Monday
To the Republican national convention (RNC) in Milwaukee, where a longstanding tradition of British journalists interviewing Americans in a style euphemistically known as “irreverent” continues to deliver results.
A recent hit in this particular genre: Andrew Neil interviewing Ben Shapiro, the rightwing American commentator, by repeatedly barking: “What’s your answer?”, giving him withering looks over his specs, and parrying Shapiro’s incredulous meltdown – “I frankly don’t give a damn what you think of me given I’ve never heard of you” – with the cheerful retort: “I’d never heard of you!”
The latest addition to the canon comes this week from the RNC in Wisconsin courtesy of Kari Lake, a former TV anchor and Republican candidate for senator in Arizona, who sat down with Emily Maitlis with the innocence of a babysitter in the opening scenes of a horror movie. Lake, who has previously identified as a Democrat and an independent and now supports Trump, starts to twig something is wrong at around the 40-second mark, and truly, it’s a beautiful thing to see.
“The tone [of political discourse] is really disturbing when the media is calling a man like Donald Trump ‘Hitler’,” says Lake, deftly deflecting a softball opener from Maitlis and seemingly unaware of the house about to fall on her head.
“Like JD Vance did, you mean,” says Maitlis, leaning slightly forward and wearing her guileless-as-a-fawn face, at which British viewers jump behind the sofa and Lake looks momentarily confused. It’s all downhill from there as the slow, terrible realisation dawns on Lake that this nice blond lady from England, despite all her encouraging nods and “yeps”, is in fact her worst nightmare.
By the end of the interview, Maitlis is asking: “Do Republicans need to lie … because you don’t believe you can win at the ballot box?” and Lake has been transported to a place of such incandescent rage she can only respond: “You’re just a sad case of a human being and I feel sorry for you,” and: “I actually think you need your head examined.” To which, smooth as oil and in the best Paxonian tradition, Maitlis replies: “Kari Lake: thank you very much.”
Tuesday
Not enough sympathy has been extended to the real victim of JD Vance’s ascent to public life, Amy Adams, whose career took a meteor-sized hit in 2020 thanks to her appearance in Ron Howard’s Hillbilly Elegy, the movie adaptation of Vance’s bestselling memoir of 2016.
As Vance’s voice rings across the US this week after becoming Trump’s pick to be vice-president, spare a thought for Adams, who can never shake off the visual memory many of us have of her as Bev, Vance’s rackety mother, chain-smoking in dungarees while Glenn Close staggers about in the background like a cross between Catherine Tate’s Nan and an Appalachian Deirdre Barlow.
Hillbilly Elegy, and Vance himself, unpacking his backstory at the RNC this week, tell the heartwarming tale of a boy’s rise from poverty and despair to the world of Yale law school, a job in venture capital, and eventually the sunny uplands of radicalised ultra-right opinion, including the one Vance shared in 2021 – that staying in a violent marriage is a better option than divorce. That we must suffer Vance daily in the news is bad enough. That America’s sweetheart has somehow been dragged into all this is, on top of everything else, frankly intolerable.
Wednesday
A politician who puts her money where her mouth is: Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, who alongside the president of the Paris Olympic committee and several unhappy-looking political aides who’ve been vacuum-packed into wetsuits, jumped in the Seine this week to prove to dithering Olympians that it’s not full of poo.
Observing the scene from the river bank, ranks of Parisiens milled about using various Gallic expressions to communicate scepticism. “I don’t like the colour of the water,” remarked one woman to the New York Times, triggering a response in the mayor’s office that can only be guessed at. Helpfully, she added: “I hope she doesn’t get spots tomorrow.”
Nine days before the Olympics opens, Hidalgo’s press stunt was an effort to calm fears among international athletes that the river is too polluted for use during outdoor swimming events and, to that end, she laughed and joked, open-mouthed, in the water. Although, notably, I see she took care to get in rather carefully feet first.
Thursday
Billie Eilish is rapidly losing goodwill among young fans by sticking exorbitant ticket prices on her six-night gig at the O2 in London. According to the Daily Mail this week, sales of seats starting at £250, or £145 for standing, have been so sluggish that much of the arena’s 20,000 capacity remains empty.
This is, surely, the inflationary ripple effect of Taylor Swift and Madonna’s recent world tours, for which tickets exchanged hands for thousands of dollars and fans flew around the world to attend multiple dates. Earlier this year, in an apparent reference to the Swift’s Eras tour, Eilish referred to the notion of doing a three-hour show as “literally psychotic” and now faces the experience of playing to a semi-full stadium.
Friday
In a straight contest between the summer heat of New York and the (usual) summer rain of the UK, there are years when I’d have taken the heat every time. This year is different. After weeks of temperatures feeling as though they are pushing up towards 100F (37.7C), a cold summer sounds like heaven. At 7.45am, I left my house to run a 10-minute errand and by the time I got back, I looked as if I’d been through a car wash. Shivering around the barbecue has never sounded so good.
