Andrew Muller

You're listening to the Monocle Daily, first broadcast on 10th July, 2026.

Has NATO survived another summit? Is the World cup making the United States cooperate with other countries despite itself? And yet further reasons to visit the south of France in summer? I'm Andrew Muller. The Monocle Daily starts. Hello, and welcome to the Monocle Daily, coming to you from our studios here at Midori House in London. I'm Andrew Muller. My guests, Hannah, Lucinda Smith, Charlotte Macdonald Gibson, Tom Webb and Joanna Moser will discuss the day's big stories. And we'll have our weekly wrap up of what we've learned. Stay tuned. All that and more coming up right here on the Monocle Daily. This is the Monocle Daily. I'm Andrew Muller. And we will start in Ankara, where the NATO banners are being and undistributed souvenir tote bags being put on ebay. Following this week's NATO summit, most of its participants will have flown home thinking that it could probably have gone worse, the measure these days being the mood of one participant, that is US President Donald Trump, who did prompt some anxious wincing by once again raising his preoccupation with the United States acquiring Greenland, but was also distracted by a resumption of American hostilities with Iran and or as he appeared to believe, a nation state called the Islamic Republic of Japan. Well, I'm joined with more on this by Hannah. Lucinda Smith, Monocle Contributor, formerly based in Istanbul. Hannah, first of all, the role of hosting a NATO summit was bound to come up sooner or later, as it does for every member of the alliance. But how big a deal was this for Turkey and perhaps especially for President Erdogan?

Hannah Lucinda Smith

Yeah, you're absolutely right. And it has been a long time since Turkey hosted the NATO summit. The last time was in 2004. But every host country, every decision on which country is going to host is, of course, symbolic. And for Turkey, this is really the sign of Erdogan, in particular, moving back to the center of that alliance. There was a decade there when Turkey was really on the peripheries. It was spoken about as a kind of unreliable ally. There was all kinds of analysis whether or not Turkey might leave the alliance, whether it might be kicked out, all kinds of angst over Erdogan's purchase of the Russian S400 missile defense system. And even as as little as four years ago, you might remember Erdogan using his veto power to stop Sweden and Finland or at least delay them from joining NATO in the wake of the Ukraine invasion. And yet here we are Today, it's not only been hosted at Ankara, but also Erdogan has been hailed as the leader, perhaps the only leader within NATO, who was able to bring Trump to this summit.

Andrew Muller

I mean, Turkey, for that reason and many others, obviously a colossally important member of NATO, custodian of the Black Sea, bulwark against The Middle East, NATO's second last largest military, and so on. But does Erdogan appear to actually value the alliance in a way that President Trump appears very much not to?

Hannah Lucinda Smith

It's difficult to tell, isn't it? I mean, there have certainly been points that I sort of outlined there where he certainly has not, on a personal level, perhaps, not particularly. His diplomats certainly do. That's always been the interesting thing. Even when the Turkish relations with NATO were kind of at the lowest ebb, whenever you spoke with other people in the military or diplomats in Turkey, they would say, no, no, no, everything's fine, it's on. I think there are two things, really, that make Erdogan value the alliance at the moment. The first, of course, is Russia. Now, while Erdogan does have this quite strange sort of bromance type relationship with Vladimir Putin, Russia is always a threat to Turkey. It has always been historically. They're rival powers in the same region. Of course, Russia is by far the bigger country with bigger military, and NATO is a kind of insurance for Turkey, especially at a time like this. But secondly, Erdogan has really pumped up Turkey's defence industry and NATO is going to be a major market if Turkey can get in on European defence funding, that's, of course, through the eu, but there is a big overlap between these two alliances, and if he can get other countries to agree. So I think these are the two things which, for him make NATO very valuable at the moment.

Andrew Muller

Did we also see a glimmer of President Erdogan's sense of humor in the choice of gift to his fellow NATO leaders, some of whom did not realise till they unwrapped it when they got home, that they'd been sent away with a working revolver and a supply of ammunition.

Hannah Lucinda Smith

Yeah. Sense of humor, Andrew, is not a term I usually associate with Erdogan. I would say it was probably entirely an ironic, again, a sort of nod to the Turkish defence industry. You know, there are other leaders in recent history who used to like to give golden revolvers as presidents, one of them being Saddam Hussein. Not that I'm making any comparison there, but it does feel quite odd in the context of NATO, doesn't it? It feels like a far more kind of, you know, Middle east or sort of showboat dictator move than one for the summit of an alliance which, you know, has democracy and individual liberty and rule of law prescribed into its values. But yes, I think Keir Starmer in particular ran into some troubles with that ncaa. They were all given an export license, but in Britain, it's a problem about

Andrew Muller

bringing it in to the summit itself. Do we think most leaders, and perhaps Erdogan included, will have gone home thinking that probably went about as okay as it possibly could have? Trump did tee off about Greenland at least once, but other than that, it seemed relatively peaceable.

Hannah Lucinda Smith

It did. And I think NATO officials are going to be breathing a sigh of relief. There were a few wobbles, as you say there. You know, Trump, not all sweetness and light, but certainly a lot more than we've seen over the past couple of years since he became, since he became president for the second time. You know, getting him there was the first step. What people were then worried about was would he stay there, would he have some kind of blow up, would there be some kind of, you know, upset? And that largely didn't happen. You know, he went away seeming to be quite content and seeming to be almost back on side with NATO.

Andrew Muller

Well, back on side, I guess, with all of NATO, with the obvious exception of Spain, who he did single out for its unarguably laggardly defence spending, at one point threatening to end all trade, including tourism with Spain, though it remains unclear as to how he would actually do that. But is it possible that on the quiet quite a few other NATO members who spend more of their GDP than Spain does might actually agree with him?

Hannah Lucinda Smith

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this has always been classically the issue that divided the U.S. from the European NATO allies. Right. The U.S. has always wanted European NATO members to spend more, even when the target was far lower at 2%. Now, obviously that has been raised. Spain is an outlier and it's openly saying that they're not going to do that. Also, of course, very, very critical of Trump and Netanyahu's attacks on Iran that's been going on since the start of this. Do other countries agree with Trump on this? I think some of them might privately agree. But let's not forget, if you look at the sort of geography of Europe and of where Spain is, it's at the kind of furthest point away from where the real sort of tensions and hotspots are in Europe. It's no surprise that the biggest spenders are countries like Poland. And I think also it's no surprise that Spain, being where it is in the southwest of Europe, would be less concerned about that.

Andrew Muller

And one other headline to look at this was Trump making and again, it's not entirely clear whether this decision is absolutely and completely up to him, but making vague promises to give Ukraine something it has long wanted, which is a license to build its own Patriot missiles. This is the American system which has been very valuable for Ukraine's air defense. Is it significant, though, that Trump, who has been obviously in the past fairly vociferously, Ukraine skeptical, is talking in those terms?

Hannah Lucinda Smith

Yeah, I think the biggest point we can take from this is symbolic. I mean, it was only back in February 2025 that there was that disastrous meeting between zelensky, Trump and J.D. vance in the White House where Zelenskyy was basically treated like a naughty schoolboy, humiliated, you can say, by his American allies. Now, giving this permission for Ukraine to manufacture the Patriot missile defense system is not something that's going to happen immediately. Defense experts are saying, you know, at a push, they might be able to start manufacturing within a year, but that would be sort of really speedy. It's more about the kind of signal it sends. And this is the strongest signal that we've seen for a long time of Trump's backing for Zelensky in Ukraine.

Andrew Muller

Hannah? Lucinda Smith, thank you for joining us. You're listening to the Daily. This is the Daily on Monocle Radio. A cup is by definition a global endeavor. Whoever is hosting it more or less out of sight. A World cup is also a global policing operation. The FIFA International Police Cooperation Centre brings together the law enforcement agencies of every competing country to share intelligence. This is an intriguingly counterintuitive proposition at a World cup being held mostly in a country latterly suspicious of any variety of multilateralism, up to and including falling out with and threatening violence upon the two countries with whom it is co hosting. Well, joining me now is Charlotte McDonald Gibson, Washington based correspondent and regular Monocle contributor. Charlotte, first of all, the FIFA International Police Cooperation center, for those of us who may have woken this morning not knowing any such thing existed, what actually goes on at it.

Okay, so essentially there are 46 nations out of the 48 nations in the World cup. We're invited to send a small team of police or other security personnel to help police the World Cup. Now, the obvious question is there's 48 nations, there's 46 there, who's not there. One's rather obvious, Iran is not there.

That was my first guess, yes.

And can you guess the second one, I wonder.

I'm going to go one of the slightly, I'm going to suggest that Curacao did not bother to send a constable. Am I right?

Close, but no. In fact it was Haiti because of course they don't really have a functioning security zone. True enough, they were not actually invited. So that was a conscious decision by the US sort of security apparatus not to invite those two countries for security reasons. But other than that, no. Curacao sent some people, Cabo Verde sent some people. So basically everyone sends a small team and then two of that team sit in this, a huge operations room where they're sitting at tables with host cities. So, you know, for example, when I was there, it was the day of the game between Japan and Brazil in Houston, I think. So you had a table and you had two Japanese police officials, you had two Brazilian police officials or security officials or intelligence, depends on the country, what they want to send. And then you had two officials from Houston. So they're all sitting at the same table. So literally in real time, they're watching the games, they're sharing intelligence, they're looking at, you know, online action activity from their home countries, from what's happening on the ground, they're looking at what's happening on the ground at the stadium, and they're in real time. They're all able to sort of come together and say, oh, this looks a bit, this looks a bit weird, we should look into this or, or, or getting tipped from the ground. And they're able to basically sit across each other at the same table and talk about it in real time as the match is happening and in the build up to it, what are the

vibes like among the different police forces? Because my own experience certainly of seeing multinational military operations up close is the shared profession tends to override any rivalries that you might think would exist between the countries.

Yes, it was all very good natured when I was there. I would say I was there before the match had started. And I did actually ask the, the FBI agent in charge, Doug Olson, I did, I did put that question to him, like, does it get a little spicy when the match started? And he said it actually does. He said he's had some of the, the police stand up and sing the national anthems before the match. And there is a bit of healthy, healthy competition. So I think, although obviously professionalism wins the day and the security concerns are absolutely utmost. They, they, you know, you can't help it, can you, when your team is playing? You can't help but get behind them. And I think it's the same there in that. In that, you know, very serious security oper.

Now you have a clip to introduce illustrating the interagency cooperation.

Yes, that's right. So this is Andrew Giuliani. The name may be familiar. That is, of course, Rudy Giuliani's son. Andrew Giuliani was put in charge of the White House task force for the World Cup. So essentially, he's the White House point man for running the World cup. And, you know, sort of a, you know, obviously a big. A big, A big ask of him, and there was a lot of questions asked about his. His qualifications for it and whether or not it was a little bit of nepotism. So there was a lot of pressure on him. And I think, you know, when we saw him, he was absolutely determined to tell us how wonderful the entire World cup had been and how great all this international security cooperation had been.

Andrew Giuliani

The coordination between the interagency. What you see is the White House task force, with the FBI being a key player in that Department of Homeland Security, obviously, as well. And. And our other task force partners have been really, really key to be able to work through all the information flows, both going down to state and locals and then back up. And we rely heavily on those FBI field offices as well, to make sure that everything is safe and is secure. And this International Police cooperation center is an important part of that, too, because we get to see actually what might be some tendencies of fans that maybe local police in Philadelphia or New York. Traditionally, New York Giant fans or Philadelphia Eagle fans might not have the same type of tendencies, let's say, as in Argentina with the banderoso, let's say, I think it's called the banderoso, the pep rally, as we like to call in the United States, the day before.

Andrew Muller

Is there a wider lesson here, perhaps, Charlotte, that for all that Andrew Giuliani represents an administration which has cultivated a reputation for not playing nicely with others, that institutional cooperation does continue, if largely under the radar.

Yes. And I thought that that clip that we had there just illustrated nicely why that's so essential, you know, because as you said, you know, you know, he was talking about, you know, police forces from a city, understanding the fans of that city. But it's the same on the global stage. You know, every single country cannot, you know, operate in a vacuum. They need intelligence from the other countries to work together to understand the threats to global security. One country, despite what Donald Trump seems to think, they can't know absolutely everything. They do need the help of others. So I think that, yeah, there are some really important lessons to be learned by the Trump administration from what was going on in that room, from that sort of respectful, multicultural, cross cultural exchange of information.

Did you get any insight into whether there had been any particular concerns that the police had identified or were pursuing? Or does this whole thing so far seem to have gone actually reasonably smoothly?

Well, yes, I mean, from what we can see, so far it has gone quite smoothly. If we think about the big Ultimate Fighting Championship cage fight on the White House lawn, that obviously happened a few weeks prior to the World cup starting. They had a very serious security threat where there was a plan for some drones to launch explosives and some shooters to be on the scene. And that was a very serious threat. We asked has there been any similar, have any similar threats been identified at this World Cup? They said no. They said there have been a lot of drones. I mean, the drones seem to be the biggest, big issue. They said there'd been like 11:39, I think the figure was around that ballpark. Drones that they had detected, they'd intercepted 500 drones. So they seemed very focused on the drones. But they said overall in terms of security, they hadn't seen the kind of football hooliganism sort of in the past generally has been a very, very good natured World Cup.

Charlotte MacDonald Gibson, thank you very much for joining us. You are listening to the Daily on Monocle Radio Video. You are listening to the Daily with me, Andrew Muller. I'm joined now by Monocle's deputy head of radio, Tom Webb and Monocle Radio researcher Joanna Mose for a look at what those of us who haven't been in the south of France have been missing. Tom, you are the producer of today's program and I, I put it to you that you have inserted this item just so you and Joanna can come on there and show off about what a marvelous time you've been having.

Tom Webb

That's exactly right. And it's the world of opera as well. So stuff you twice. I went to Aix en Provence for the opera festival and it's when the elite of Paris leave the oven in inferno that is the city, to head to the fan assisted oven of the south of France. It's still 40 degrees, it's still unbearable.

Andrew Muller

And I've got, and that's even before the opera starts.

Tom Webb

Very funny. Actually, there are three operas I want to mention and the first one is a whopping four hours long. It's Strauss's A Woman Without a Shadow. It's Directed by an Australian, Barry Koski.

Andrew Muller

So therefore it's marvelous.

Tom Webb

Therefore it's marvelous. And he wore a big yellow flowery shirt to opening night, which basically our national costume, Tom. But best thing that you can see there, it's set designed by Michael Levine. It's got three huge scene changes, a three story tower that rotates. It has a man on a rocking horse, but instead of the rockers, it's blades. And there's real deer underneath the blades as he rocks over the real deer, they are deceased, but they were once real deer.

Andrew Muller

So there's like, there's just blood and guts everywhere.

Tom Webb

There's blood, yes, not the guts. It is horrifying. It's a very blood.

Andrew Muller

Tom, is this something you actually saw or did you have a lot of whiskey and cheese before bed?

Tom Webb

No, it is actually cheese is the snack that they serve during the interval, by the way.

Andrew Muller

So can we infer from this, Tom, because regular, that you have overcome any trauma that may have been sustained, as regular listeners may recall, in Italy earlier this year when you accidentally went to the opera for what sounded at the time like a fairly arduous evening.

Tom Webb

Yes, that was five and a half hours of Wagner. The music of Wagner is not Strauss, it's not joyful and neither is anything that happens on stage. But this was. That's my number one recommendation. Would you like two more?

Andrew Muller

Can you park those for a moment? I do want two more, but we should bring Joanna in as well to talk about the marvelous time she's been having in the south of France, while some of us, Tom, have not been in the south of France. Joanna, what were you doing and why?

Joanna Moser

Well, it was marvelous as well, but too hot indeed. I went for Confect's newsletter as well and it was amazing. Such a great experience. You know, Arles is the. Nowadays we can call it the photography capital. And photography itself is marking the 200 year mark of the medium. And it's impressive to see so many people around the city, all the independent galleries, the institutions filled with amazing photographs of all around the world. I have to say I'm a nerd for historical context pictures. So I definitely recommend an exhibition all about Ghana's independence, which is really, really interesting because it was sort of focused more into how they started to show themselves to the world through design. So, for example, those distinct, very small collection of stamps and how they suddenly started to, you know, have a design on stamps and added little kids on the stamps and little drawings and it was super colorful and it was very, very interesting to see Such a unique

Andrew Muller

view of this country, because this photography festival in Arles has been going on for ages. I've never been, but always been quite envious of those members of staff who do get sent. Tom. I mean, I was available, someone could have asked. But to be clear, this is a photography exhibition, like in one venue. This sort of takes over the whole town.

Joanna Moser

It takes over the whole town. And comparing to Milan, for example, which it's a bit, you know, it takes 20 minutes to get to a place. It's so easy because I would put on Google Maps, the next destination I wanted to go, and it would take five minutes. So you're just walking around the city. Suddenly you enter this old palace or a small gallery or a bookshop, and you'd immerse yourself in another completely different world, because each of them photographeries of any place around the world.

Andrew Muller

And I'm going to go ahead and guess, having never been to Arles, that in common with all small towns in France, just charmless architecture, dreadful food, lousy wine, like, just nothing enjoyable about it at all.

Joanna Moser

I mean, food, I have to say, it wasn't the best, really. So I agree.

Andrew Muller

This is controversial.

Joanna Moser

So I agree. That's controversial for sure. I mean, you could grab a good sandwich maybe, but the food for me was not the highlight, but the architecture for sure.

Andrew Muller

Okay, well, we've just blown our sponsorship chances there, Tom. You had two more operas you wished to discuss.

Tom Webb

Two more. Yes, yes, Here we go. The second one is new ahead, its world premiere. It's what you call a contemporary opera where the music is classic and nice, but they throw weird sounds in, like someone emptying a dishwasher throughout it for reasons I don't know.

Joanna Moser

How do you feel about it?

Tom Webb

It didn't sit well with me.

Andrew Muller

So was this a dishwasher being opened and shut as a sort of percussion instrument?

Tom Webb

Well, it was. It was during a scene, a woman's baking bread. And to illustrate that, the orchestra had plates stacking down in the pit. Yes.

Andrew Muller

Just to be clear, a woman making bread is not the entire plot of this opera, is it? Because.

Tom Webb

No, the entire plot is a woman suffocating people with cushions and pillows. It is a caperdora and it's based in Sardinia. And these are people who used to euthanize people in the night, but with pillows. And they do this throughout the opera. And it's only an hour and a half. I don't want to give too much away, but that is a good ticket in my book.

Andrew Muller

I mean, only hour and a half Any longer than that, then you run the risk that the audience might start regarding the people being suffocated with pillows with an amount of envy. What was the third one?

Tom Webb

The final one is Mozart's Requiem and that is also an hour and a half, no interval, and it is staggering. The music, of course, finest music ever written, arguably. And on it, the 150 opera singers who usually just stand and sing opera. They do maypole dancing. At one point they all get completely naked and writhe around in the soil like worms as all the music and all the lights go out. And this is outdoor.

Andrew Muller

I feel obliged to ask again, Tom, are we discussing an actual opera or another one of your dreams?

Tom Webb

A staggering, staggering piece of theater and opera and is performing very well.

Andrew Muller

Do you know if any of these are going on tour, that if they will be available to be seen elsewhere?

Tom Webb

Yes. The Woman Without a Shadow, which is my number one five star show, is heading to Brussels and then Athens over the next two months.

Andrew Muller

That's the one with the rocking horse with blades.

Tom Webb

It is, yes.

Andrew Muller

Okay, that sounds. That sounds honestly like an idea Alice Cooper would have turned down as possibly a bit much.

Tom Webb

Have you met Michael Levine?

Andrew Muller

I have not. Joanna, is the photography exhibition ongoing? Can people still catch it or have we missed it for another year?

Joanna Moser

No, you have not missed it. Of course there are some events only this week, but the whole festival is around until October.

Andrew Muller

So if people have been inspired by this chat to go along and see it for themselves, having obviously taken the precaution of packing their own sandwiches. Aside from the Garner exhibition, is there anything else you'd recommend?

Joanna Moser

Well, maybe the Pop Up Bookstore by Louis Vuitton. They took over this wine shop in the city and they have all their hundreds of different titles of their collection and they just launched two new editions. One called It's All About Ibiza, the City, and it's by Lachlan Bailey, which is one of my favorite photographers. And you sort of feel like you're in Ibiza just looking at the pictures. I think it's definitely one that you're just sitting in your living room and it transports you there completely.

Andrew Muller

Just finally, because I'm much like yourself, I'm always fascinated in contemporary photography of historical events. I'm a big fan of proper magazine photography generally, as we all are here at Monocle. Did you sense any descending despair about the future of photography?

Joanna Moser

That's a good question. I'd say, actually people are. It's interesting because they're going back to the old medium of photography. So I'd say people, because of that, they're then shooting again with film photography, for example. And actually in parallel with this festival, there's this group of young people that launched three years ago, this new festival called off. So then around the city, you have these independent and smaller galleries that bring out a new generation of photographers to bring it back, and a lot of film ones, a lot of talks and to sort of go away from the institutions. And they have launched print magazines with pictures. So they're kind of going back to an older version of photography and getting away from social media and printing everything.

Andrew Muller

Again, Joanna Moser and Tom Webb, thank you both for joining us. This is THE DAILY with me, Andrew Muller. And finally on today's show, it is time for our weekly wrap up of what we've learned. We learned this week that you, US President Donald Trump had found something else to cheat at or on other than golf or wives. We learned that Trump had turned his attentions to football, specifically the ongoing World cup, and in particular to the travails of Folorin Baljugun, a striker with the United States team who had been dispatched to an early bath in their group game against Bosnia Herzegovina.

Donald Trump

Final decision is red card

Andrew Muller

and duly suspended for the next match. We learned that Trump was not having

Donald Trump

this and that wasn't a foul, that wasn't even an infraction and had done

Andrew Muller

what, in fairness, any sports fan has dreamed of doing at some point and made a call.

Donald Trump

Yes, I asked for a review by FIFA. I spoke to a man who's highly

Andrew Muller

respected, at which we learned of a new record for the heaviest lifting ever done by the phrase highly respected. But we further learned that instead of doing what FIFA did when we rang them up this week and demanded the rescinding of that ridiculous penalty Italy were gifted against Australia in 2006.

Donald Trump

Lucas Neil cannot believe it and Fabio Grosso has won it to the chance of snatching this one in the very last second.

Andrew Muller

That is issuing what struck us as an unnecessarily sarcastic and frankly hurtful retort. When Trump called, they rolled right over.

We begin this afternoon with a White House phone call shaking up tonight's World cup matchup between the US And Belgium. In a surprise move, FIFA lifted US Striker Flo Baligun's one game ban.

Honestly, it's one law for presidents of the United States and another for the compilers of winter whimsical news review monologues. But we and for we in this instance, read literally everyone outside the United States and probably more than a few Therein learned that we were all somehow suddenly Belgian. Rydo if we must, and that karma may still be an operational concept.

Unknown Belgian player or commentator

After their team scored toward its fourth goal, a handful of Belgian players did the Trump dance, the one where he pumps his fists in the air. It's a move he does frequently when dancing to the song ymca. After the game ended, the official Belgian team account on X posted a simple taunt quote, overturn this. End quote.

Andrew Muller

But sticking with the subject of the United States being steered into calamitous defeat by the hubris of its commander in chief, We continued to learn, and honestly who knew, etc that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps were an obdurate, contrary bunch who were always likely to make the most of being effectively handed control of one of the world's most important waterways by a military endeavour, next to which any of Don Quixote's tilts at a windmill looks like Operation Overlord.

Donald Trump

I think it's over. I don't want to deal with them anymore. They're scared. You know what scum is? They're scum. They're sick people. They're led by sick people and they're vicious, violent people.

Andrew Muller

We learned, however, that part of the United States difficulties in the Persian Gulf were due to Iran being joined in the fight by a surprising, at a number of levels, ally.

Donald Trump

We had 111 missiles shot by the Islamic Republic of Japan.

Andrew Muller

Verily, it's like 9, 11 and Pearl harbor all at once. So we also learned in passing of the Muslim conquest of Japan, which, we'll be honest, was a development to which we and the world's media at large had perhaps paid insufficient attention as all right, thinking people would reasonably agree. But we learned that as well as grappling with the threat of the new samurai jihadi enemy without the United States was once again menaced by a dangerous, ruthless and profoundly imaginary enemy within.

Donald Trump

I think this is, I think, the concept of us going communist, because one thing that happens when you go communist, you never come back. Never comes back. You die in squalor.

Andrew Muller

All right, lads, hit it. Yes, we learned that to paraphrase Marx, and indeed Engels, a spectre was haunting the United States.

Donald Trump

The Communist Party is made up of illegal immigrants, criminals, and everybody that doesn't want to work. Communism is a loser.

Andrew Muller

At least as big a loser, arguably, as the United States football team. But we learned that though by any reasonable analysis, the Communist Party of the United States is indeed a loser, their best ever result in a presidential election being the 1.4% of the vote scraped together by William z. Foster in 1928, and that the peril they pose may have been blunted still further by a split in 2024, which resulted in the formation of the rival American Communist Party, a left wing sect sundering over arcane differences of dogma about which no sane person could possibly care less. Can you believe it?

Donald Trump

No.

Tom Webb

That blows my mind.

Andrew Muller

No way.

Blow me down.

None of this was about to stop Trump banging on and on and on. And if you have a moment, on and on, on and on about it.

Donald Trump

America will never be a communist country.

Andrew Muller

We learned indeed that the President's doughty resolve that the hammer and sickle would never fly from atop the Capitol had been designated something of a theme of the United States semi quincentennial observances.

Donald Trump

And as our Declaration of Independence tells us, we are all made in the image of one, one almighty God. And a communist will never say that.

Andrew Muller

But we learned, and not for the first time, that the President's grasp of his nation's history is no more or less than the grasp of anything which might be expected from someone with such famously tiny hands.

Donald Trump

Our American ancestors did not shed their blood at Concord and Trenton, Gettysburg and Shiloh, Midway in Normandy, just so that a band of thieves, radicals and lunatics could come in and loot pillage our nation.

Andrew Muller

Thieves, radicals and lunatics coming in and looting and pillaging the nation being a literal description of how America was founded. But checking out on the subject of sea borne invaders disrupting the locals way

of life, Tasmania is once again under siege from a one ton visitor who's become Australia's biggest Internet statistics, we learned,

yes, that the Tasmanian settlement of Pelican Point was once again being dismantled by a seal.

Tom Webb

So it's seven bollards, three signs, street

Andrew Muller

signs, two fences and two car bonnets and an unlucky phone box.

That's just this week.

But we were regrettably unable to think of a political figure to whom this braying, lumbering, bellicose beast, wrecking everything in its path and generating agog media coverage while its fans tittered and applauded, ordered could be compared. And that is all for this edition of the Monocle Daily. Thanks to our panelists today, Hannah Lucenta Smith, Charlotte Macdonald Gibson, Tom Webb and Joanna Moser. Today's show was produced by Tom Webb and researched by Josefina Astrud Nagla Gomez. Our sound engineer was Christy o'. Grady. I'm Andrew Muller here in London. The Daily is back at the same time on Monday. Thanks for listening and have a great weekend, Sam.