Consider This from NPR - The U.K.'s response to Trump, like America's, is divided.

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

The first day of President Trump’s historic trip to the UK was dominated by ceremony.A carriage procession around the grounds of Windsor Castle with the royal family.Inspection of the guards.Exhibits from the Royal Collection.A lavish banquet preceded by a joint US- UK military flypast. All the royal pomp and pageantry that might be expected for the first ever second state visit by an elected politician to a British monarch.But the sights and sounds beyond the castle were far different.Thousands of protestors filled London’s streets with chants, signs and Trump baby blimps. Protestors told us they were demonstrating over what’s happening in the United States over what’s happening in Gaza and over Trump’s relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.The U.K.'s response to Trump is like America's: dividedComing up, opposing perspectives on President Trump’s visit to the United Kingdom.This episode was produced by Kathryn Fink and Beth Timmins in London and by Tyler Bartlam and Elena Burnett in Washington. It was edited by Courtney Dorning, Nick Spicer, Roberta Rampton and Nadia Lancy.Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The first day of President Trump's historic trip to the UK was dominated by ceremony. A carriage procession around the grounds of Windsor Castle with the royal family. Inspection of the guards, exhibits from the royal collection, a lavish banquet preceded by a joint U.S.-UK. military flypast. All the pomp and pageantry that might be expected for the first ever, second a state visit by an elected politician to a British monarch. But the sights and sounds beyond the castle were far different. That is thousands of protesters filling the streets of London with chants and signs and Trump baby blimps.

Trump's regime is basically a fascist regime. Emma Blink moved to the UK from Ukraine in 2018. She says she came out to protest to raise public awareness. The fact that America is no longer our ally, the fact that America has turned on us and is more aligned with other autocratic dictatorship is such a scary fact for people to acknowledge that people mostly prefer to hide from it and pretend they're still living in the world before this. And we need to raise public governance because unless we acknowledge the problem, we are not able to solve it ever. Protesters told us they were demonstrating over what is happening in the United States, over what is happening in Gaza, and over Trump's relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The overwhelming message from the protesters?

Consider this. The U.K.'s response to Trump is, like America's, divided. Coming up, we hear opposing perspectives on President Trump's visit. to the United Kingdom. From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly. This message comes from NPR sponsor, SAP Concur. Atricure is a healthcare company that develops technologies to treat atrial fibrillation. Senior manager Latorra Jackson shares how SAP Concur solutions help her team manage travel and meet their patient's needs.

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Visit concur.com to learn more. Support for NPR, and the following message come from Yarl and Pamela Mohn, thanking the people who make public radio great every day and also those who listen. It's Consider This from NPR. President Trump spent the day at Windsor Castle, a full day of pageantry, capped with a banquet tonight in St. George's Hall, hosted by the King. Now, that is an invitation a lot of people would give their right arm for it, but we're about to meet someone who turned it down. Today, I trek down to the banks of the Thames River, Parliament looming over my shoulder, to meet Sir Ed Davy. He is a member of Parliament and leader of the Liberal Democrats that's the third biggest political party.

here in Britain. Sir Ed, welcome. Thank you very much, NPR, for having me on. Why boycott the banquet? Well, I love America and I love our king, and it was a very difficult decision. I've been to many bankers before, a huge honour, but I've been really worried about President Trump's approach on Gaza. He is the one person in the world who could end the humanitarian catastrophe there. And although I actually support his state visit, because I believe we should talk to our closest ally, even though I'm no fan of the president. I do think he needs to be held to account for his failure to act in Gaza. I wanted put pressure on the British government, who will get a chance to talk to the president, to say, pick up the phone to Netanyahu,

tell him to stop the attacks, to get food in, pick up the phone to the Qatari government, and governments in the Gulf states to put pressure on Hamas to release the hostages. And I want President Trump to do that. I want our government to tell him he should do that. When you say President Trump is the only person with the power to stop this, meaning what's happening in Gaza, may I press you on that? Because we saw just last week Israel air strikes on Hamas targets in Doha and Qatar. That was against the wishes of President Trump. Why do you think he has more influence when it comes to Gaza? Well, President Trump could stop the funding of the Israeli defence forces if he chose. It's no doubt, and it sits on the record. There are billions of

dollars, American taxpayers' dollars, funding Netanyahu's government and what they do. President Trump, you're right. He says these things. He says he doesn't want it to happen, but he has the means to stop it, and he chooses not to stop it. I'm told he wants the Nobel Peace Prize. Well, if he wants that prize, I'd support him for it if he stops the killing, stops the famine and stops and gets the hostages released. If he does that, I think people in Israel will be happy. I think people in Palestine will be happy. And we could get on and start talking about a two-state solution. A question on American influence. Maybe American interference in British politics is more apt. You got into a Twitter spat this week with Elon Musk. He called you a

craven coward. You responded by calling him a craven coward and adding a SpongeBob, Squarespace. pants, emoji? Yeah. It went down well on Twitter. I mean, oh, no, it's X now, isn't it? I've got to keep up. You know, I think it's good to use humour to ridicule someone like Elon Musk. I'm not sure if he has a sense of humour, to be honest, but hopefully people get the point. He shouldn't be interfering in British politics. He's called for the overthrow of our democratically elected government. Imagine if we did that. He's said that civil war is inevitable in the UK. Imagine if we did that. Just to interject here, this is Elon Musk beamed in via satellite over the weekend to a big march,

100,000, 200,000 people on the streets of London, a rally organized by a hard-rate figure here in the UK. And you have called this an attempt to incite violence on British streets. Are you actually worried that Brits are going to resort to violence because Elon Musk told them to? Well, I hope he's ignored, and that's why I'm calling him out. He attended a rally where some people were protesting, you know, peacefully and quite rightly, unhappy with the government. I'm unhappy with the government. Some of them were hard right. And Tommy Robinson, who led it, he's a racist and is one of the more horrible figures in British politics. And Elon Musk spoke by a video link to part of that protest. And he said, violence is coming. or die. And what happened? Well, we saw 26 police officers injured, four very seriously injured.

I think Elon Musk is an outrageous character. I've said that the British government, I want to work cross-party on this, should take measures against him and hit his economic interests as a democratic elected government who wants to stand up to people who are interfering our politics, trying to cement violence, trying to cement civil war, I think we should hit back. If the concern is the possibility of violent rhetoric crossing into violent action, I do have to ask how to swapping insults on Twitter help the cause. Oh, listen, he started in here trying to call me out. And listen, it's only part of it, isn't it? And what I try to do in my approach to politics is make people smile a little bit and ridicule these fanatic extremists like Elon Musk

and show that there are decent people out there who remember decent values, who care about other people, care about their fellow human beings, and we're going to hold these very wealthy, powerful people to account. Ed Davy, member of Parliament and leader of the Liberal Democrat Party here in the United Kingdom, Sir Ed, thank you. Thank you very much. Great to talk to you.

Among the many news outlets hustling to cover all the activity surrounding President Trump's visit is the conservative upstart TV channel GB News, GB, as in Great Britain. Here's what it sounded like when we dropped by today. That's the master controller, and so they're managing all the feeds coming in. This is the news desk here, and these are the producers who are doing the on-air work. And then I come over and point at the screens a lot and say, why you're not doing that? That's Michael Booker, the editorial director, walking us past the news desk. He's got one eye on an anchor broadcasting live from studios a few feet behind us,

another on screens showing his team on the ground in Windsor. When we've got an American president coming here, whoever it is, you know, it's a big event. We want to be doing it better than everyone else. Now, when I called GB News Upstart, that is because they're, relatively new. G.B. News was founded four years ago. I think the idea was that the other news channels and a lot of the media establishment in Britain had forgotten what they were there for originally, you know, to speak for the people or to bring the news to people that actually mattered to them. I'm from the north of England and I felt that particularly places in the

north of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, that'd been forgotten. So we want to get into those communities and listen to what was going on in those communities. That formula seems to be working. Last month, the official ratings agency Barb found that G.B. News had overtaken the BBC as Britain's most-watched news channel for the first time. And it's taking a deliberately different approach than the Beeb in other ways, which I put to Michael Booker. As I have mentioned to people here in London, hey, I'm going to go see the GB News news newsroom. They say they're on the right. You lean right. Your coverage leans to the right on the political spectrum.

Is that fair? Is that true? I think we try and be common sense. I don't come in as editorial director thinking we need to be right today or left today or I just think we just need to be correct. For Americans trying to figure out who may not have heard of G.B. News. Yes. Who say, so is this the Fox News of Britain? Are you the Fox News of Britain?

We don't set out to be the Fox News of Britain, but in terms of understanding where we are just simply, I suppose that's the nearest to what we are. The nearest equivalent. Yeah. But we're very different from Fox News. I was brought in because I'd been the editor of three national newspapers. And they'd been across the spectrum as well.

It's not just, you know, a few media executives like myself telling you what to think. We want to hear what you think. Around this point, in our interview with Booker, Christopher Hope, wandered over. He's the political editor here at GB News. He had just come off air, microphone still pinned to his lapel because he's back on. few minutes. I asked him about the issue of public trust, about using politicians as anchors. Quite a few of your presenters come from the right side of the political spectrum. Is that intentional? I don't, I didn't hire the presenters. I think we just... But is that a fair

character? I think there's a sense that the mainstream media is a bit left of center and a bit in a kind of a bubble where our viewers tell us they don't raise the issues they care about such as immigration, such as concerns about crime now the broadcast themselves I'm talking about would dispute that but we hear that from the viewers so we want to have the entire conversation we do want to talk about the issues

that our viewers care about immigration but it's okay to be worried about immigration it's not a racist thing or a far right thing and just trying to talk to them and understand that and give them a voice. Because previously, you know, they felt looked down on, I think. Is there an example of a story that's been big in the headlines? So, for example...

The G.B. News covered differently from the other existing channels, and that was intentionally. Yes. I mean, I think there has been, I think we were first to cover properly the protests outside the hotel in Epping called the Bell Hotel. The policy for the government and the last government has been to put illegal arrived migrants up in hotels. And that's caused protests around the country. Many people can't afford a hotel room in this country, but our taxes are paying for people to arrive here illegally to stay in a hotel. You know, what's their background? No knows. They arrived here legally, etc. So raising that question, talking about it, is one of the big issues we're doing at GB News. As you can hear the questions they're raising at GB News are going

to offend some people. They're okay with that. For now, Christopher hope is focused on tomorrow. He'll be at President Trump's press conference with British Prime Minister Kirstarmer. He's trying to figure out what he'll ask if he gets called on. One thing to watch, he says, both British and American reporters will likely have questions about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. G.B. News, meanwhile, has big plans across the pond in Washington. This coming Monday, they are launching the late show live from their brand new Washington Bureau. It's an attempt to explain the U.S. and U.S. politics to their audience here in Britain. And then there's this.

G.B. News recently announced a partnership with Trump media. The press release, which is up on your website, quotes Devin Nunes, who is the Trump Media Chief Executive. He describes the goal of the partnership in part as, quote, putting another dent in the global woke news monopoly. Is that how you see it? Well, that's the way that he sees it. I'm not going to argue with that. Whether some people are walk or not, I don't particularly care, really. My job, purely and simply, as editorial director, is to do the best I can for the people.

We are the people's channel. Michael Booker, editorial director, speaking with me today in his newsroom here at G.B. News, or, as he would tell you, the People's Channel. This episode was produced in London. by Catherine Fink and Beth Timmons and in Washington by Tyler Bartlam and Elena Burnett. It was edited by Courtney Dorning, Nick Spicer,

Roberta Rampton, and Nadia Lansy. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. It's considered this from NPR. I'm Mary Louise Kelly. This message comes from Wise, the app for using money around the globe. When you manage your money

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