Transcript of USA ‘24: How Britain is preparing for Trump or Harris

Good morning and welcome to politics at Jack and Sam's Daily.

And oh my goodness, it is decision day in the United States. The whole direction of global politics is about to be decided by a few thousand people in Wisconsin or somewhere over the next few hours. It's absolutely on a knife edge. And Sam Coates, I can see you're as excited as I am.

I certainly am. Good morning. It's Tuesday, November the fifth, and And across Westminster, across London, across the whole country, everybody is holding their breath until the first results come in from about midnight tonight in the US presidential election. Months of planning has taken us to this moment. Two sets of relationships have been built up by the Starmer government with Democrats and Republicans. Two parallel plans are sitting in Whitehall, one for a Kamala Harris presidency, the other for a repeat Donald Trump presidency. But given the level of global instability and political unpredictable, are they even worth the paper that they're written on?

Sam, we should just quickly whiz through a couple of bits of domestic politics first before we get on to the most important thing in the entire Blooming world. What's happening today in Britain. A couple of things. The government wants to talk about the smoking ban, which is back, Richie Sunak's idea. The Tobacco and Vapes Bill will be introduced in Parliament today. Of course, there's lots of Torre action, too, because Kemi Badenock is finishing off announcing her first ever the Shadow cabinet. Let's just talk about those in one minute each, Sam, and then get on to America. What did you think of the first announcement from Kemi Badenock last night?

Well, we've got her first Shadow cabinet at 9:00 AM, so eminently, we're going to have the rest of those appointments. But I have to say, Jack, already there were some surprises in there and some clues about the leader that she intends to be. There's probably no more important appointment than who Cammi Badenock was going to put in the position of Shadow Chancellor. I have to say, I had anticipated it might be Andrew Griff. There was reporting over the weekend that Andrew, who was, I think, pretty much the first MP to back her and has had other prominent roles in government and in the Shadow cabinet until this point, might have got it. He was something of an ideological fellow traveler to Kemi. I think he was quite keen on a big picture rethink to reshape the size of the state. But it wasn't that. It was Mel Stride, former Work and Pension Secretary, Leadership Contender himself, and altogether more one nation, Tauri, has been put in that job. That tells us she's sending a signal that she knows that her approach alone needs to be melded with those colleagues from across the spectrum. Her second big appointment was Priti Patel, a well-known figure who's been in government back since shortly since the Cameron days, really.

Priti Patel is the Shadow Foreign Secretary. Why does she put her in that position? Well, leadership contender for sure, but also just to shore her up on the right of the party. The other appointment signaling an intent on putting people faces for the future in top jobs, Laura Trott is Shadow Education Secretary, and that's about showing that the next generation are in charge. Finally, Robert Generick himself. Well, that was a curious one yesterday because sources close to Robert Generick tell us that he's going to be the Shadow Justice Secretary, but that's not being confirmed by team Badenoch. We think it's probably going to happen, but I think Kemi likes to do things at her pace, probably won't be that impressed that this news seeped out from places other than her team. Let's just make sure that the I's are dotted and the T's are crossed on that appointment before it happens.

Yeah, we said yesterday, the key thing with this shadow cabinet was, would she be reaching out right across the party or would she just be taking her supporters? I think putting Mel Stride in there pretty much shows that she's looking to reach out. Mel Stride, as you say, the epitome of one nation tourism. Priti Patel, like a friend of Boris Johnson coming from quite a different place, showing Kevin Bain not wants to bring in all the wings of the party. We shall see the rest of the Shadow cabinet very shortly. However, they're not going to get any publicity because nobody cares about the talkies today because all they're going to care about is America. Just very quickly on the UK government business, the smoking ban is back. Richieism is back for one last though. This is largely Richie soon. It's policy about phasing smoking out forever, making it illegal for anyone who's currently 15 or younger to ever buy cigarettes in the UK. It's also going to be an extension of smoking cigarette bands in outdoor areas. But happily for people who like smoking in pub beer gardens, that bit of the idea looks like it's being dropped, which will definitely be caused for celebration for some.

Is that enough, Sam? Can we get on with America now? I'm really chomping at the bit here.

Yes. Okay, so it's It's all about the race to get to 270. Now, we will get our first indication of what's going on when the polls in the East Coast close about midnight UK time. The rest trickle in overnight until the polls close on the West Coast at 04:00 AM. Quite whether we have a result in the hours after that, we shall see. We didn't in the last couple of presidential elections.

Just a couple of things to watch for. If you are staying up tonight and you're watching on TV. In the end, it is probably all about those three Rust Belt states. They will probably be the ones that decide who is the President of the United States. They have voted in lockstep since 1988. If one of them seems to be going well for one of these candidates, then probably the other two will as well. It's been a long time since they split and voted in different ways. And so there's every chance that if you see one of them going well, then all of them will go well for that candidate. The other thing to say is that some of the other swing states, Arizona and Georgia, their votes come in, their results come in earlier than the Rust Belt. So if you see, say, Kamala Harris outperforming expectations in those states earlier in the night, there is every chance she'll be outperforming expectations over in the Rust Belt as well. And she might be on course for the presidency or vice versa. If you are staying up through the night, keep an eye out for that.

Very, very last thing, Sam, before we get onto the UK is the polls could be wrong, man. When it's this close, the polls could be wrong. We've seen it before. It's something like the EU referendum. People put a lot of time and a lot of energy, and very, very smart people are thinking about this stuff all the time. But even they will tell you polling error happens, like some strange things happen in the final days of election. When it's this close and in an electoral college system, it doesn't take very much to push one of the candidates over into what looks like a landslide, even though it's literally a few tens of thousands of people who went that way.

I have to say it's very, very tense. It's even tense amongst posters. I watched yesterday as one polster was losing their shit with another polster over past vote recall in a rather grumpy way on social media, such Which is the fine margins and the sense of drama. Listen, we're a UK-based podcast, so we've got to talk about just how Britain is shaping up to handle both potential outcomes in this race. Look, there's no doubt across Whitehall, and they didn't even need to say this out loud, but it is easier for the UK if Kamala Harris is elected than Donald Trump. It won't be a straightforward relationship in some senses, and the US may not be everything that it has been in the past from Britain's point of view, but the unpredictable ability, the flashes of anger that we're so used to Donald Trump showing, the position decisions that he's taken on everything from NATO to tariffs to China, all pose big, big, big strategic and political challenges for the UK. As the last few months have progressed, and indeed before the British General election, the Labor Government were aware of this and have been trying to prepare for both outcomes.

What are the curiosities is that despite the Labor Party being undoubtedly relatively closer to the Democrats than the Republicans, actually, Kierstammer has met Donald Trump, and he hasn't met Kamala Harris, and not for trying. But one of the big goals that Labor has set itself, and this is Kirstamah, but also, particularly the Foreign Secretary, David Lamme, has just been to forge as many links as possible with the Republicans to provide a measure of insulation should Donald Trump be in the White House once more. So there's It was a centerpiece of the relationship between Labor and Team Trump was that dinner on September 26th at Trump Tower. Kirstamah went with David Lamme. Karen pierce, the ambassador in Washington, was there as well. The fact it was in Trump Tower, I think in particular is something that people in Whitehall point to. They said that shows it was a gesture of friendship. Almost nothing has leaked from that dinner until this weekend At the end, and Tim Shippen in the Sunday Times got some details which I'm told are true. At the end of the meal, Donald Trump looked at Kirstama and said, You and I are friends.

You're a liberal, so we won't always agree, but we can work together. When it comes to David Lammey, who has made extremely disobliging comments about Donald Trump in the past, apparently, Lammy was laughing in all the right places, and the President personally offered him a second portion of food, which we are told is a gesture of friendship.

Can I just say that was the funniest briefing I've ever seen? Who in that dinner could have briefed that the fact that Donald Trump offered David Lammy seconds means that he loved David Lammy? I just found that so funny. It's like the politics of dinner with Donald Trump is a wonderful thing. Sorry, go on, Sam.

I think that work on Republicans has undoubtedly been going on. It's not all been straightforward, and there has been some accusation from US Republicans that the nature of the labor Republican loving has been overstated and overbriefed. But David Lammey has been five or six times in opposition to America to try and pick off Senate Republicans, House Republicans. That's how he got to know JD Vance, the Donald Trump vice President pick. They bonded, I'm told, over a shared ground of growing up in tough places. Being lawyers before politics. Lannie has also got to know Robert O'Brien, Elbridge Pollenby, the potential national security adviser. There's a sense of there are people to phone, and there is a sense that Karen Keirs, the probably outgoing US ambassador in Washington, has pretty much the best connections amongst the Republicans of anyone. Then when it comes to Kamala Harris, although Keirs Dimer hasn't met her, of course, famously, you had that delegation of his most senior staff, including his Chief of Staff, Morgan McSweeney, over to the Democrat Convention in August. The links between the two parties are historically strong, something that's annoyed Donald Trump. But David Lammey has met her, even if Keir Starmer hasn't.

David Lammey met her when she was a senator. He was going out to see the Black Caucus on the Hill. He's not pretending he's got a personal relationship with her, but There's quite a lot of shared political allegiances. Lamy's big relationship, his big shiny relationship, of course, is with Barack Obama. They both went to Harvard Law School, not at the same time, but they bonded at a Harvard Law School alumni event and have stayed in touch ever since. There are personal links with both. I don't think there's any doubt which one anyone in Downey Street or the Foreign Office would rather be dealing with, but they have done some work to brace themselves if it goes the other way.

There are two big issues that are worrying people in Whitehall about the Donald Trump victory, pretty obviously. One is Ukraine, given the comments he's made about ending the war on day one and what that would mean for the security of Europe. The other is on trade tariffs, and he's talked about slapping huge tariffs on all imported goods of America, which would obviously be a very big hit to the UK economy, were he to do that. On the latter, we've got an interview in Politigo today with Jonathan Renner as a business secretary, where he says that they have been modeling these scenarios inside the UK government if Trump does win in terms of what those tariffs would mean, and would there be some retaliation? Certainly, the EU has been drawing up big retaliatory measures in preparation for a Trump victory. But the truth is, they really don't know which one of these candidates win or any better than you or I do. And so they just have to try and prepare for both scenarios. On Ukraine, foreign office is doing a lot of work on this. They try and speak positively. They say they don't think he really would just pull the plug on the war on day one, that doesn't actually want to be seen to have lost this, that he can be talked around, that he talks.

He says a lot of things in campaigns didn't always materialize last time when he became the President. But nevertheless, the stakes are so high in Eastern Europe and for Eastern Europe that, as you say, every single person I've spoken to across the British government privately wants Kamal Harris to win if they'll admit it because of the uncertainty that Donald Trump would bring.

That's right. I think tariffs could end up being a huge issue if Donald Trump does win. The US is Britain's biggest export market. We're talking 62 billion pounds in 2022. Our second biggest export market is Germany. That's worth half that. What's interesting, Jack, is when I talk to maybe people close to the Foreign Office or close to the Treasury, they're like, Yeah, but our main relationship with the US is in services, not manufacturing. So we're not that worried. I I have to say, unsurprisingly, manufacturers, and by the sounds of it, the business department is considerably more worried. I know that companies have been lobbying the government to do this modeling, that they're desperate for government to step in and try and help in this effort. But whether or not they can be shielded from it, it's too early to say.

We are almost out of time, Sam. How are you going to be spending tonight? Are you going to be staying up all night watching TV?

I can't actually see any window for sleep between now and the moment I speak to you tomorrow morning.

My goodness, you're going to stay up all night. You're a bald man. I am definitely going to watch the football and go to bed, but I will be getting up at the crack of dawn to talk it all through with you, Sam. It's going to be quite a night, and who knows? We may have a new president elected by the next time when we speak tomorrow morning. It's very possible that one of these candidates just does a teeny bit better than we're expecting, and that's all it takes to sweep the suing states, and it's done and dusted, at least in our minds, if not in the mind of Donald by the close of play.

See you tomorrow.

Good luck.