Alastair Campbell’s diary: Here’s what Zelensky really thinks of JD Vance

Vice president JD Vance and war intern Pete Hegseth, on the other hand, genuinely seem to believe that they are doing God’s work in waging a war which has wrecked historic alliances, upended the world order and international law, screwed the global economy, and gifted their No.1 Middle Eastern enemy a weapon they did not dare deploy until Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu got to work, namely the on-off tap of the Straits of Hormuz chokepoint.

A friend who knows these clowns better than I do tells me that the reason Hegseth has been busy firing generals is not just because of their refusal to take him seriously, but also because they refuse to support his notion that the war is a “fight for Jesus.” Hence, one assumes, the chopping of major general William Green, who headed the corps of Army chaplains.

“God is good…” This, Hegseth informed us, was the first communication from the downed US pilot in Iran, on learning he was being rescued. 

I am fairly confident – not least because of the nature of the keyboard-less communications on which he was depending at the time – that this can go straight into the “things which never happened” category. But it fits with Hegseth’s whole shtick, which has him giving Bible readings at media briefings, overseeing prayer meetings with the military whether they want them or not, and glorying that the airman was downed on Friday, and rose again on Sunday. So it’s not only Trump who represents the Second Coming.

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I’m in Ukraine, a nation let down by America

Alastair Campbell

Unlike them, I hesitate to condemn others as evil, though for sure the Iranian regime has shown plenty of it in its time. But whether it’s the lying, the corruption, the contempt for all but true Trump believers, the insulting of allies, the embrace of dictators, the loathing of human rights, the denigration of entire races, civilisations and political tribes, if I had to put Trump’s top team on a good v evil scale, they are a lot closer to the bottom than the top.

“There will come times of difficulty,” we can read in the Book of Timothy. “For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.”

If only we could. Right now, they seem to lead the news every bloody day.

As JD Vance was lending his support to Viktor Orban, merrily gaslighting again by condemning foreign interference in elections – er, come again, Mr “Vote Orban”! – as ever avoiding a word of criticism of Vladimir Putin while relentlessly attacking Volodymyr Zelensky, I was sitting down to interview Ukraine’s president for The Rest Is Politics LEADING. Here, I felt I was in the presence of a good man. 

One sign of a good man, something you never hear from Trump, is that he is not afraid to admit to shortcomings, recognises there are pluses and minuses in all of us. “We are not robots,” he said.

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Marie Le Conte

OK, the guy made his name as a comedian and actor, and was something of an accidental politician. But you cannot fake the empathy and emotion he showed, when talking about what it’s like to meet the families of fallen soldiers, or how his mum finds his situation harder than he does, or his sadness that his 13 year-old-son – this is something I heard about so often when in Ukraine for the fourth anniversary of the full-scale invasion recently – has had to become an adult while still a child.

You can check out the full interview on the podcast for all the big stuff of war and peace, his frustrations with the US and Europe, his worries about NATO being weakened, his consternation that Trump and his negotiators constantly take Putin at his word, his disbelief at their disinterest in Russian intelligence helping Iran, and so much more.

But I strongly recommend the YouTube version, because sometimes you need to see as well as hear to get the true sense of someone. This is a man just back from a tour of the Middle East who, every time he travels abroad, has to do two 12-hour sleeper train journeys forth and back across Ukraine. Yet he looked fresh and energetic, was warm and friendly throughout. 

It is also a man who has not lost his sense of humour. “You can’t be very, very serious with everything, otherwise you will become crazy. It is just crazy people who don’t have a sense of humour,” he said

My best LOL moment came when he was reflecting on Vance’s visit to Budapest, leant towards the camera, and said “between us …”

I pointed out that several million people would likely hear this, among them perhaps people working for Trump, Vance and Putin. It merely broadened the smile, as he went on to say he was not convinced Vance being in Budapest would be very helpful… to Orban.

New World readers would expect nothing less… when Zelensky was talking about the need for the European Union to bring in more countries, I suggested that might include the UK. He was enthusiastic. 

Ukraine, UK, Norway and Turkey, he said, are four serious military powers, at a time Europe needs to strengthen its own defences … “this is the army that will be stronger than the army of Russia. This is the answer.”

Later in the interview, he welcomed my suggestion that Canada might also be included. I’ve always felt that if Israel can be in UEFA and Eurovision, why can’t Canada be in the EU? “Canada is a great partner, Mark [Carney] a great prime minister,” said Zelensky.

Once the interview ended, I got to work on an outline communications plan for this new Europe, with the UK, Ukraine, Norway and Turkey as members, helping to turn the EU from an economic and political alliance into a strategic defence alliance too. 

What to call the new group that emerged from TRIP LEADING? Easy … UK, Ukraine, Norway, Turkey … UKUNT. When the accession takes place, we can adapt to EUKUNT. And when Canada joins, in order for all five countries to have just one letter, we could replace the K in UK, initially there to avoid two successive Us in UUNT, with the C of Canada.

What joy it would be to see the UCUNT flag flying in Ottawa, sending a clear message over the border to the Orange Man Baby down below.