of rosy portrait of what's going
11:57
on there and he's he's an incredibly murderous and vindictive individual one thing occurred to me
12:03
and there's quite a lot um a very compelling ysis of america's broader decline the fact
12:11
that middle eastern countries now no longer feel either protected by or threatened by the united
12:17
states on the way that they did under previous administrations whether or not this is a consequence
12:21
of Trump being useless or whether or not it is a broader issue of, you know, the rot setting in
12:29
Similar here, Putin probably believed, I mean, your ysis is that Putin expected Trump to
12:34
deliver the Ukrainian surrender that he wanted, that Trump would come into the White House and
12:39
somehow strong arm or finagle or just, you know, pull the rug from beneath Zelensky. That hasn't
12:46
happened. Is that more, first of all, is that a fair ysis? Yeah, I mean, I've been putting
12:51
brain is a Soviet brain. And he believes that the Americans puppet the Ukrainians and can tell them
12:56
what to do. And I mean, firstly, that's wrong. And secondly, the irony is that by not supporting
13:02
Ukraine with military assistance, I mean, the Americans still give intelligence, but not much else. That means that Trump's ability to influence events in Kiev is small. That's what I wondered
13:10
And, you know, he would love to bully Zelensky into signing a deal. He tried it last year
13:15
Because he hasn't got the leverage. It didn't fly because he hasn't got the leverage. And really
13:19
I think Trump has pretty much checked out with Ukraine. Certainly, American peacekeeping efforts have stopped
13:23
Another reason why he went into Iran. Another reason why he went... Don't look over here, look over here
13:27
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, again, as I said, the genre is almost dark comedy
13:32
apart from the fact that people are dying. All the time. People are dying all the time. And you address in the book, including some extraordinary encounters
13:39
with very sort of technically peripheral characters like North Korean soldiers who suddenly find themselves
13:44
getting captured by Ukraine, a poignant vignette there, and all sorts of other people in Ukraine
13:49
who are living in circumstances that, you know, we didn't even see during the Blitz in this country
13:54
It's a bit vicious and it's primal and it's brilliant. So thank you
14:00
Betrayal by Luke Harding is out now. Trump, Putin and the new age of conquest
14:08
Bleak, that's the word, isn't it? That's the word that you just used. It's bleak, but I still think we need to try
14:15
and be optimistic where we can
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