On scoring with Zas Squadia. This is the Reader Panehy Show.
Good evening and welcome to the Reader Panehy Show. Coming up tonight, a big program for you. The Great Douglas Murray joins me shortly and he's in fine form, covering everything from Trump's sobering message to Justin Trudeau to the President Elect's piece through Strength strategy. Also joining me tonight, Gary Hartgrave and Kosha.
Gaida and later in the hour while we'll.
Look at some of the best and worst Christmas ads with advertising Guru Richard Ralph Smith and left He's Losing It features well more CNN hysteria.
Now have a president coming into office, who's talking about firing squads, who's talking about running people around the country.
But first, Labor is now faced with a critical choice. Will it side with its traditional supporters, the unions, or with its new base, the activist class, who are really the shots these days. There is a power struggle over a decision concerning the Tasmanian salmon industry. Labour's drawn out reviews may put an end to Tasmania's very profitable billion dollar plus salmon industry, putting hundreds of people out of work.
And damaging labour's electoral chances in the state. Environmental Minister Tania Plibisek has come under pressure from the Australian Workers Union boss Paul Farrow, who has joined senior Tasmanian labor figures and asking her to put workers' livelihoods ahead of and I quote the exaggerated concerns of inner city activists. Joining me now to discuss this more. Sky News contributor
Gary Hardgrave, Gary, who's going to prevail here? This is really a sign of the political realignment we are seeing in so many areas in this country and in the US, in the UK where lay bar the Democrats. Labor in the UK are really abandoning their traditional supporters, the working class, the union workers, and preoccupied with the concerns of activists in the inner cities.
Yeah, and you know I read I actually made this a speech in twenty oh seven in the House of rep. So to my mind, there's nothing new with this. Labor have walked away from the working class, the workers of Australia.
A generation ago.
I had an uncle who was a trade union official within the ETU, and he said to me, he said, you know where my politics lies.
He said, but I can't stand them now.
This was twenty odd years ago and he started voting Liberal because he just could not stand where labor had got to. So you know, put that, you know, in the back of your mind. They have forgotten about the working men and women of Australia a long time ago, and they're just going for the woke activists. And I don't get what the partner the mixed and tortured metaphor the beef about the salmon industry is rhio because this salmon industry has been.
Built over the last couple of decades.
I remember when I was a minister and the Howard government, we actually worked closely with the Tasmanian salmon industry to bring in experts from overseas, bringing skilled people who understood how to grow salmon, wild river salmon specialists to actually give the salmon that's grown in Tasmanian rivers and waters, you know, the real edge that they've now got. And that's such a I think there's much more than hundreds
of people impacted by this. There's literally thousands of people that are going to be hurt by this kind of decision. And you know, on top of that, there's all this new infrastructure that's been built into Northern Tasmania, new port facilities, new airports, new new flights. I mean, all these things that are happening, and it all comes because there's activity.
There and the AWU is right.
But you know, seriously, the Labor Party, I'm more worried about the various vested interests of the elite friends of the people who you know, want to be offended on behalf of others. And by the way, the irony is they're all looking for salmon for Christmas because they don't eat meat.
I want salmon on their Christmas plate.
And here they are killing off homegrown, Australian grown, Tasmanian grown salmon.
And what am I going to U is important stuff?
I mean, it's just one of the many industries, which is why Tanya Plipasek is a walking, talking sovereign risk to investment in Australia.
She's bad news.
Wow one. They've got the whole other aspect. They're the leadership tensions that exist between her and Anthony alber Easy. There's a discussion for another day now. There was a Nastree piece in today's Harold's Son Award winning sports journalist Michael Warner has written about how woken hypocritical the AFL is. He writes of the AFL's endless virtue signaling, he said, persistent welcome to country ceremonies, pride rounds, pre match knee
dropping and race baiting doesn't unite Australians. It creates a growing level of resentment, turning us against each other. He also wrote about how football's capture by the woke movement
has really always wreaked of hypocrisy. He asks, the AFL is currently defending itself vigorously against a racism class action led by indigenous North Melbourne great Phil Cracker, but how does that correlate with its public undertakings to believe all First Nations players and Gary There is more hypocrisy from the AFL.
The AFL commissioned chair Richard Goiter.
You're knowing from his work at Quantas he pushed clubs to reduce their dependency on poker machine revenues. But at the same time he's overseen a boom in the AFL's lucrative relationship with sports betting agencies. The hypocrisy, the woke virtue signaling signaling, the incoherent, just grandstanding. It really is a turnoff for fans, But is it going to be enough to actually impact crowd numbers people watching the game. Because people love the sport, they're going to watch regardless.
Yeah, And look, Reta, the tribalism of AFL is about the suburbs of Melbourne and the suburbs of Sydney, Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane.
I mean it really is. That's the tribalism.
And you know, I'm in Brisbane, the Brisbane lines of Fitzroy lines.
I kind of understand it.
I bonded with Harry Scullen when he was Harry Jenkins rather when he was a member for Scullen, and he was a mad Fitzroy supporter, so therefore he and I agreed on that if nothing else. He was on the left of labor and I wasn't, of course, But you know, I get it. I understand the tribalism and I understand enough of the history of it to think it's actually terrific. But you know what, everybody cheers, I'm not a mad made of mine loves Richmond and when Richmond out he backs.
The Brisbane Lions.
An other friend of mine loves Collin Wood and he's always looking for friends some years and other years he's got plenty of them. I mean, this is really what the AFL should be doing.
But to find.
Ways to divide people based around their personal, ethnic or religious circumstances, that's crazy.
It's the Australian Football League.
It should be about Australia, not the WFL, the woke Football League.
But they've gone the wrong way.
They want to go into division rather than to highlight how each person's diversity has common ground and the strength that come from that.
It is wrong. It's crazy.
All the welcomes to country are really doing a lot of people in I hear this grown on every quatter's flight when they welcome me to my own country, and I think people feel the same way at football matches.
We want no politics in football. We just want football in football easy.
The sport appears to have been captured, hijacked by the left, and I think you were seeing that increasingly at many clubs as well as at league headquarters. Now going to the US, there's a five hundred and twenty page report from the US House Select Subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic, and this will shock you, Gary, But they've concluded that the COVID nineteen virus did indeed originate from the Wuhan
Institute of Virology. Who would have thought that we knew it came from Wuhan, and that we knew there was a lab there that was investigating coronaviruses, And for many months we were told that any suggestion that those two things were connected was a wild conspiracy theory that was completely groundless and in fact racist.
Yeah, yeah, And of course you know, we couldn't sell out one, and we couldn't sell our lobsters, we couldn't have any relationship with China when we actually said, maybe it is, as Donald Trump calls at the China virus. Look either way, they just should have rung up chari markson. She hadn't sort it out years ago. Whatever happened in Wuhan made all the sense in the world. But it's great that it's now official and the US House of
Reps has built the cat. But you know, a lot of relationships, a lot of professional circumstances, and a lot of families.
Were hurt by the overreach of what.
Now seems to have been a completely man made plandemic. And you know these are things that back when I was hosting my own show on this network, I never said go and get a jab. I just said talk to doctor, because it struck me as the most sensible thing. But there are others who were just saying get the jab, get the jab, get the.
Jab on all media.
I mean, I think a lot of us got con to, a lot of people got con into believing the science, and now we find out the science might well have been contrived.
It's great to have the confirmation.
I just think there should be a full blown Royal Commission type inquiry into how we handled it here in Australia because a lot of politicians, some getting statues right now a relationship, hang their head in shame for the way they handled things during that time.
Gary hard Grave, thanks for time tonight. Joining me now is best selling author and commentator Douglas Murray. Make sure you pick up his latest international best seller, The War on the West. Douglas, let's start with the presidential pardon. Hunter Biden has the broadest, most sweeping pardon imaginable, and it comes after the Biden White House insisted that no one was above the law and that a pardon was unthinkable.
Well, as you say it, not only did they say that no one was above the law and say that because of Hunter Baden, and because they believe that all judicial processes in America must be absolutely followed, and that somebody whose name happens to be Iden is absolutely the same as with any other name. They also said it, of course, during the repeated attempts to prosecute Donald Trump
for a whole range of issues in America. If you set a special prosecutor or a district attorney after somebody, they look for crime, and they tend to find one. They'll find some difference between what somebody said in one interview three years ago and what they said in yesterday's interview, and then they'll say are evading.
Justice and so on.
So this was this was a comment that Biden made about Trump. But now he says no one is above the law except for my son's certain other favorites. It's not surprising and on a human level, of course, you know his son has had untold difficulties that he has got through and it must be very disturbing for Joe Biden as a father. However, the pardon, of course doesn't
just cover things that he's already been convicted of. It covers things that he could yet be convicted of in relation to the period that.
His father was in office. And that is pretty unprecedented.
So far as they know.
Yes, and it starts in twenty fourteen when Brisma came on the scene for the Biden family that the entire thing is astonishing staying in America. What a difference a landslide election makes. It wasn't long ago that the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was taking potshots at Donald Trump. But last week he was at Marra Lago, all smiles, dining with the President elect. Even went on X and
tweeted a thank you to the president. But Douglas, we have since learned about what the pair talked about at the dinner table.
It's about that Trump Trudeau dinner. From two people who were at the table, we're told that Wan Trudeau told President elect Trump that new tariffs would kill the Canadian I mean Trump jogged to him that if Canada can't survive without ripping off the US to the tune of one hundred billion dollars a year, then maybe Canada should become the fifty first state and Trudeau could become its governor.
Governor Justin Trudeau, I love that Diplomacy through strength is straight from the Trump Playbooker Douglas, what do you make of Justin Trudeau's attempts to cozy up to Trump after taking veiled shots at him for several years now, Well.
It's typical of the undiplomatic diplomacy which we've discussed before about other countries when it comes to Trump. You know, if there are two people running for office in your your nearest ally, it's very unwise to repeatedly lie about and make false claims about one of them. And that's whichever way.
Around you'd like to play.
It be very unwise for people like true Udeau or the Labor Party in Britain or in Australia anywhere else to have insulted one of the other candidates in the election. As it happened, the one they chose to insult is the one that happens to have won. So it's rather delicious watching, rather more delicious even than dinner, I'm sure of watching the bimbo Trudeau trying to now make up
for his undiplomatic diplomacy. As for being governor, of Canada always says, I mean, Justin Trudeau has been such a hideous Prime Minister of Canada. I wouldn't ask him to be governor of anything. I would I mean, other than going back to drama teaching. I'm just I really pity his students, even on that. I don't know what Trudeau is good for. He's a narcissistic little playboy who has been vastly over promoted above his competency and the only
person doesn't seem to realize it is him. But I mean, the Canadian public have a great opportunity quite soon to wave farewell or to steal the line, to turn the page in Canada.
Turn the page. Yes, I love your line about Justin Trudeau. I think he called him once the Prince of performative caring, and I think that he sums him up beautifully. And if the polls are right, his days are numbers. I don't think Donald Trump needs to worry too much about Tariff's discussions with Justin because he's on the way out.
Sticking with Donald Trump, what do you make of the President Alex's threats against her mask warning he will unleash hell in the Middle East if the October seven, hostages held by her Mass are not released before inauguration, which is January twenty. Is that something that's going to be effective. You've spent a great deal of time in the Middle East, and the last year is warning like this is going to have any sort of impact.
I think, so, I hope so. I actually as it happens with some of the hostage families yesterday again and of course they say that you know that they want the release yesterday. You know they want it yesterday, not tomorrow, not on January twentieth or any other time. And the fact is is that the pressure that Donald Trump threatens to bring can be brought, and it can be brought not just against Hamas, but it should be brought against all of the governments in the region who have been
backing and arming and training Hamaz. The Mullahs in Tehran should feel the full force of American power as they have Israeli power. Hezbollah, the government in Katar, the corrupt Hamas supporting Hamas owning a government of Kata, the government of turk which is now hosting more of the Hamaz leaders than it did a few weeks ago. These governments
should really feel that force and that pressure. And it can be diplomatic, it can be economic, or it can be something else, but a very clear message needs to be sent. Hamas started this war by murdering, slaughtering, and kidnapping Israelis. These hostages should have been released on eighth of October, and if they had been twenty twenty three, and if they had been, this war could have been avoided.
But they started the war. And the only person that can really end the war is them by handing back the hostages and alongside it making it clear that this will never happen again. This is in their power, and only some of the dimmer bits of the international media and parts of the Biden administration ever thought otherwise. The hostages are not being held by Benjamin Attanna who they are being held by Hamat. Hamaz has to release some, It has to release them.
Now, now to France, and after extensive damage, the magnificent Notre Dame will be formally reopened by French President Emmanuel mccron, but Douglas, Pope Francis will not be there. He will not be at the December seventh reopening, in a move that has upset many, including a number of French bishops. What do you make of this decision? You'd think the Pope could surely change his plans to attend the reopening of such a significant cathedral.
It is surprising.
I don't know. Maybe it's health reasons, maybe it's something else. But when you mentioned significance of not Ha Dame, I mean I think that I hope, I hope that the reopening really does remain the French and other publics of what was almost lost there. Everybody remembers those horrific photos of Notre Dame on fire and the fear that I think any civilized person has that we could have lost
this great tribute to faith and more. And sometimes when you come very close to losing something like that, it should make you love it and think about it more. And I hope the French and other publics do.
It's not just.
That Notre Dame is a stunning work of architecture, it's also a cathedral of faith and we'll see, but maybe the public and the reopening of this can remind people of that. I certainly hope that Emmanuel Macron and others in the French government don't simply regard this as being a fine restoration of a mere piece of French history. It's far more than that.
Absolutely culturally so significant the pope as a prior engagement, so he is expected elsewhere. But I just would have thought this was significant enough to change those plans. But before you go, I want to play you a little clip from California governor and possible future Democrat presidential candidate Gavin Newsom. He's incredibly boasting about California's recording tackling homelessness.
We have a national model.
What Proposition one did is it reinforced that model, provided more resources to advance that model, and we're very excited to get those dollars to work.
Oh goodness me. The Democrats don't have a great deal of talent. So he is still up there as a prime candidate to be the future presidential candidate. And he's boasting there about California's record, despite the fact that the state is responsible for one in two unsheltered people in all of America, and they had this enormous issue Douglas
with homelessness, with crime, with the list drug abuse. Despite huge resources being devoted to tackling these issues, they're spending around forty seven thousand dollars a year per homeless person. And yet the problem doesn't seem to be diminishing.
No, because idiots like Gavin Newsom have done a number of things in recent years. They have incentivized illegal migration, they have incentivized people moving into their state. They have made sure to punish everyone who is law abiding, people like shop owners who don't like fecies on the human
fecies on the pavement outside their stores. They've made sure to punish all legal homeowners in California, whereby you can get an illegal encampment on an illegal tent or homeless throwing up of a shelter, temporary shelter some on somebody else's property, and there's nothing that the people can do about it. There's nothing that the law of iiding hard working taxpayer that we always hear about is actually allowed to do when it comes to dealing with and often illegal,
non tax paying, law breaking person who's squatting. And I'm afraid Governor Newsom created that situation. He created it in San Francisco, he created it across California.
This is his fault. So when he starts to bose, he's.
Getting to work and putting tax dollars to work. First of all, good luck on the tax dollars thing, because he's been superbt chasing talent and high neworth individuals out of his state. But secondly, I mean, he's just simply not fit to do this because he made the problem. And if he wanted to stop the problem, he could stop the sanctuary city's nonsense, he could stop the rewarding of illegal behavior.
He could do all of that, but he doesn't.
So these are totally totally hollow words. I'm afraid I used the word bimbo about the Canadian Prime minister earlier, but Gavin Newsom is the same mole. He is a narcissistic little playboy who has never solved a real problem. He wants to prem for the cameras, but he has done so much to destroy the state he pretends to govern.
He is certainly very good at training, but you can't deny the fact that he is attractive and charismatic means something to me. He is the front runner for the Democrats. Do you think there's anybody else who stands out so there saying that Kamala Harris wants to run again in four years?
God forbid?
Can you see that happening.
I hadn't heard that rumor, Rita. I would have thought that if Kamela wants to run again, even the Democrats have enough survival instinct to be able to say didn't work out so well last time.
I think you're right. After a billion dollars being squandered in record time, I think her chances are very, very small. Indeed, Douglas Murray, thank you so much for your time this evening.
So pleasures always. Thank you.
Still to come. Left is losing it? Plus, who are the latest Democrats to embrace Trump's border mandate? Kosher Gator joins me next, welcome back. Now it's time for lefties losing it. Remember when Trump tried to get the esteemed journalists of sixty minutes to actually do their job and cover the Hunter Biden laptop story in the lead up to the twenty twenty election.
Sixty minutes and we can't put on things we can't find it.
On because it's bad for Biden.
We can't put things we can't very I don't have.
To discredit you and what you've discredited yourself to lessly.
You've discredited yourself when you say that you're not going to cover Biden. You're gonna ask him what flavor ice cream he has? Okay, instead of why did Hunter get three and a half million dollars from Moscow? Instead of why is an energy company paying your son one hundred and eighty three thousand dollars a month?
Or whatever?
That bay and he has no experience and energy.
You know, you discredit yourself. I don't have to discrible.
So this story about on in his laptop some repair shot founded the sources Steve Bannon and Juliani.
The source is Steve Bannon and Rudy Juliani. Can you believe that nonsense? And she wasn't done discrediting herself yet she's supported to be the very best among the very best, the cream of the crop. Can you see why trust in the media is at record lows.
And you're making this one of the hardest, most important issues in your house.
It's a very important issue to find out whether or not a man's corrupt, who's running for president, who's accepted money from China and from Ukraine and from Russia.
Yeah, I think that's an important and.
It's incredible the way you can try and say this and sit there and look in the eye and said he accepted money his family from Russia, from Ukraine, from China and from other places.
His brother, who didn't have experience, became a big builder.
In Iraq without experience. Take a look at what's going on, Leslie, and then you say out that shouldn't be discussed. I'm saying, it's the biggest scandal out there, Leslie, and you don't.
Cover it because it can't be I want to talk.
About insignificant things. I'm telling you these it can be verified.
Excuse me, they found the laptop, Leslie, Leslie, what can be verified?
The latter As you saw from the captions there, it wasn't unverified. It wasn't a fake story. It was very much real and implicated not just Hunter Biden, but Joe Biden. The New York posted a series of bombshell stories on it well before that little interaction. And let's not forget the media, including sixty Minutes sixty minutes, for four years pushed completely unverified Russian collusion hoax stories, but they chose not to cover that crucial story in the lead up
to the twenty twenty election. I never forget they impeached Donald Trump for wanting to investigate the very crimes. Joe Biden just pardoned his son. For now, let's go to CNN. They're still defending the president. Apparently Trump is going to go around and shoot everybody. And if Biden didn't pardon his son, what would happen next?
What?
You can defend it, But wasn't it a lie that he was not going to pardon.
No.
I believe the circumstances have changed. I think that we now have a president coming into office who's talking about firing squads, who's talking about running people around the country and making sure that everyone who's his enemy is going to be.
Punished, firing squads. Really, these people are nuts, But not to be outdone, the ladies of the view Led White, Whoopee Goldberg.
Have decided that it is Donald.
Trump's fault that Biden lied and pardoned his son. Try to keep up with this logic. If you can call it that.
I'd stop one calling it alive. Well, here's what it says. It's a president for all of us to open our eyes because we've elected someone who is in a similar situation, who didn't have a drug problem, who knew what he was doing, who clearly stood and said I can do this, and he did so.
I think.
For many, many reasons, this is very different than any other situation that we have average out.
Now we've got John Stuart, another lefty losing it, But at least he did try to inject a little humor into proceedings. Sure, as usual with John Stuart, he's years late to the party. He said nothing about this Biden family and their dodgy business dealings when it actually mattered. But now, in the final weeks of Biden's lame duck presidency, he's bravely cracking jokes.
Democrats have a moral perch from which they can judge without shame, hypocrisy, or nuance.
Everything new President Biden has issued a pardon for his son, Hunter Biden lother we was, you know what. It may be a little gut list to finally be showing some interest in the Hunter Biden laptop story and what it all means, But at least Stuart is funny here.
I'm sure the.
Pardon is a narrowly written, precisely drawn farewell note of compassion for a loved one.
The pardon sweeping covering offenses that Hunter Biden quote has committed, or may have committed, or taken part in over the past eleven years.
Eleven years is a very specific.
And not rounded amount of time.
So Hunter, I'll give you a pardon a few years, five years, ten years, it needs to be eleven.
Joining me now is Scott News contributor Kosher Gaeta Kosher. Let's start in New York City where the mayor they're Democrat, Mayor Eric Adams is now signing with Donald Trump on the illegal immigration issue. You can't get any clear than this message.
Those who are here committing crimes, robbery, shoeing at police officers, raping innocent people have been a harm to our country. I want to sit down and hear the plan on how we're going to address them. Those are the people I am talking about, and I would love to sit down with the borders are and hear his thoughts on how we're going to address those who are harming our citizens.
Kosher. This comes after the New York Governor Kathy Hokell made similar remarks. It seems like they've appreciating now that Trump's mandate is overwhelming. This is what people even in blue state, Blue city New York want.
That's quite something. We also have those mayors that are seeing they'll go to l before they ever cooperate with them. So I think leftiead a little bit scattered and they're figuring it out. But in his case, between immigration even spending, he came out and said something positive about Doge and Musk recently crime. He really does sound like a Trump
surrogate at this point. And who knows, you know, maybe it's self preservation because the Biden DOJ indicted him for those bridary corruption charges, and maybe he's figuring out which side his bread is not buttered on and he's looking at that. Maybe it's political expediency because it's so clear, as you say, where the country's pulses on these issues and where the popular sentiment is. Or maybe he is one of those. You know, twenty percent of black men
came out and supported Trump. Maybe he's one of them.
Well, it's interesting because they are making that distinction. They're saying illegal immigrants who commit a crime. Kathy Hokle said she'll pick up the phone herself and call Ice and have them deported. So they are not making that blanket statement that if you hear illegally, we're going to back you being deported. But it's still the still lank, which we're hearing you wouldn't have heard from Democrats a few years ago, for sure, particularly in New York. Now, the
New York Post ran a story on Scott presslife. We don't know who he is. He played a crucial role in flipping Pennsylvania, the Keystone state, the crucial swing state. He's got an organization called Early Vote Action that he founded after the twenty twenty two red wave never came about the midterms.
There.
Let's hear how he handles the media.
I noticed that when you urge people to action, you often include.
The word peacefully.
Is that to avoid another G and six type incident?
With all your respect, It's to avoid people like you guys saying that I'm anything. But my motto is to just be super cute, have my data and facts, treat everyone with love and respect. And as you can see, an army of people will follow him.
Super cute with data and facts. He's not the stereotypical GOP operative, but his ground game what he has managed to do in Pennsylvania really, if the Republicans are serious, they should be replicating that across the country. He has just been hugely effective, and it shows you that even in a country where so much money is involved in politics, you can have a campaign like that that it's hugely impactful and is a genuine people led campaign.
So he emerged in this election as one of the field generals of the ground game apparatus that Republicans always lagged Democrats in, alongside Charlie Kirk and the Turning Point Gang as well as others like Chris Maloney and even Elon Musk, was doing a lot in the last forty
five days to turn out the vote. And he, Scott Pressler, has had this laser focus, a very clearly identified, tangible goal that he's going to out register and out turnout vote Democrats in Pennsylvania, which Trump won and then lost by razor thin margins. And he just identified with data, you know, eighty thousand hunters that had not voted in the last four election but are primed to be Trump supporters, something like one hundred and twenty thousand truckers, the Amish.
This was really funny like.
And he targeted them and figured out a way to make it easy for them, you know, to vote in a way that works with their norms and customs and all of that. And he helped flip it, and now he has his site set apparently on New Jersey and other states as well. So it's really interesting where finally the Republican appright. It's not because of the RNC, but because of grassroots people like Scott Pressler have stepped up their ground game that was just so lacking for so long.
Absolutely, and I know the Republican base absolutely adore him, and it challenges again that whole notion that they're not inclusive of people with different backgrounds and sexualities and whatever identity group they belong in. As long as you believe in the cause, you're in the family.
Absolutely, and his communication skills and the factory looks like fabio helps.
Now there are rumors that the Washington Commanders Commanders What a Terrible Name might be bringing back their Redskins Monica after changing their name and logo in part due to that whole BLM movement the rights that we saw. What else can you tell us about this potential comeback of swords. It's hilarious because the survey showed that American Indians Native Americans did not care or were not offended by this
Red Skins Moniker. It was the usual suspects the affluent white left leaning types who were offended on their behalf.
So easily offended, too much time on their hands, and then they just glomb on to this cancel culture mob that had taken over, and that was, as you mentioned, stemmed out of BLM. And then you go off and attack Native American moniker and logo, and in fact the opposite.
Some people in the Native American community were actually upset with it because they see that it was actually very nice and you're sort of peating homage or a tribute to this patriarch that the character depicted and that logo, and you by taking it away, you're actually, you know, being disrespectful. So nothing is concrete yet. It's still discussions underwear.
But I do wonder if post the election we see the shift now and where it's more acceptable again and that walk pendulum funk swung too hard and maybe it's coming back. Maybe this is a case in point.
I can imagine merchandise sales won't be as good long term with commanders as opposed to red skins. I mean that they had a very iconic brand there that they destroyed. Let's talk about Joe Biden. He may be a lay duck president, but as the Wall Street Journal warns, he still possesses great power. He is the leader of the free world, and he's using that power to possibly cause a great deal of damage to the US, to make
life hard for his successor, Donald Trump. And the Journal's Tevy Troy writes, Joe Biden has only seven weeks left in but is still pushing his agenda. His Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission continue to prevent mergers. His State Department is imposing sanctions on Israeli citizens. He's still nominating judges for lifetime appointments. I think that's the one that's worrying a lot of people. And he has just pardoned his son Hunter for a host of misdeeds. How worried
should we be about these last weeks? How much damage could he do?
He does hold the power of the most powerful office in the land until high noon on January twentieth, and different presidents have taken different approaches. Many throughout history have used that power till the very last minute, and he is clearly taking that approach. Look some of them, you know where he's waving the want of executive orders. Those can be reversed fairly easily, just like they're put in.
But others, like judicial appointments, that is a worry because once appointed, especially if it's a young judge, they're going to be on the bench for thirty forty years. Things like he's putting in some protections in place for unionized labor with federal employees, that's going to directly make it difficult for Trump's policy agenda on cutting the federal government to come into police and maybe you know the deals that he's doing, sending more and more EAD to Ukraine
and everything else. Just mix the picture of messire for Trump. But it's seven weeks and I think the countdown clocks are getting louder.
Let's just hope there's no more judicial appointments. Because they're there for life. They can have a lasting impact. Now we talked about this last night. Trump's pick for the Drug Enforcement Administrator, the sheriff of Hillsborough County, Chad Kronister. Now we drawn his name from consideration after he's arrest of a Florida pasta for holding services during COVID resurface
and generated significant backlash amongst Trump supporters. I discussed this with Josh Hammer last night, I said, this is Trump's first mistake since winning the election, and I'm glad to see that that mistake has so far resolved himself. I'm sure there will be plenty of other mistakes, but this one was really one that concerned a lot of Trump supporters, and it was suggested by his ag Pam Bondi.
Which is interesting because Pambondi, of course replaced the only other person who withdrew, But in matt Gets's case, he withdrew because there were enemies of Maga on the other side who you thought he wouldn't get over the line, versus this one with drew because.
The base was very upset with what he did.
And it is interesting because so DEA is important drug enforcement agency, and the whole Fuentanel crisis, which is eateed and abatted by the legal immigration problem, is a key part of signatory issue of what Trump wants to remedy.
So it needs to be a very serious person.
And maybe he would have been good at that, maybe not, But just what he did with arresting that pastor is just a bridge too far, and I think once you've done that, there's no coming back.
And it wasn't that one isolated incident. It was other things you during the COVID era and then also the softly softly approached he took to BLM writers and not enforcing COVID restrictions against them. So yeah, he's got some Yeah, I don't know if he could ever remedy the the not the problem. There is little forgiving or forgetting when it comes to that sort of area. Before you go, this is now hilarious. Donald Trump hasn't posted this picture
on Instagram of him. It's a photoshoped image obviously presiding over a rocky mountain range in Canada with the Canadian flag flying proudly, following his dinner with Justin Trudeau. Of course, it has since emerged that he suggests that perhaps Canada can become the fifty first state of the US and Trudeau could be its governor. If they can't handle some tariffs, if they can impose tariffs but they can't handle tariffs the other way, then perhaps really they're not fit to
be a country. That was an interesting discussion.
It certainly was a just juxtaposed, you know, the might of the US economy and the country next to Canada, which is an ally very similar heritage and all that, but you can sort of see where the mightiness is and then just you put the leaders Trump versus Trudeau, you can also see the balance and might And it's funny. This actually harkens back to the whole Greenland discussion in the last term where he was talking about, oh, you know,
could we buy Greenland? Could be next Greenland in humor they could afford to do it, or past an euro where people take over countries, but you know, it's a very resource rich place in America could do it. And he had photoshopped an image of Trump Tower in Greenland somewhere and this is sort of a page right out.
Of that playbook. Absolutely, thanks for your time tonight, I can't do Still to come, we'll look at some of the best and worst Christmas ads with advertising guru Richard Rowsmith. Welcome back. Well, it's that time of the year. The corporates are putting out their Christmas ads for twenty twenty four in summer better than others. Joining me now to review some of the best and worst Christmas ads is advertising expert Richard Ralph Smith, the co founder of DPR
and Co Advertising. Before we get into the Christmas ads, though I want to play you because we've talked about this next ad of this program, but I haven't had an advertising expert on so perhaps you can defend it because everyone else I've showed it to hates it. This is the new ad.
For car brand Jaguar. What is that?
Richard?
Please defend your industry. Look, that is an abomination. There's no car, there's no Jaguar. There's nothing actually innovitive or exciting or new.
It's yeah, I know.
Look, I wish I could defend it, but I can't. I can defend the industry, but I cannot defend it.
Is just appalling.
And I've never had so many people ask me about half the people ask me about it wonder if.
It's real or not. And it's self parodying. It's pretentious, it's stupid.
It's everything that a brand ought not do, particularly when they're trying to revitalize themselves like Jaguara. You know, when you've got a storied British brand like Jaguar, and let's face it, pretty tired and stale as.
A brand, what you do is you go back to what was true.
And great about the brand in the first place and find a way to make that new and fresh, you know, just trash the whole thing altogether, which is what they done.
They have, they have, and I just can't imagine who they're going to be appealing to with that nonsense. Now let's look at a ad closer to home. This is what Coals have put together for the Christmas period.
I've heard the elves.
Have been helping out.
They know just where to find juicy Christmas mangoes.
Not here, not here, made it welcome to Manbloo.
They know where to hand picked the season's most magical cherries, and they know where to find Ozzie Banana prawn's out at sea.
Now, the production value is delightful, it's inoffensive. There's nothing there that's going to say I'm not going to shop at Coals. But really, is it?
Is it a good ad?
Is it going to have people opt for Coals as opposed to woolies for example.
Well, there are other reasons to for coals at the moment to woolies.
But I think you're right. It's an offensive. It's sweet, but it's fairly forgettable.
And if you look at what the great brands overseas like John Lewis do and compare that to what this brand has done in Australia.
It just feels very very safe.
They've made the mistake of shoving in a whole bunch of product mandatories in there at the expense of making a really great emotional connection, really something really heartwarming, which is what you want at Christmas time.
I do wonder whether these brands are scared to actually have a Christmas message, a Christmas ad, because Christmas is almost offensive to some inner city activist type, so they do stuff like this which is kind of more generic.
Yeah, there is a little bit of that, and I think there's just a little bit of sort of timidity.
Around what they want to do.
They don't feel brave enough just to make a big brand statement and forget about saying five different things about our products and our fresh food. So yeah, they missed the mark on a couple of levels.
But it's okay. The kids will like it. It's sweet and as you say, inoffensive.
Now let's have a look at Coke massive brand and they've put together a AI generated at I'm not sure what I think of that one. I don't love or hated.
What are your well, there's a bit.
Of opinions on that.
There's a bit of a story behind that one for a start.
So generative AI has been the biggest story in advertising over the last couple of years, and this campaign in the US has become a bit of a lightning rod for everything that worries people about generative AI in the creative sphere. So it's a tribute to a campaign that Coke did in nineteen ninety five, very very popular campaign. It's almost a remake of it, but that campaign, and it was much loved by Americans over a number of years.
But that campaign used real actors, real truck drivers, a director, and a massive crew and a whole bunch of post production people, so lots and lots of creative people collaborating and making something really quite wonderful. By contrast, this one here is someone typing prompts into a computer and it's a triumph of technology over humans, and they're actually facing quite a big backlash over that in the use.
I do wonder though, whether the consumer can obviously those in the industry no, that's AI, but whether the regular consumer would recognize that. I don't think I would. I don't think I'm paying close enough attention to know that AD is entirely generated by AI.
I think in the US because the first campaign was so famous and it ran over many many years, they saw that as a tribute.
And there's been a lot of social.
Media about this all being AI generated as well, so it's sort of bubbling up into the surface.
Now for the industry, is AI a godsend? Is it going to revitalize and give you fresh ideas or is it going to see job loss?
Well, you know, as an advertising person, I'm meant to always say let's embrace the latest, the greatest, the best and everything.
And everyone on their.
LinkedIn is saying how up to date they are on the bleeding edge of AI. But I've got to tell you, look from a creative from a creative person's point of view, I don't like it.
It worries me.
I feel about all the crafts people that we've worked with over.
So many years.
They're going to be the sort of things together and you know, I think it will replace people eventually, but it makes us more efficient and all of those sort of things. I just don't know if efficiency is the highest goal we should be aiming for.
Richard Ralswick, thank you so much for your time and that's it from May. I'll see you tomorrow at eleven up. Next is Newsnight,