Sept. 15, 2025

Royal Flush: Trump Gets the Crown Treatment While AI Guy Predicts Paperclip Apocalypse

Show Notes
Transcript

Patrick Gutfield broadcasts live from London (on the company dime) as Trump heads to Britain for his second unprecedented state visit. King Charles rolls out the full royal charm offensive - helicopters, carriages, and banquets - hoping sparkly crowns will make Trump forget about tariffs and Ukraine. Meanwhile, we dive into Trump's most jaw-dropping promises: renaming the Defense Department to sound more warlike, slapping his name on the Kennedy Center, and somehow keeping a promise about sugar Coke while failing to end a war. Plus, meet the AI doomsday prophet who thinks we'll all die from paperclip-making robots and wrote Harry Potter fan fiction longer than War and Peace. All this while Prince Andrew stays locked away and Trump's twenty-four-hour Ukraine peace plan enters its second year.

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Calaroga Shark Media from London, where our expense account is

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getting a workout. This is ballot, that's right. I can't

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believe the bosses at Kalaroga are allowing me to do

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the show from here. But hey, when in Rome, I

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mean London, I'm Patrick Gutfield and we're here because Trump

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is heading to Britain for a state visit and King

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Charles is rolling out the full royal treatment. Helicopters, carriages, banquets,

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the works. The plan is simple, dazzled Trump with so

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much pomp and pageantry that he forgets to impose tariffs

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or abandon Ukraine because nothing says special relationship like bribing

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someone with fancy dinners and sparkly crowns. Trump apparently loves

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the monarchy because his Scottish mother was obsessed with Queen

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Elizabeth's coronation. She sat glued to the TV all day

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while his father paced around yelling sake, Mary, turn it off.

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So basically Trump's entire foreign policy is based on mommy

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issues and shiny hats. This will be Trump's second state visit,

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which is apparently unprecedented, although Queen Margaret of Denmark also

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got two visits, but nobody cares about Denmark. They don't

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have nuclear weapons or the ability to destroy the global

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economy with a tweet. The best part, there won't be

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any cheering crowds because of security concerns, so Trump will

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get the full royal experience, but none of the adoration

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he craves. That's like getting invited to your own surprise

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party and then being told to wait in the car.

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King Charles has to play host while knowing Trump's drill

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baby drill philosophy is basically the opposite of everything he

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believes about the environment. The King spent decades talking to plants,

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and now he has to make small talk with the

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guy who thinks climate change is a hoax invented by windmills.

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But hey, at least they're keeping Prince Andrew locked away

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this time. Last visit, he was described as Buckingham Palace's

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secret weapon, which explains a lot about British military strategy.

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ABC News took a look at Trump's most jaw dropping promises,

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and honestly, it's like watching someone promise to teach their

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goldfish calculus. Some of it actually happens, most of it

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just doesn't. First up, renaming the defense Department back to

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the Department of War because apparently it just sounded better.

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Trump signed an executive order, but Congress still has to

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approve it, so we're potentially one legislative vote so away

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from having a government department that sounds like it was

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named by a twelve year old playing risk. Then there's

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the Kennedy Center, which Trump wants to rename the Trump

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Kennedy Center because nothing says honoring a fallen president like

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slapping your own name on his memorial. He's even suggested

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renaming the Opera House after Milania. At this point, why

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not just rename Washington d C. To Trumpington. Remember when

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he promised to a limit daylight saving time, Well that

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faded faster than your motivation to go to the gym

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in January. First he was against it, then he was

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fifty to fifty, then he wanted to make it permanent.

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The man changes positions on time itself more often than

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people change their clocks. He even promised to get this

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show more downloads, and they definitely hasn't happened. But here's

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the wildest one. Trump announced that Coca Cola agreed to

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bring back sugar coke in America. And this actually happened,

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sort of. They're making a new sugar version, not changing

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the regular coke. So Trump kept a promise about soda

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while completely failing to end a war in Ukraine priorities.

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Speaking of Ukraine, remember his twenty four hour piece plan

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We're still waiting. He hosted Putin in Alaska and came

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away with nothing except maybe some really awkward small talk

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about the weather. The best part Trump promised five million

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dollar gold cards for a citizenship that would be ready

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in less than two weeks. Probably that was months ago.

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Apparently probably was doing a lot of heavy lifting in

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that sentence. Meet Eliezer Yudkowski, the guy who's been telling

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Silicon Valley for twenty years that AI is going to

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kill us all. He just wrote a book called If

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Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, which is either the worst

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marketing strategy ever or the most honest. Yudkowski's big fear

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that an AI designed to make paper clips will decide

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the most efficient way to do that is to turn

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all humans into raw materials. Yes, paper clips, We're all

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going to die because someone asked Siri to organize their

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office supplies. He's also written a six hundred thousand word

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Harry Potter fan fiction about rationalism longer than war and peace,

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and somehow made Hogwarts boring. In twenty twenty two, he

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gave up trying to save humanity and announced a new

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strategy called Death with Dignity, which is essentially the world's

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most depressing retirement plan. But sure, let's all panic about

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the robot apocalypse while ignoring AI's real threat. Helping write

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jokes for dopey podcasts,