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Page 94: The Private Eye Podcast

183: Fight! Fight! Fight!

16 Jun 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.031 - 8.661 Andrew Hunter-Murray

Hello and welcome to another episode of Page 94. We're obviously here to discuss the most important sporting event of the year, the cage fight on the White House lawn.

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Chapter 2: What is the significance of the White House cage fight?

8.822 - 15.83 Andrew Hunter-Murray

Helen, you've been oiling up. Yes, I have.

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15.85 - 16.431 Adam McQueen

Well spotted.

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17.893 - 18.553 Andrew Hunter-Murray

Better do that again.

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20.376 - 23.119 Adam McQueen

Page 94, the Private Eye podcast.

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23.588 - 42.271 Andrew Hunter-Murray

Hello and welcome to another episode of Page 94. My name's Andrew Hunter-Murray and I'm here in the iStudio with Helen Lewis, Adam McQueen and Sarah Shannon. We're here to discuss the most important sporting event of the year so far, obviously, the cage fight on the White House lawn. Helen, you've been observing the star-spangled biceps. What can you tell us?

42.511 - 59.651 Sarah Shannon

I have. I mean, not with the actual cage fighting bit, because in a classic Trump stitch-up, the broadcast rights for that were exclusively given to, not CBS, the thing that they own... that's free to air, but Paramount Plus. So they were pay-per-view. What? Like this monthly subscription fee.

59.671 - 77.416 Sarah Shannon

And sure enough, the two people who were in charge of Paramount, the Ellisons, were there at the match and our Trump donors and got his sign-off for their merger with Warner Brothers. And that is the story of the White House cage fight. Yes, okay. The main story is the fact that I've never seen a more tastelessly American occasion. Extraordinary.

77.456 - 80.5 Sarah Shannon

Imagine something that you think of as like peak tasteless American.

80.821 - 81.642 Andrew Hunter-Murray

Yeah, monster truck.

Chapter 3: How did the UFC influence the White House event?

201.228 - 214.235 Sarah Shannon

It was allegedly part of America 250. But really, it was America's favorite president, Donald Trump's 80th birthday. Right. And someone did a great tweet, which was like, this is the ultimate. He is Caesar maxing. Right. We have.

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214.255 - 217.921 Andrew Hunter-Murray

I don't like that. That makes me feel very queasy.

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218.241 - 234.327 Sarah Shannon

He had a peace deal with Persia, a gladiator fight in front of the imperial palace. Yeah. And then your elderly emperor and his sort of slightly useless sons all there. Like that is that he has Caesar maxed. You can't take that away from him.

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234.307 - 255.353 Andrew Hunter-Murray

Right. How did it end for Caesar? I can't remember just offhand. Anyway, so, I mean, we don't need to get too chinstrokey about what does this mean about America? But it is interesting that it comes the same within a day of the announcement that there's a deal with Iran that's going to end the war, supposedly with tremendous victory, although everyone can see that it's not really.

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255.67 - 271.587 Sarah Shannon

Right, but it does tell you something very interesting about the MAGA movement. All the posts about it were like, libs would say that they hate this because, you know, it's tasteless, but that's because they hate America. Trump's approval rating is bad, right? Actually, only 18% of people said they thought it was an appropriate time to be having a big cage fight on the White House lawn.

271.567 - 292.68 Sarah Shannon

given that gas prices are so high, the economy's not doing particularly well. So it was one of those kind of great moments, like the election night, where it was just a lot of people exulting and owning the libs. And like, oh, I tell you who won't like this, which is the kind of animating glue of lots of bits of that. And they're not happy unless they feel that someone else is upset.

292.66 - 307.581 Sarah Shannon

And, you know, you can say that that's, I think that's slightly decadent, but it's what makes them happy, Andy. And that's what we can say about the MAGA movement, apart from anything else. Aside from any of the ideological occurrences, they all just like the idea that they're upsetting people.

307.848 - 308.168 Andrew Hunter-Murray

Right.

308.329 - 310.011 Sarah Shannon

Some group of college professors.

Chapter 4: What does the MAGA movement reveal about American culture?

847.358 - 858.334 Sarah Shannon

Exactly, they did not. And young Baron was there, along with the other sons, including the one who got married last weekend and Trump didn't bother to go. He'll go to this, but not that.

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858.355 - 862.381 Adam McQueen

It'd be one way to source out the succession, wouldn't it? All get in the ring, guys!

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862.941 - 864.784 Helen Lewis

Baron would win. Baron is like eight feet tall.

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864.864 - 868.55 Sarah Shannon

He'd take the lot of them. But J.D. Vance has been looking much trimmer of late.

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869.972 - 889.159 Andrew Hunter-Murray

Helen, we can't do Helen's a Zempic watch every single fortnight of this podcast. We should turn to the other biggest sporting engagement of the year so far. Which countries have we all picked or had forced on us in the ISE World Cup sweepstake? I'll go first. Ghana.

889.96 - 891.984 Adam McQueen

Egypt. Germany.

893.566 - 915.671 Andrew Hunter-Murray

Korea, who have won one match. I see. If they keep going like that. Right, so we're here to talk about the World Cup, but we thought we'd make it as eye-ish as possible. So the latest issue of the Mag has a World Cup theme. And Sarah, you write a great deal about sport at the eye. And this is a rather unusual World Cup in that it's a lot larger, so it's a lot easier to get in.

916.211 - 920.937 Andrew Hunter-Murray

But it's also quite a lot harder to get in to the country that's hosting it. Is that fair?

921.575 - 937.896 Adam McQueen

I think that's fair, yes. There's never been more matches, more tickets available, but can you actually get there to watch your team? Iran is the sort of top story on this. They can't actually even have their training camp in the country. I mean, it's this extraordinary situation where the

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