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Every so often, a conversation ends up revealing the throughline connecting a week’s worth of unrelated headlines, and that’s exactly what happened today in my latest episode of Across the Pond with James Matthewson.
We started somewhere we’ve been before, an Iran ceasefire falling apart in real time, moved into a NATO summit that spent more energy managing one unpredictable American president than deterring anyone else, and closed on a story so absurd it barely needed analysis: Nigel Farage resigning his own seat to dodge a corruption probe, only to end up facing off against a man dressed as a trash can.
If there’s a single idea running underneath all three stories, it’s that unpredictability and stunts work as strategies right up until the people around you stop playing along.
James joined from an unusually hot Edinburgh, hay fever and all, which didn’t get in the way of some of the sharpest analysis we’ve done together on this show. I’m easing back into a full schedule myself. My son is almost a month old now, and later this month I’m heading back to MS NOW on Stephanie Ruhle’s new 9 - 11 am show, Money, Power, Politics, with another CNN return likely not far behind. It felt good to be back in the chair with James for a full hour, with a solid night’s sleep.
We opened with the collapse, again, of the ceasefire between the US and Iran, which I’ve taken to calling the memorandum of misunderstanding rather than understanding, given how many times this exact headline has repeated itself. Trump used the sidelines of the NATO summit in Turkey to declare the agreement over and threaten a return to a naval blockade after the two countries traded strikes overnight.
I then framed the whole summit around the question that carried through the rest of the show: what is NATO actually accomplishing when the room’s real agenda item is managing one man’s unpredictability?
From there, we got into the mixed signals coming out of Ankara, Trump touting Ukraine’s Patriot missile defense plans out of one side of his mouth while threatening to pull tens of thousands of troops out of Europe and reviving his push on Greenland out of the other. James walked through how that’s landing in Britain, from energy and medical supply shortages tied to the Strait of Hormuz to Trump’s feud with Giorgia Meloni over a photo dispute, all the way to his phone call to FIFA to get an American player’s World Cup red card overturned.
We also spent real time on something more hopeful: the actual relationships being built between ordinary people at that tournament, which no amount of top-down chaos seems able to touch.
And then we got to Nigel Farage, who resigned his seat this week to trigger a by-election he thought would let him dodge a corruption investigation and rebrand himself as a man of the people. It backfired almost immediately, and by the end of the show, James and I were fully in stitches over just how badly. After all major parties decided not to contest his seat, Nigel Farage’s main opposition is now Count Binface, a comedian dressed as a trash can.
Stick around for that section, because the back half of this one got genuinely hilarious, and if you’ve got a slogan for the Binface campaign that’s currently humiliating Farage, drop it in the comments. We’re reading the best ones at the top of next week’s show.
I appreciate those of you who tuned in live and contributed so much to the conversation. This is truly the best community on Substack. If you’re just catching it now, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments.
You can watch our full conversation above and read key takeaways below. And, as always, thank you for supporting independent media.
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The Iran Ceasefire Is “Over” … Again
The Trump Administration and Iran are back to a familiar place, a ceasefire collapsing. James and I broke down what triggered this latest fallout.
I opened by reading through the latest reporting. Trump said, from the NATO summit, that the US would probably strike Iran again and could reimpose the naval blockade after the two countries traded strikes overnight. My framing of it as the memorandum of misunderstanding rather than understanding captured how routine this exact cycle has become.
A caretaker Starmer showed up looser than usual. James noted that Keir Starmer, with roughly two weeks left as prime minister, seemed more relaxed and more willing to speak plainly at this summit than he had been in office, since he no longer carries the same political incentive to hold his tongue.
James flagged that Trump barely bothers to hear from other leaders, and I turned it into the framing that carried the segment. He pointed out that Trump skips out on hearing other countries’ remarks at these summits, Zelensky’s included, treating the room like background noise. I called him totally incurious and compared this NATO summit to inviting Putin back into the G7, a room full of people who’d rather be strategizing about how to handle one specific attendee than doing anything else, except that attendee is sitting right there.
I tied it to a pattern I’ve flagged in past episodes. This is a rogue, unsettled figure who forces the rest of the world to build its strategy around anticipating his next move instead of solving the actual problems on the table, and this summit was no exception, right down to allies spending more energy managing him than addressing Iran or Russia.
Trump, The Unpredictability Factor: Greenland, Troops, And World Cup Interference
The Ankara summit was supposed to be about defense spending. Instead, James and I spent most of this segment cataloging how many contradictory signals came out of the same set of meetings.
James broke down the three things actually leading British coverage. He said UK papers have mostly stopped discussing Iran and are instead covering its downstream effects, especially energy prices and helium shortages hitting the medical sector because of what he called a revolving door at the Strait of Hormuz, open one hour and closed the next.
Greenland threats are back, and James reads them as a distraction technique. He said the renewed push to take over Greenland landed in Britain as a deliberate grenade thrown into the summit conversation, something politicians there have stopped taking seriously after hearing it repeated for so long, even as it still grabs headlines every time it comes up.
I named the pattern outright: carrots and threats in the same breath. I argued Trump is running something like an abusive relationship with the alliance, sounding upbeat about NATO investment and a plan to help Ukraine build its own Patriot missile defense system out of one side of his mouth, while threatening Greenland and floating pulling a meaningful share of the roughly seventy-five thousand US troops stationed in Europe out of the other.
Italy got dragged in over a photo dispute, and then came the World Cup. James explained that Trump turned on longtime ally Giorgia Meloni after she publicly disputed his account of a photo request, landing Italy on his list of allies not pulling their weight for reasons that had nothing to do with actual defense spending. And of course, we have the incident where Trump phoned the FIFA president directly to get a suspension overturned for an American player, and the US lost to Belgium anyway.
I tied it back to a thesis about who’s missing from the room. I called it the unmitigated id of Trump. The difference between a first term with people like Gary Cohn and John Kelly around him holding back his worst instincts and a second term with nobody left to do that, and argued this is exactly why allies now need a standing contingency plan for whichever Republican shows up next, not just this one.
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The Culture Trump’s Chaos Can’t Touch
Not everything in this segment was about the noise at the top. James and I spent real time on what’s actually happening between people on the ground, and how little the chaos above them seems to change it.
James pointed to the World Cup as proof number one. He described Scottish fans traveling to the tournament for the first time in years and coming back with stories of warm, welcoming relationships with Americans they met. This is a sharp contrast to the white nationalist tone coming from the far-right.
I pointed to viral clips as proof point number two. I referenced videos of international visitors experiencing American culture up close, dancing, celebrating, connecting across race and background. This is multiculturalism at its finest and is precisely the version of the country the current administration is trying to destroy.
A twelfth-century chapel outside Edinburgh complicated the history books. James mentioned a recent trip to Rosslyn Chapel, where newly identified carvings of maize and corn appear to predate Columbus’s arrival in the Americas, and argued that discoveries like that undercut the narrative that global contact and exchange began with European colonization.
I closed the segment on who actually owns American culture. I argued American culture was never one thing to begin with, that it has always been a blend of the cultures that built it. The right’s obsession with “hellhole” narratives about American cities falls apart the moment you spend an afternoon somewhere like a Brooklyn food market and see it for what it actually is.
Farage Vs. Count Binface
This is the part of the show that turned into pure comedy. James walked through exactly how Nigel Farage’s attempt to dodge a corruption probe with a resignation stunt turned into one of the worst self-inflicted political humiliations in recent British memory.
The setup: a corruption probe Farage wanted paused. James explained that Farage, the Reform UK leader and MP for Clacton, has been under mounting scrutiny over undisclosed financial gifts, including a five-million-pound donation from a tech billionaire he never declared. Rather than let the investigation play out, Farage announced his resignation to trigger a by-election he plans to contest himself, a move that automatically pauses the probe.
The speech did him no favors. James described watching the announcement live and called it a rambling, Trump-like performance built around bragging about how much money he made in the eighties and how many job offers he’s turned down. This style of self-promotion, he said, simply doesn’t land with British audiences the way it might in the US.
Every other party refused to play along, and it backfired spectacularly. James reported that the major parties all agreed not to field candidates against Farage, leaving the field open only to Count Binface, a longtime satirical candidate who normally pulls around a hundred votes, meaning every vote that would have gone to real opposition is now consolidating behind a man in a bin costume. People in the Substack Live chat were coming up with hilarious slogans for Count Binface, which we shouted out in the episode. Feel free to throw yours into the comments, and we’ll read the best ones at the top of next week’s episode.
I connected it to a broader pattern with the far right. I argued this fits something I’ve tracked before. Far right figures are consistently better at campaigning than governing, and Farage clearly wanted to be back in campaign mode rather than facing his own investigation, only to end up campaigning against a trash can.
Even Farage’s rivals on the right wouldn’t touch it. James noted that Rupert Lowe, the former Reform MP who now leads Restore Britain, publicly accused Farage of weaponizing the by-election to distract from his own bad decisions and confirmed his party won’t stand either. James said this tells you everything about how far Farage has fallen, even among people who agree with his politics.
James and I landed on the same closing point: mockery is doing real work here. James argued that a society’s ability to laugh at its own leaders is a genuine test of how free that society actually is. I added that Trump ran for office in part because he couldn’t stand being laughed at, and that mocking figures like Farage is exactly the right instinct against people who cannot tolerate not being taken seriously.
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Bottom Line
Three different stories, one thread. A ceasefire collapsed because unpredictability has become an actual governing strategy for Trump, the NATO summit spent more time managing his chaos than on anything productive, and Nigel Farage tried to use a stunt to dodge accountability for his own finances. Only one of the three backfired immediately and hilariously, but the lesson from all three is the same: instability only works as a strategy until the people around you stop playing along, and in Farage’s case, until a man in a bin costume ends up doing more damage to him than anyone anticipated.
And don’t forget, drop your best Count Binface campaign slogans in the comments below. We’re reading the top ones at the start of next week’s show.
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I’ve been thinking a lot about the ongoing right-wing takeover of mainstream media and the media we actually deserve. I wrote a Substack note with my thoughts in more detail if you’re interested in reading more:
