The bombshell interview that's rattled MAGA

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who will say one thing to the president's face, Democrats and Republicans, and then will do the exact opposite behind the scenes. You know why I really... You know what? They are. And you know why I really love Susie Wiles? Because Susie is who she is. in the president's presence, she's the same exact person when the president isn't around. I've never seen Susie Wiles say something to the president and then go,

and counteract him or subvert his will behind the scenes. And that's what you want in a staffer. Because as much as I love Susie, the American people didn't elect any staffer. They elected the President of the United States. That is Vice President J.D. Vance talking about the White House Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles, after a bombshell interview in which she says things about the president and his inner circle that...

no one expected her to say out loud. Chiefs of staff give interviews after they've left office, not while they're still in it. And the question is, how damaging is this to Donald Trump? Because...

What she reveals is what the White House is really like. Welcome to the News Agents. The News Agents. It's John. It's Emily. It's Lewis. And Susie Wells is a character. And she is powerful. And she's discreet. She is behind the scenes until now. Except... Over the past year, she has been giving a whole series of on the record interviews to Vanity Fair, kind of chronicling what is happening in the White House, what is going right, what is going wrong.

And bang, this has exploded this week with the publication of part one of the Susie Wiles interview. And the whole reason that she has managed to retain... Donald Trump's trust, support and everything else, and when other chiefs of staff from his first term went very, very quickly indeed, is because she was thought to be so discreet.

And she has said things about Donald Trump having an alcoholic personality and disobliging things about J.D. Vance in being a conspiracy theorist and talking about some of the policies that have gone wrong. She's really put her head above the parapet. I think it's also just worth saying why this is so important in the sense of how it could destabilise things, as you know better than anyone, John. I mean, in Trump's first term, Trump...

basically burned through Chiefs of Staff. You know, a long list of them because they were unable to either contain... the personality of Trump or indeed the court of Trump, and they were usually subsumed by it. Wiles has been very unusual because not only has she been central to the president's re-election campaign, sticking with him when he was a bit of a sort of pariah figure after January the 6th, but...

By common consent within Washington, she has been able to inject order, at least more order than there was before in the second Trump. white house by containing lots of those personalities she is this kind of quite ghostly figure and she is someone you know she's from a republican family she's steeped in the republican party and so has been sort of ruling with this kind of rodded rod of iron internally within the one

and therefore has shocked Washington by giving this interview where she is completely direct about the whole cast of characters, not just Trump himself, but all of the sort of senior cadre of the Trump administration. Yeah, I mean, from what I understand, this... series of interviews, which was with Chris Whipple, started off with him saying, I'm going to be writing a book. You know, he is well known and well respected for his...

He has written the definitive history on modern White House chiefs of staff. He did the same for the Biden administration. And so... I think what happened was the series of interviews started over the course, as you say, of 11 months. And in some of them, she's speaking incredibly candidly. There's one where she's actually doing the washing at the same time. You know, it's over the phone, but she sort of comes and goes.

of puts on a bundle of washing i say this to try and give you a sense of how relaxed she clearly feels about the way she's talking to him he's a well-respected pretty neutral journalist this guy chris whipple and at some stage in those recordings he turns around and says actually vanity fair really keen can we turn this into a piece so he's very upfront about the fact it's going to be a piece as well as a book and it sounds as if certainly from his account

The White House was happy with that. It wasn't a secret that Susie Wiles certainly knew, that Donald Trump had sort of welcomed it, and indeed they all sit for this. really rather odd very austere kind of boardroom photo where they are unsmiling serious looking people at the heart of power and I think it was you know to sort of take the time

little at face value. It was a sort of vanity project. It was a way of saying this is what's going on at the heart of Washington. But what's interesting is that somebody like Wiles

who is always so cautious. You know, she's the person who greets Donald Trump when he gets off stage at a Pennsylvania rally that's been long and rambling and lost its focus and just stares at him. She's the person who says... Why didn't you mention the economy? Why didn't you talk about affordability? She's really good. You know, he actually calls her Susie Trump.

The highest compliment. The highest compliment you could possibly have is to say he thinks she is the most important person in the world and she is unafraid of him. And the question is, did she... lose her guard with this journalist that she trusted.

Or was she doing something where she thought, you know what, I'm going to be frank about this because I'm also giving messages to the administration themselves. You know, when she when she describes Vance as a conspiracy theorist, a 10 year long conspiracy theorist, I don't think she thinks. that's a criticism. When she talks about Elon Musk's ketamine habit, she says, well, he told me that himself. You know, he's admitted this. And so she doesn't think of what she's doing as being...

particularly revelatory. Maybe that's the most interesting thing of all. And if you sort of listen to... clips of this and Chris Whipple has got the whole thing on tape he's recorded every single interview Vanity Fair said they're not releasing the whole thing but there are little bits of clips but the thing it sort of started reminding us in the office of was that scene from Succession where

where the young Greg, the nephew of Logan Roy, goes and meets a journalist in a cafe, doesn't realise that he's on record when he thinks they're just having a pre-meeting meeting, and he says all this stuff. Don't think it's too self-aggrandizing to hope I might have some wisdom to impart. There's no time like the present, right? But it would need to be discreet. I don't want to make my uncle mad because he could be...

Well, he can be scary, vindictive, paranoid, and violent. Scary, vindictive. Wait, sorry. None of this. I'm not actually saying that. Yet. Oh. Would you like this meeting to be on background? But this isn't... You can't say I said anything. But you did. Look, Greg, if you want this to be anonymous, you have to...

to say that from the outside. You can't do that. I mean, this is Greg learning in real time the rules of journalism. Susie Wiles isn't stupid. I mean, she's phenomenally smart at the media stuff. That's what I suppose makes this so... curious that we're all slightly unwilling to believe that she's made

a mistake on this what is curious about or like what is pure succession is the bit of the Vanity Fair interview where apparently JD Vance said to the photographer I'll give you $100 for every person you make look really shitty compared to me and one thousand dollars if it's marco as in marco rubio the secretary of state i mean that is perfect absolutely perfect all right fair play jd yeah the thing is though that she doesn't just confine herself i think she's just a very straight talking

woman and i suppose it's not surprising when you're that straight talking that you've said some quite incendiary things what's surprising is that she did it and conducted 11 interviews and i think that what she's doing particularly with Whipple as the interviewer. She's trying to secure her place in history, her legacy of what I did as chief of staff. And Lewis, you talked a moment ago about some of the others that went before from the...

Trump first term. I remember vividly Trump coming back into Joint Base Andrews, the Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. when Reince Priebus had just been sacked. The plane lands, it is hammering with rain, and everyone's kind of rushing down the steps of Air Force One to go to their cars. Reince Priebus is by himself. And all the cars go off in a motorcade in one direction. And Reince Priebus gets into a car by himself and goes off in another direction. And the brutality of what went on.

in Trump's first term, these sackings that would take place mid-air and you'd only discover when you land that you're out, is so different from this time round, where nobody really has been sacked. That first national security... advisor got sacked because of the kind of the small houthy group chat that led to so much trouble. But Susie Wows has been the glue that has kept this operation.

together this time round and it's not just she made some kind of caustic and kind of wry remarks about some of the key characters she's also critical on policy as well about the way policy has been handled and that i think is more uncomfortable for trump because trump likes to think that everything is an absolute stonking success. And the cuts to USAID, the way the terrorist programme was unrolled. Well, she says that she was initially aghast about what Musk did at USAID. Yeah.

you know which is a serious thing and indeed on tariffs has basically said that's basically revealing that there's been a bigger split within trump's team over trade and tariffs and said that it's been more painful than i expected i mean that is quite something for the chief of staff to say about what is the president's Signature economic policy, particularly at a time when the president himself is having plummeting ratings because of his handling on the economy and particularly...

cost of living right so for the chief of staff and let's not forget as unbelievable as it might seem we are now just on the cusp of heading into yet another election year in the united states because it will be the midterms in in november and stuff like this isn't forgotten I mean, some of the other stuff, you're absolutely right, really goes to uncomfortable places when she...

admits quite freely that she told Trump to stop his vindictive prosecution. So she sort of says, oh, you know, I thought we'd be able to keep those to sort of 90 days. But actually, he carried on doing it. She compares Trump, who's famously teetotal.

to having an alcoholic personality. I mean, she says it in the context of her own father. In other words, somebody who can presumably be pretty irascible and sort of flip... flop in you know the way he makes decisions something i can't imagine he'd love by the way the alcoholic comparison given his brother died of alcoholism what's interesting about all this is the response because people have been pretty so far i mean that the pushback from caroline levitt you know you'd expect this is

Unfortunately, another example of disingenuous reporting, where you have a reporter who took the chief of staff's words wildly out of context, did not include the context those conversations were had within. the sort of automatum at the front of the queue doing the pushback. She basically says it was all taken out of context and never speak the mainstream media. I don't think that's come from Trump particularly. I think Trump has sort of...

taken this on board and said, actually, yeah, I do think I have a bit of an alcoholic personality. He's joked about that before. Yeah, because he doesn't drink. So it's clearly not meant to be in any sense a slur on his kind of habits. But I mean, there are two things going on here, I suppose.

suppose one is that she is getting ready to leave you know she may just be getting ready to leave and figures this is an extraordinary way of doing an interview from within rather than exit interview the other way is saying Well, actually, I do want to have some influence. And Trump believes things he reads in the press more than when he's sitting opposite me and my words aren't going anywhere. I mean, famously, he would watch Fox News and call in. That was how his staff would...

talk to him. They'd kind of give him messages on the television because they knew that was the best way of getting his attention. It's not impossible.

sort of going on here. I think Trump will have disapproved of this interview. You know, to take another example on the policy front, and Liz, he went through two or three of those. When she says, I caution Trump against the release of all the January the 6th, prisoners particularly the violent ones and trump went ahead anyway these are controversies where you know she's putting herself at odds publicly with

the president over policy decisions that he has made while she is still the chief of staff in the White House. She's going on record and saying, that isn't me. I mean, who knows? Maybe it's to avoid prosecution after the terms ended.

Or something that we've been talking about slightly to our surprise for the last few months, which is that, you know, political time for the Trump administration appears to be expending and passing very, very quickly. You know, one of the reasons that his grip... on the Republican Party is already so much looser than where we thought it might be six months ago, is that already the conversation feels like it is moving on and it is moving on into...

who and what succeeds in what the republican party and magaism looks like post him a conversation which will become even more intense after november and so part of you almost also wonders about where the wiles is Maybe this is reading too much into it. Maybe it's more unwitting than this. But you know, someone who is as calculated as she is, she'll be someone also in demand.

for the next campaign. She was someone absolutely instrumental to the previous campaign. She's also someone who potentially dislikes Vance and may have her eye on another candidate. I actually thought one of the most revealing parts of the interview is when she's talking about Jeffrey Epstein and basically saying... that she felt that the issue had been important to Vance because he had been a conspiracy theorist.

for a decade and took a dig at vance's transformation from trump critic to prominent cheerleader saying it's clearly a calculated move you know this is all like wounding stuff for vance who of course is the heir apparent

And I think, particularly given that the Epstein issue has been so central to kind of the sheen coming off Trump, I think her talking about it and basically pointing to Vance and partly accusing him of being responsible for that, I think is fascinating. What she says about Bondi, I mean, that is the most virulent...

where she says Pam Bondi, who's the Attorney General, just came forward with these empty files. In other words, she had told Trump to get ahead of the Epstein stuff. He didn't. And then Bondi comes out and reveals... Nothing. It almost feels like a post-mortem before the patient's dead. That's what's extraordinary about the whole thing. So Lewis, you kind of drew attention to the joke.

of jd vance when the photographs were being taken of you know i'll give you a hundred dollars to make everyone look shitty except for marco if you make him look shitty i'll give you a thousand dollars look the jockeying for position for 2028 is already underway and you've got

You know, the J.D. Vance camp. You've got the Marco Rubio camp. You've got Ted Cruz setting out a bit of a stall. There are others as well. Marco Rubio feels like the more favoured son right now than Vance in terms of the Trump circle and who he trusts. Rubio, crazily, is closer to the centre, I think, than Van. So will Trump feel that he can have that total trust in Susie Wiles now, or Susie Trump, as we said, that he called her?

When she has given an on-the-record interview to a magazine that is not overly... A magazine. A magazine that is not... overly friendly towards the Trump administration. And an awful lot of people in Magellan saying, what the hell has she done? Why did she do it? What possibly was her thinking? You know, we're used in politics to having a whodunit.

We've now got a, why has she done it? Why has she done what she has done? And is she too indispensable to Trump for him to even be able to criticise her? It feels to me that her days are probably numbered.

Because everything we know about Trump up to now is that as soon as you step out of line, at some point, that just means that your currency within the Trump circle becomes more limited. I think he needs to. I think he needs to. But he never thinks he needs anyone, does he?

No, this is also true. But I think this is what's different about Susie Wiles. This is why I think that you've seen so little turbulence in this administration, in the makeup of this administration, compared to the first time round when people were... going you know it was a revolving door with people leaving with knives in their back

and it hasn't been like this although although part of that is not just about wiles right part of that is that for the first six months maybe eight months trump was completely hegemonic politically and basically had no opposition and the big change in the last four months is that it's no longer true even from within the republican party and the economic situation isn't getting any better so it feels to me as if

2026 is going to be a bumpy year for Trump, full stop. Who knows what he's going to do Venezuela tonight, but it's going to be a bumpy year in terms of his hold on domestic politics. And if he's looking for a fall guy at some point, then Susie Wiles has just nominated herself. And in a moment, say it quietly. Are the Tories having a revival?

and the conversations that matter. With award-winning journalists at the heart of the stories from the UK and around the world. Breaking news here in Edinburgh. I'm Simon Marks. My American Week is next. Reporting from the heart of Cardiff. Discover how today's story affects... your life listen on our free global player app or the new lbc app lbc leading britain's conversation

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Fresh deals, cozy vibes, zero effort. The News Agents. Mr. Speaker, it is the Prime Minister's second Christmas in Downing Street. And by his own admission... He's not in control. He says nothing happens when he pulls the levers. Does he blame himself or the levers? It's not the world's funniest gag, is it? No, but it is the House of Commons.

And are we anyone to judge? We've got a really good gag feed from the House of Commons. Yeah, I said no one ever. No, that's coming right at the end. Actually, there was one. Look, that's Kemi Badenock. Finishing off the her year at Prime Minister's Questions with the latest in a... of actually jokes notwithstanding.

pretty creditable performances against Keir Starmer that is partly because Starmer's performances have been pretty bad but nonetheless she has been showing her own MPs believe and also across Westminster's consensus that she's been showing more and more

confidence, both at Prime Minister's questions but generally politically. And indeed, there is some evidence to suggest that that is about more than just what she's doing at 12 o'clock on a Wednesday in the Commons Chamber. She's had a pretty successful December. There's now 26% of... people polled according to yougov now hold a favorable opinion of her that is up five points since november that is the highest recording

from YouGov yet. Admittedly, she still remains, like all politicians, pretty unpopular. But it's also true to say that the Conservatives, they've stabilised their overall... position in the polling the politico poll of polls now showing the tories averaging above labor by a point and it has led some to wonder after what was a pretty good

conference speech, which was build, make or break for her, whether or not Badenock has at the very least stopped the rot for the Conservative Party and whether one of the themes of 2026 might be an unexpected... come back for the Tories. Yeah, I mean, I know sort of disillusioned Tory voters who... were really low after 2024 who've in the last few months just got more of a swagger in their steps you know just just walk a bit taller saying actually

I can see how she gets there. I can see how she does it. She gets the party back on track. And if you take the party as a whole for the last three months, they have had some scalps. you know going back to september they removed the deputy pm angela rayner that was Their work with The Telegraph, the whole stuff about Angela Rayner's houses and taxes, tax bills. Peter Mandelson, I think, you know, they worked hard to sort of uncover the order in which Keir Starmer knew.

what he knew about Peter Mandelson's relationship with Epstein. Mandelson's gone. They tried very hard to do that to Reeves. And I think the criticism when she started... was that Kemi Badenot was too abrasive. She rubbed people up the wrong way. She sort of went for things and she was a bit too bristly. And... Oddly, having Rachel Reeves in position of the Chancellor I think has been helpful for Kemi Badenok because Rachel Reeves has done a lot.

playing the sort of the feminist card and the misogyny card. Oh, everyone hates me because I'm a woman. And Kevin Bainock sort of took her on during the budget and went, no, actually, they don't. And I think... You know, there are a lot of women who actually were quite wound up by this idea that people didn't like Rachel Rees because she was a woman rather than actually...

We're criticising, you know, or anyone is criticising your policies, not who you are. And Kemi said that out loud. And I think that definitely got her a few nods of like, yeah, thank you. Somebody had to do that. And I'm glad it was you because it couldn't be a man. I think the big change that has happened is the Conservatives now have an argument to make, which is that a year ago, 18 months ago, Labour just won a big election.

and the Tories were being outflanked on the right and there was a relatively centrist Labour Party. The Tories have been rejected. What was their argument to the people? What was it that they could say to the British people that marked them out on distinctive territory? Now that you've got reform being very welfarist and saying, well, we've got to keep certain allowances and we've got to do this. So quite left wing.

on a lot of social policy, because frankly, that's where their voters are. And you've got Labour being high tax. You've got the original opening for the Tory party to be almost Thatcherite in saying we believe in a smaller state. We want. people not to have to pay stamp duty on their houses because that's a terrible tax. And suddenly the old arguments come back to the fore with a sharper focus on the Tories best able to make them.

Lower taxes, lower public spending, and that will be their offering. And I think Kemi Badenoch is incredibly well-placed to be making that argument for the Conservatives, because... after the july 2024 election it seemed like they didn't have a tune to sing and they've got one now that's right i think the space is open up it was actually impossible to see where the space was even six months ago and now the there is space there and i think it has suited them that the

particularly since the conference season has largely, as distinct from the summer, which were all about potential riots and so on, the conversation has largely been economic rather than... on immigration and social policy, which is something that favours reform and does not favour at all. It's not least because, actually, one of the kind of... The opening for them...

was that perhaps unexpectedly, even after the election, the Tories continued to poll, and generally speaking, out-poll Labour. They started to do so quite quickly on handling of the economy, which... When we were sat here in 2022 with the Liz Truss period and everything, we probably would have said there's no way. I think we were probably having conversations at the time saying this is again another Black Wednesday moment for the Tories or Labour 2008 moment where...

the party's reputation for economic competence becomes a trust issue for a generation that has not happened intriguingly for whatever reason maybe it was because they they cauterized this trust wound really quickly they put sunak in whatever it was that has not happened maybe it's about labor's handling of the economy as well so that gave them the potential opening but of course all it does is give them

a hearing because obviously for an opposition party so recently ejected from government the truth is on every other issue particularly on public services and so on generally speaking the public there is no particular evidence the public wants to hear from them I guess it also goes to the front bench as well, the shadow front bench, which is that when James Cleverley came back in...

to the Shadow Cabinet, he made very quickly a sort of statement which is like, I'm not going to attack the leader. I'm not going to go for her job. That's not how we get back into power. I want to see the Tories in power. Robert Jenrick took a different tack. and looked like he was constantly trying to sort of jab her in the ribs with his elbows and then he came unstuck at...

at Tory conference, which, you know, we covered when he made those ridiculous remarks about Birmingham. I haven't seen another white face. And he basically ended up wearing this sort of... toxic Tory albatross around his neck, which again left her the space to kind of go, oh, well, let Rob do his thing. I'm just going to talk to you about the stuff that actually matters, which is not race divisions, but it's economics. I mean, I don't want to sort of...

overthink this because part of it is a very natural trajectory, which is that the party has been in power, will end up getting less popular.

because more people end up more unhappy with the choices that have then been sort of thrust upon them. And the party that has been out of power has got a waning memory for many of how... badly they felt when they were in power so I think part of it is a natural you know it is a natural trajectory isn't it that you sort of you forget how much you didn't like one party once they're out of power right also also that some of the analysis talking about

you know, the Tory party is completely dead. And that happened before the election where people were talking about not winning a single seat and since was always overdone in the sense that, you know, the Tory party, for all of its faults and whatever, has got such deep roots in...

British political history. I mean, literally, it's dominated British politics for two centuries. That doesn't just disappear overnight. It did feel as if they could be on a slow, lingering death. And I don't think we should exaggerate what's happening, because on all sorts of metrics, the party continues to poll.

Appallingly, they're still basically at 18 points, right? And Reforma way ahead of them. But it is true that at the very least, Baden-Ock appears to have stabilised the situation. That as well might not be the case as well, I mean, in terms of rumblings about her leadership. And Jenrick, I think, probably Biden... his time.

because we still have may coming up and we talk a lot about the effect that may could have on starmer with those you know crucial elections those elections will on the basis of current polling whether she stabilized it or not could be really really difficult for bad knock as well and then suddenly you're back to square

because what she's basically got at the moment is no real substantial victories in terms of elections or anything like that. She's got the vibe. She's got a little bit of momentum back. She's got Westminster and Westminster journalists maybe looking at her again, which is an important first step for her, but that could all...

The problem with the vibes is that it can all be undone by an event, which could be May. So are you saying this is dead cat bounce? I mean, you know, the idea in polling that even if you dropped a dead cat off the top of a building, it would bounce at the bottom. Is she kind of, is there a bounce back that is meaningful?

I'm interested with her as well, how she chooses to capitalise on this. So because of what you say, John, which is that reform are clearly... agitating for sort of red wall voters who are sort of you know more socially conservative but economically statist and left-wing she's as you say

setting out a stall, a more classically conservative stall, about a small estate, lower tax. That was not where the territory that Boris Johnson won his 2019 victory on. Because he was also going after the Red Wolves. Indeed so, absolutely. And he won them.

Interesting that she appears to be, maybe forced to be, moving in a slightly different direction. I'm interested to the extent to which she is willing to follow that sort of remorseless electoral logic, because you could imagine a constituency of voters out there. actually who are very different who are younger in their 20s 30s 40s more socially liberal but may be willing to offer or be interested in

given the high rates of income tax that they're paying under Labour, a lower tax message given the cost of living. But that would take you down quite a different set of policies. Quite interesting, the other day, she referred to Brexit as a shock.

I've not heard a conservative leader refer to Brexit in such a sort of negative way before. Do you know whether that was deliberate or not? But you could imagine, for example, if she was being brave and following that remorselessness of that electoral logic, her talking more about...

getting a bit closer to Europe, not reversing Brexit, anything like that. But going back to a more 2015-esque... conservative agenda than the one that we've known for the last decade as i guess rishi did with the windsor framework i mean he started to do that which is economically we have to be close to europe in terms of migration we have to be close to europe leave brexit where it is but this is the reality

the ground the other thing I'd say is over the last six months I think we expected to see or I certainly did more big-name Tories go to reform and actually the names have gone to reform have been slightly underwhelming

You know, I mean... Nadine Dorris, Ben Bradley. You're right. Come on. Slap on the wrist. Okay, so Jonathan Gullis in the last few weeks, I suppose he was a former... chair wasn't he and danny kruger but they got through a lot of those most of the people exactly i mean i've sort of been waiting for big names you know jaw-dropping big names and those haven't really happened. There hasn't been the momentum towards reform.

from the Tory party it hasn't been like a stampede which I think I was I was expecting maybe Danny Kruger Danny Kruger sort of arch conservative sort of family values welcoming getting part of his new party Bonnie Blue to reform interesting yeah I wonder, though, on the immigration piece and illegal immigration, that Labour have obviously been putting huge effort into trying to tackle this. That if they have some success...

Mighty if and if is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. But if they do have some success and it becomes a slightly less important issue at the next election, then that again works to the Tories favor. that they can talk much more focus on the economy.

And, you know, because, of course, if the subject is illegal immigration, then that plays to Farage's strengths. And that's where, you know, Farage will do well. And so I would imagine that Kemi Batonok's got quite a lot. They both want Shabama Mahmood to succeed.

Exactly. I mean, that's the complication, isn't it? Exactly. I think the other thing is, is that it's partly reflective of this crazy sort of multi-party system that we have developed quite quickly, that if Kemi Badeknot were able to get the Tories up to, I don't know... 22, 23, 25. This would be...

An enormous success. But by any metric would be an historically abysmal rating for the Conservative Party to have. And likewise with Labour, you know, they're currently, what, 18, 19, you get that up to 22, 23, that will calm Labour. So you only need...

quite modest, so fragmented is the party system right now that you only need quite modest, you know, exchanges between the party to completely change the kind of narrative and dynamic. I mean, when you think about like Ed Miliband, considered a complete loser because he couldn't get the party...

The Labour Party passed like 35, 36. Jeremy Corbyn got 40% of the vote. The 2017 general election obviously loses. But we've gone from in that brief period, that election where the Tories got 43 and a half and Labour got 40. Those two parties getting over 80% of the vote. Barely the two of them now, not even getting 40. It's amazing. And in a moment, an early Christmas miracle. And it involves Keir Starmer. Take control of your digital life with WebRoot Essentials.

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and live a better digital life today. The News Agents. Mr. Speaker, may I also take this opportunity to wish you all the staff in Parliament, every member and their families across the House a very happy Christmas and a little festive advice to those in reform. If mysterious men from the East appear bearing gifts, this time report it to the police.

Genuinely, actually funny. A good joke. A good joke. Very rare. And it cuts to Richard Tice, Deputy Leader of Reform, cracking up. Bouncing up and down in his seat. Yeah, he found it quite funny. Yeah. I think he was laughing. I think that's just his face. Oh, maybe. I think that's just his face. I mean, Keir Starwood doesn't do...

jokes, gags easily. I think that's fair. But I think, oh, maybe they've got someone who's doing... I mean, you know, remember, look, William Hague was kind of notoriously unsuccessful as the leader of the opposition, but he made fantastic jokes in the Commons. It does help though.

get support from your own side if you crack a good political joke at the expense of your rivals. And that was a good political joke. Do we need to explain it? It was a reference to Nathan Gill, leader of reform in Wales, who was found to have taken money from...

The Russians. So that was your Mysterious Men from the East. And if you haven't heard about that story yet, be prepared to hear a lot about it in 2026. Not because anything new will happen, probably, because he's already been sent to prison for 10 years, Gil. for that but labor strategists think that it's a huge win for them they're gonna try and hammer they think that farage and his relationship with russia that

Things he said in the past about Putin is a massive vulnerability for them, that they can go after them on patriotism. So they'll be doing that again and again and again next year. Yeah. And we're here in the studio still waiting presents from anywhere, really, aren't we? Well, yeah. Awesome. Good jokes.

Still waiting that. Certainly from you. Have you heard one about the... We'll be back tomorrow. We'll see you then. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye for now. This has been a Global Player original production.