“Nobody can work out what he’s trying to do” | David Dimbleby on Trump and ‘America First'

The man is obviously a deranged bully.Nobody can work out what he's trying to do.Actually, you don't know what he's up to.Incoherent.I think Burnham has started well.I think communication is the first rule of a prime minister who can appeal and his predecessor couldn't communicate.

Broadcaster David Dimbleby has closely studied U .S.might for his new podcast on BBC Sounds and Radio 4, the history podcast, Invisible Hands, The American Century.It tells the story of how the U .S.became a superpower and shaped the world around it.

Mr. Dimbleby is known to generations for hosting BBC coverage of U .S.and British elections, and he's interviewed several American presidents over the years, including asking Bill Clinton this.

One thing people were puzzled by, which was, When you said you hadn't had a sexual relationship with Lewinsky, did you seriously, when you said that, not consider oral sex to be a sexual relationship?

First of all, I never discussed what did or didn't happen.So you only have one side of what happened.I don't believe in discussing it and won't.

Mr Dimbleby?It's outrageous, showing that.Honestly, that is a jaw -dropping question, and you asked it.

Well, I did ask it, but, I mean, it was because I was trying to get at the kind of hypocrisy behind Clinton's I am, you know, better than good, I'm morally superior and all that.He was a bit irritated by it, but it's a perfectly legitimate question.

Absolutely.And it's in the trailer for your new podcast series where you chart how America became this global superpower in the 20th century.Is it in your view a country still on the rise?

Well, I think it's very difficult to say is a country on the rise or going downhill or whatever.In the case of America,it's obviously the most powerful, still, industrially, economically very strong.Its use of power is a bit haphazard with Trump.I mean, what we're tracing is how, after the Second World War, America clearly was the one country left standing on its feet and really powerful and rich, and decided for various reasons, and the invisible hands of the people who persuaded it to do these things, to invest in Europe and to try and make Europe recover, to fight against communism in Turkey and in Greece.later to fight against communism in Vietnam, you may think the result didn't exactly work out as they wanted, but America had a kind of instinctive feeling that the instinct of America is America first.

I think that's at the heart of this.You have to remember that America was made up of white people, leaving Europe and coming to the United States and wanting to make their lives again, leaving aside everybody else who lives in America, just talking about that group.And the idea of America First was a notion that they were seized by because they loathed what had been going on in Europe.They loathed the constant wars and all that, and they felt they could stand apart from it.Then they, and they didn't, they tried not to get into World War I until 1917, I think.when German U -boats started sinking American cargo ships.

They didn't get into World War II.There was a huge America First movement, led by Lindbergh and others, trying to prevent Roosevelt going into World War II.So their instinct is America First.And that's where Trump came in.You remember in his election, he appealed to the MAGA constituency, 51 % of them, America will not get involved in foreign wars.And yet the extraordinary thing is, once he got his hands on the levers of power and realized he could decapitate the head of a man.

and, for God's sake, persuaded apparently by Netanyahu, decapitate the Iranian regime, which was the kind of crazy idea that somehow the thing would fall apart.And it wasn't...We trace the first time they went into Iran, which of course was in the 50s, for goodness sake, you know.So they've always been trying to change the world to suit them.And in the 50s, it was one of the first CIA operations.It's a brilliant story which we tell that they actually, they went in the boot of a car to persuade the Shah to get rid of the Prime Minister, who'd only been in there two years.

And they paid money to pro Shah people, but they also paid money to the other side.So they created a civil war on the streets and then said, well, we're intervening, you must get rid of this Prime Minister.And took the oil, by the way, which we had until then.We had 80%, I think, of it, and they took 40 % after.But it's a complicated story.But all these stories are about American presidents coming in with a blank sheet of paper, Oh my God, I've won the election on the basis of the economy, because that's how you win an election.

Oh, what do I do about the rest of the world?And they're about the people who came and got their ear.I mean, the battle for the president's ear and the ideas that came through, of which Walt Ross on Vietnam is a perfect example.Paul Wolfowitz in Iraq.These are the people who just went on and on saying, this is what you've got to do.This is what you've got to do.

And all our stories in Invisible Hands are about how these influences persuaded presidents to do things, which were America on a big scale, some of them not going all that well.Actually, most of them not going all that well, except immediately after the Second World War and the reconstruction of the United States.the Marshall Plan, which obviously was a great success.

You have told us on Newsnight previously that you considered President Trump to be a narcissist and a bully.And I don't know if you heard, but Andy Burnham, the new Prime Minister, said this weekend that he would be prepared to call out Mr Trump if it was in the British national interest.Is that the correct approach?What do you think of that approach?

I think it's absolutely the correct approach.I mean it's what the European countries are doing more and more now because they realise, you know, one of the stories about Trump which we tell is this lawyer, Roy Perot, who was his lawyer when he was a 30 year old estate agent, dealer in estate, and told him, fight and fight and fight, and use the law, and never apologize, never explain, bing, bang.The man is obviously a deranged bully.And the only way to deal with deranged bullies is to, I won't do the gesture, but actually to have a way of saying, OK, you think that.We disagree.That's not our plan.

And it's happened with NATO, after all.Quite rightly, NATO is building up its defenses under pressure.and quite rightly Trump attacked them, but actually Trump's attacks on NATO and the manner of them and the disparaging way he talks about them, I mean if you're a British Prime Minister of any, I mean Starmer did the same, apart from that, you know, ooh we have a lovely royal visit for you, which was a nice touch, but I mean I think Andy Burnham's quite right to say that.

And Donald?

What do you think of Burnham?

Do you think he's going to You absolutely know I cannot answer that question Mr Dimbleby.We are one BBC journalist talking to another.If Donald Trump were here he would say the way he has disparaged NATO, he wouldn't call it disparaging or criticising, has absolutely worked because they are putting in the extra funds which they have committed to for yearsand not done, he might say.I need to ask you...

Why is he in Iran if he's an isolationist?Why if he fought the election as America first, capital letters, and now in danger of losing their support, I expect, in the midterms?Maybe he will, I don't know.What I mean about Trump is that nobody can work out what he's trying to do.OK, you can say he was right to chide NATO, You know, you can talk about his relationships with, I mean, the previous time with North Korea and with Russia and with China, but actually you don't know what he's up to.It's incoherent.

Sorry, you were going to say something.

No, no.I didn't want to interrupt.No, no, it's fine.We're nearly at the end of the programme, and I've got about a million questions for you.Oh, go on then, quick.I'll ask them very quick.

OK, so you hosted how many general election nights over 40 years?Ten.OK, amazing.And over the 40 years, we had something like six prime ministers.You interviewed most of them, if not all of them.In the last 10 years, as you know, we've had seven.

Why?Why the turnover in the last 10 years, do you think?

I pass.OK. I have no idea, but I mean, I think...

We've only got 30 seconds left.

Well, I think Burnham has started well.The problems are not...No change from what they've been for the last...Since 2028.2028?2008.

But I think he started well because I think communication is the first rule of a Prime Minister who can appeal, and his predecessor couldn't communicate, and that was the cause of his downfall, in my view.

We're out of time.

Oh, Victoria.

Oh, David.No, no, thank you so much for being here.Thank you very much.Thank you.