Welcome to ElectionLine’s A View From Abroad sequence, during which we converse with media figures who don’t reside in America however hold a detailed eye on its politics. These good observers have offered a novel perspective on the race to the White House. Following Donald Trump’s victory, we return to a earlier contributor: Matt Frei, who serves as an anchor and Europe editor for Channel 4 News. His reporting for Channel 4 News’ Inside Gaza: Israel and Hamas at War gained International Emmy and BAFTA awards.
The second Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro had been whisked away from reporters, Matt Frei sensed Kamala Harris might have botched her U.S. election race.
The embellished British journalist, a veteran of the marketing campaign beat, listened as the 2 actors delivered polemics in assist of their candidate at a Philadelphia occasion days earlier than the vote. “It makes me so f***ing angry that we’re here talking about a piece of s**t like Donald Trump,” De Niro rasped. Then he was off. “What happens if she doesn’t win?” Frei requested by the jostle of a safety guard. “Good question,” De Niro barked again, strolling into the gap.
Frei was not amused. “I just thought, hang on a minute. You are actors. You’ve decided to come out here to be very partisan and quite offensive, to be honest, but you’re afraid to test your assumptions with a journalist,” says the anchor for Channel 4 News within the UK.
He in contrast the “swarm of Hollywood people” to an encounter with the Trump marketing campaign only a day earlier in rural Newport, Pennsylvania. Here, he jousted with Kimberly Guilfoyle — Gavin Newsom’s ex-wife turned Trump evangelist — after the president-elect delivered a rally speech. “She was very happy to do a bit of rough and tumble with a bloke called Matt she’d never heard of,” Frei displays. “I thought that was impressive … it showed the divisions and engagement on both sides.”
For Frei, it crystallized the sense that Harris’ lean into Hollywood had backfired. “It was counterproductive with Trumpian caps[lock],” he says in a telephone interview. “It probably moved the dial, but in the wrong direction.”
The former BBC journalist just isn’t the primary to make this statement: John Oliver memorably blamed Katy Perry for Harris’ defeat after she wailed Whitney Houston’s “Greatest Love of All” at a Pittsburgh rally on election eve. Frei acknowledges that the explanations for defeat are assorted and nuanced, however believes the vp’s embrace of star energy helped reinforce the impression (even when it was an unfair one) that she was an out-of-touch “woke warrior.”
He explains: “We have forgotten the primary rule of Trump’s election mojo, which is: You upset liberals and liberals howl in anger and throw their hands up in despair. Every time a liberal does that, another Trump voter is born somewhere else in the country.”
Deadline caught up with Frei after the presenter, who additionally works for influential UK radio station LBC, initially sat down for ElectionLine’s A View From Abroad column in February. Back then, Frei mentioned Trump was constructing a wall of electoral assist that was not getting any greater, however was changing into extra structurally sound. He was proper. Trump’s 76.6M votes edged up from 2020, however not by a lot. His supporters remained loyal due to, not despite, court docket circumstances, conspiracies, and cognitive questions.
“What Trump was very good at was bringing out the grievances in people. He did it in 2016 as a backlash to the era of austerity caused by the financial crisis. He couldn’t do it in 2020 because he was an incumbent, and COVID had skewed everything, but he did it again in 2024,” Frei says. “Trump was interested in kitchen table stuff: The economy, immigration, crime.”
Frei says the Trump ticket was additionally helped by Harris’ curse of incumbency, which has grow to be the “shallow grave” of election campaigns world wide. He additionally thinks the understanding of the end result has been useful for America: “Astonishingly, it has caused quite a lot of calm because the Democrats can’t argue with it. Republicans now own the shop, so they’re gonna have to do something with it.”
Frei thinks the U.S. Constitution will probably comprise Trump, ought to he entertain any need to squat within the White House past 2028, however says all bets are off in relation to predicting the occasions of his second time period in workplace. Frei says he wouldn’t rule out World War III or Trump successful the Nobel Peace Prize as he confronts conflict within the Middle East and Ukraine. “That is what keeps me awake at night as a journalist, and I think that’s what’s going to keep the audience watching,” he provides.
One factor he predicts with certainty is embarrassment for Britain’s Labour authorities, which has been pressured to “kiss the ring” after ministers, together with Foreign Secretary David Lammy, trashed Trump in opposition. For Prime Minister Keir Starmer, pragmatism seems to trump precept, at the very least for now.
On the proof of Frei’s expertise in Philadelphia, nonetheless, the same rapprochement from DiCaprio and De Niro appears unlikely.