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Munya Chawawa, comedian and social media star joins James O'Brien to discuss his upcoming documentary, Wrestling with Trump. James and Munya uncover the links between Donald Trump and the WWE, how the President seems to use techniques from the wrestling world, both in the White House and the campaign trail, and more. Is Donald Trump running the White House like Wrestlemania? Well, as James says, 'the evidence is everywhere if you look'. Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp #jamesobrien #donaldtrump #wwe #politics #lbc LBC is the home of live debate around news and current affairs in the UK. Join in the conversation and listen at https://www.lbc.co.uk/ Sign up to LBC’s weekly newsletter here: https://l-bc.co/signup
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0:00
It's actually close to surreal that last week we introduced each other
0:05
well, you introduced me to the word kayfabe, which I had not actually, I'd managed not to come across previously
0:10
And then a sort of cautious nudge of the idea that the relationship
0:14
between Donald Trump's regime and his sort of modus operandi and WWE, professional wrestling, was something worth examining
0:24
And then it just exploded in our hands while we were talking about it on the radio. So Johnny Vaughan had suggested to me that I needed to pay more attention to this
0:32
Linda McMahon, of course, has become Education Secretary, while having previously been known only, really, for her involvement with professional wrestling
0:40
And Munya Chihuahua, one of the funniest people around at the moment
0:44
who, I'm not even on TikTok, but his clips and films somehow managed to invade my consciousness
0:49
and make me laugh, proper laughs on frequent occasions. You'll know his work
0:54
he has already delivered a documentary on precisely this subject just as i was picking
1:00
up the phone on you to pitch it to somebody here you are with it's on tomorrow night on channel 4
1:04
great minds birds of a feather or birds of the same spandex wrestling tights
1:08
so you began yes as a wrestling fan absolutely and what was so surreal is you know i had took
1:16
wrestling away in the sort of treasure chest of nostalgia you know i'd grown up with it and i
1:21
decided right it's time to step away so imagine how i felt now when i see hulk hogan ripping his
1:28
vest at a maga rally then i see triple h in the white house and then linda mcmahon uh secretary
1:34
for education i i could i couldn't connect the two in my brain and it's only through going through
1:40
the deep dive of the documentary do you realize it's been in plain sight all along wow what are
1:45
the big kind of themes what are the what are the key because you need to speak to both people who
1:50
have followed wrestling which is a lot of people and people who haven't which is also a lot of
1:54
people so so some of the stuff i found really helpful actually it crystallized it made sense
2:00
i look at people like um robert kennedy and hegseth the defense guy and i could not imagine
2:07
how anyone would ever appoint them to senior roles in an administration until i was introduced
2:14
to the notion of building a stable of wrestlers yeah and i listened into that well first you've
2:19
During the documentary, you have to understand the mechanics by which wrestling operates
2:23
Because we think it's just body slams and elbow drops. But to earn that catharsis of physical violence, you need to build a story
2:30
And there are devices for doing that. The smack talk, which are these quotable threats
2:34
The Rock was the king of smack talk. You got the foreign heel which is the deliberate stereotyping of the foreign outsider You know in wrestling like a Japanese Yoko Zuna the Iron Sheik who was Iranian American Muhammad Hassan who was post 9 used to
2:52
carry out a terrorism storyline, despite being an Italian American. And then you've got the
2:57
kayfabe, which is what you've spoken about, which to my view, is kind of the soap operatic
3:02
element of wrestling, which is blurring the line between fiction and reality. So once you
3:06
find out those are the tools wrestlers are using, you then ask, have I ever seen any of
3:10
that in Trump's political strategy? And the short answer is yes. And you couldn't start finding
3:14
evidence. I mean, once you're looking for it, it's as if you are immersed in it, right? Because
3:19
the links are, I mean, absolutely complete. Yeah. Well, I mean, first and foremost, you know
3:26
Trump already had an affinity to wrestling because as we know, he loves a strong man
3:30
And wrestlers are the strongest in many ways. He hosted WrestleManias, he took part in a
3:35
wrestlemania and then it one theory that we float is what if that time he took part in a
3:41
wrestlemania which for a while was the most viewed pay-per-view of all time yeah maybe that was the
3:46
first time he was able to stand amongst thousands of people and doing the wrong thing was the right
3:52
thing smack talk which ordinarily wouldn't fly outside the ring suddenly was gaining him like
3:57
these gladiatorial you know coliseum lock her up lock her up would that be smack talk absolutely
4:02
uh you know uh sleepy joe crooked hillary of course give them all nicknames exactly that's
4:08
the dehumanization process the foreign heel you know uh saying all mexicans are rapists or
4:15
haitians are eating cats and dogs that is creating the foreign heel and when that happens in wrestling
4:20
what you'll find is the crowds are screaming usa usa that's what happens in the ring and in this
4:25
political context or at his rallies it's the same thing and it almost deafens out any nuanced
4:31
nuanced thinking because all you can think about in that moment is your patriotism and wanting to
4:35
protect your way of life what about this idea that those of us who have never been enthusiasts for
4:41
for wwe or any of its sort of precursors or competitors that it's obviously not true but
4:48
it is true at the same time it reminded me a little bit of trump's line about fifth avenue
4:52
being able to shoot someone on fifth avenue and not lose a single vote because everybody knows
4:56
that this is happening but at the same time nobody knows that this is happening this is
5:00
exactly it man this is what we talk about when we speak about kayfabe so to put it into context
5:05
right you know how people say wrestling is fake okay and like how could anyone possibly believe
5:11
this it's not necessarily as fans that we did believe it it was more that we made a mutual
5:16
agreement with the wrestlers to suspend our disbelief because it was more enjoyable as a kid
5:21
i watched kane bury his brother alive you know i was in year nine mourning the death of the undertaker i watched uh you know vince mcmahon being blown up in a limo and i thought it was real but maybe a small part of me didn And kayfabe in wrestling makes a great story but in politics it Kevlar because what it means is you can never be wrong or right if you make a ludicrous
5:41
statement and then you go on to fulfill that policy or pledge, you're a hero but if it falls
5:46
flat I turn around to you and I go, we're stupid for believing it, that's on you. That's incredible
5:50
So when you win you're the victor, when you lose you're the idiot. That's alternative facts
5:55
fake news in a nutshell. In fact, you see it now with Iran. I know the war kicked off
5:59
after you'd finished making the film, but you see it from one day to the next
6:03
It's a ceasefire on a Monday. It's an escalation on a Tuesday. It's all over on a Wednesday
6:08
They're going for a drink on Thursday. Yeah. And then it recycles
6:12
It's rinse and repeat. And it matters, but it doesn't matter. It's true and it's not true
6:17
How do you... I mean, by trade, you're a satirist and a comedian
6:23
I haven't seen the film yet. I'm going to watch it tomorrow night on Channel 4 at 10 o'clock
6:29
How do you satirise? You don't satirise this. You just go into full Louis Theroux type mode, do you
6:34
Because you can't satirise this. True, true. I mean, look, there are some key differences between me and Louis in that
6:40
for example, I have the American bald eagle stretch across my crotch at one point
6:45
before stepping into the ring. But we do satirise to a degree in the sense that, you know
6:51
with the foreign heel arc, for example. Yeah, of course. We play the parallel between how Vince McMahon would use the foreign heel to generate ratings
6:58
and Trump is the same. You know, there's like a sort of Ghostbusters-esque parody where it's like
7:03
do you need to improve your ratings? Blame foreigners. You know, that's the tagline of the song
7:08
So, you know, intuitively wrestling is a pantomime tradition, and it lends itself to comedy quite freely
7:14
But you're right, James. It's becoming harder to satirise because the weight is heavy
7:20
Yeah, of course it is. And not just in the context of this project, but in terms of how do you satirise the world at the moment
7:26
Exactly. You know, after the local elections, I had a message shortly after
7:30
And someone had gone, you know, are you happy with the results today, sausage? You'll be back on the boats with them in two years, right
7:38
And here's the thing. It's like, when I try and, when I have satirised in the past figures like Farage or any political leader
7:46
often, more often than not, it's not for my gain. It's because collectively, whatever happens, we're the victim
7:55
Like, we're all going to have to deal with that together. And so, you know, sometimes people think it's the battle of the echo chambers
8:02
That's what politics has turned into. You know, that adversarial nature, that binary nature of good versus evil
8:08
that's what we are now as an electorate. And it makes no sense because we meant to be the tag team If everything goes wrong in Westminster it us who have to team up in the protests outside to say no we want to change But at the moment we can even have that discourse
8:21
And, you know, James, back in the day, I hate that this is nostalgia now, but when it was Labour versus Tory
8:27
Labour supporters and Tories could be in a pub together and sort of roll their eyes at each other
8:31
But now, if predominantly reform voters are out on the streets and any other political belief is out on the streets
8:37
suddenly we need a police line to stop us throwing bricks at each other. like like we as an electorate that's a loss for for all of us you know and uh so satire for me
8:46
has become less about almost pointing the finger at the obvious enemies and reminding us that we
8:52
we need to when we vote it's not even about making a vote to spite your neighbor it's about making a
8:58
vote to help you it's right to yeah to despite your neighbor it's about making a vote to help
9:01
your neighbor you know don't vote to spite your enemies vote to help your neighbors because if you
9:05
don't do that there's no way we can unite against whatever result comes out and we've seen where it
9:11
can lead as you would have experienced when you were in the united states of america were you
9:15
surprised by anything because it's such a cohesive thesis it's an amazing thing like if you were an
9:21
academic it was almost like every book you open you'd be going yep that proves i'm right and yep
9:26
that proves i'm right it's like the wwe mega crossover is so complete did anything take you
9:31
by surprise i was surprised by how effective wrestling techniques are out in the real world
9:38
you know when you used to watch wrestling right and you'd see someone like chucked off a cage
9:43
through a flaming table no matter what you saw every show was bookended by don't try this at
9:48
home and i used to think as a kid i was like well i'm gonna do the cheeky i'm gonna do a cheeky
9:52
backdrop on a you know a trampoline i'm gonna throw someone into the bouncy castle at my next
9:57
party but for example we went to visit a drinking club for MAGA fans which was called Trumpsters
10:03
triumph Tuesdays which which makes no sense as a name and it was just watching these people and
10:09
speaking to these MAGA fans very open-mindedly yeah and hearing them say things like he's a man
10:14
of the people he's a working-class billionaire he's a blue-collar billionaire all of these
10:19
oxymorons and really seeing that the effect of kayfabe in making people believe that if they
10:25
fell down in the street he would be there to help them it's like watching superman yeah and then
10:29
approaching the actor and being like i'm really struggling to pay my mortgage at the moment could
10:33
you lend me a fiver you know it's just it it works kayfabe works and so now i realize when
10:39
wrestling said don't try this at home it wasn't just the moves it was the storylines i can't wait
10:42
to watch this but i've got one concern i'm not going to come out of it a wwe fan am i life's
10:47
too short they've already got enough box sets queued up to listen stream lbc fans have been
10:52
waiting to see you in a singlet for years now. Give the people what they want
10:56
Who would it be against? Let them know what O'Brien's cooking. Thank you so much
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