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00:00I stand before you to officially launch my campaign for a second term as President of the United States.
00:12How will history judge Donald Trump?
00:16What Donald Trump has done is got himself elected to the most powerful position in the world.
00:22And as he got there, he tore up the rule book of American democracy.
00:27Most people have daydreams about doing exactly what he's done, which is come from nowhere and be the king of the world.
00:34Perhaps one leader from our own past could offer a clue.
00:40He was a man who became egotistical and ruthless and frankly a tyrant.
00:46He was larger than life, hugely self-confident, a real self-publicist,
00:53and one of the most intimidating kings ever to sit on the throne of England.
00:58It may sound far-fetched, but set the lives of Henry VIII and Donald Trump side by side.
01:04And the king's story sheds surprising new light on the Donalds.
01:08So in this film, we've assembled some of the world's leading historians,
01:12Tudor experts and present-day Trump watchers
01:17to discover how their character and style of rule connects them across the centuries.
01:23The thing that unites both Henry and Trump is power and what power does to a man.
01:30Both Henry VIII and Donald Trump, their story is exactly the same. You cross him, you're gone.
01:35Henry VIII and Donald Trump governed by chaos.
01:39Henry had pinned up around London that these were false fables, essentially that they were fake news.
01:49Both are prepared to ignore conventions and norms and simply go barrelling right straight through them.
01:56And we'll see if the story of England's most famous king can help us gaze into the future
02:02and predict what the president's legacy will be.
02:04I've always said from the very beginning of Trump's presidency,
02:07the way to look at him is the way that you would analyse a medieval monarch.
02:11In June 2019, Donald Trump was invited to meet the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
02:37Surrounded by royal pomp and ceremony, the president seemed delighted.
02:43I think what Trump really loves about the British monarchy is the combination of theatre, costumes and history.
02:50Legitimacy through time.
02:53For Donald Trump, royalty is something whose place is undeniable, whose permanence is eternal.
02:59Great woman, great great woman.
03:10Ever since he took office, those trying to make sense of Trump have seen echoes of a regal style of rule.
03:17Trump watched Thursday, June 7, 2018. There's a memorable scene in the great film, The Greatest Showman,
03:23style of rule.
03:25Trump watched Thursday, June 7th, 2018.
03:27There's a memorable scene in the great film
03:29A Man for All Seasons when
03:31King Henry VIII of England steps
03:33off his boat into a long
03:35slog of mud.
03:37And seeing his embarrassing situation,
03:39his courtiers, all of them, jump
03:41into the mud with him.
03:43Welcome to the court of Donald Trump.
03:45One of the great
03:47ironies is that the Founding Fathers
03:49when they wrote the Constitution of the United States
03:51they didn't want another monarch.
03:53And what they seem to have got is one.
03:55Because it's all
03:57about him. It's all
03:59about his mood.
04:01So everyone is waking up every morning
04:03as they might have done at the time of
04:05King Henry VIII.
04:07What's King Donald going to say today? What's he going to tweet?
04:09Is he going to be in a good mood or a bad mood?
04:11Now that is an astonishing fact
04:13for a 21st century leader.
04:15MUSIC
04:19Henry and Donald have
04:21a surprising amount in common.
04:23Both were
04:25second sons who lost older brothers.
04:27Both inherited
04:29and spent vast fortunes.
04:31Both were germophobes.
04:33And both married mistresses
04:35and regretted it.
04:39But the similarities
04:41run deeper.
04:43History
04:45remembers Henry VIII
04:47as a powerful king.
04:49Yet his character
04:51was shaped by insecure beginnings.
04:57Henry
04:59was a second son
05:01of a newly arrived king.
05:03Henry VII
05:05had won his crown on the battlefield,
05:07the Battle of Bosworth.
05:09He had a very tenuous claim
05:11to the throne, and so Henry VIII
05:13was part of a slightly fragile
05:15dynasty.
05:17Henry VIII
05:19is the spare to his older brother
05:21Arthur. He was six foot,
05:23which is very, very tall
05:25for someone in this period.
05:27He was very athletic,
05:29but he's never supposed to be king.
05:33When his brother Arthur died,
05:35it fell to Henry to follow in the footsteps
05:37of their domineering father.
05:39Henry VII was quite a formidable
05:41and feared ruler.
05:43And certainly his son feared him
05:45very much.
05:47We tend to think of him as a sort of
05:49grumpy miser, all in black,
05:51maybe very emotionally cold
05:53and very Machiavellian.
05:57And Henry will certainly learn
05:59from his father habits of tremendous
06:01ruthlessness.
06:03Like Henry,
06:05Donald Trump was the second son
06:07of a new dynasty.
06:09His father, Fred Trump,
06:11had built a New York real estate
06:13business from scratch.
06:15And Donald, too,
06:17was thrust unexpectedly
06:19into the hot seat.
06:21His older brother dropped out
06:23of the family business
06:25and died young of alcoholism.
06:27I think one of the interesting
06:29things about Donald Trump is that
06:31he was not the heir.
06:33So he wasn't the person who was
06:35expected to take over the real estate
06:37empire, the carrier of the bloodline.
06:39And maybe that puts an additional
06:41pressure on the second son
06:43that gives them an extra bit
06:45of competitiveness.
06:51Donald's duty was made clear
06:53to him from an early age.
06:55Fred Trump was
06:57the quintessential self-made man.
06:59I mean, he's been described as the
07:01Henry Ford of property.
07:03He made a lot of money
07:05by basically building
07:07tenement blocks for people
07:09who, you know, didn't have a huge amount
07:11of cash in places like
07:13Brooklyn and Queens.
07:17Fred Trump was
07:19tough.
07:21And he always said to his children,
07:23you've got to be a killer
07:25and you've got to be a king.
07:27There is no failure here.
07:37Henry ascended to the throne of England
07:39just before his 18th birthday.
07:43Henry VIII always wanted to be better
07:45than his father.
07:47One of the most vivid illustrations
07:49was a portrait he commissioned
07:51from Holbein later in his reign.
07:53He wanted
07:55to be the best king that England
07:57had ever seen, so he commissions
07:59a portrait in which he literally is
08:01bigger than his father.
08:03Well, when Holbein first sketched it out,
08:05he put Henry and his father
08:07side by side, of equal stature.
08:09Henry told him to literally
08:11go back to the drawing board.
08:13Holbein then
08:15showed Henry VII in the background.
08:17He looks much more feeble
08:19than his son. He's having to lean
08:21on this pillar.
08:23And the inscription on that pillar
08:25reads,
08:27The son was born to a greater destiny.
08:29This is
08:31Tudor propaganda,
08:33pure and simple. Henry is sending out
08:35a very, very clear message to the world.
08:37I'm a better king than my father.
08:45Aged 25,
08:47Donald Trump also stepped forward
08:49and wrote a chapter in the family's story.
08:53As the newly appointed president
08:55of Fred Trump's construction empire,
08:57Donald set his sights
08:59on a new kingdom.
09:01What he really wants to do
09:03is to better his father,
09:05not just by making more money,
09:07but also by moving across the water
09:09to Manhattan Island itself.
09:11He wants to become the king of Manhattan.
09:13Trump bought prime real estate
09:15rapidly and ruthlessly
09:17on cheap deals
09:19and built extravagant new hotels.
09:21We're going to do something
09:23which is going to be a great
09:25stride forward for New York City.
09:27Hyatt Regency
09:29is now an architectural gem
09:31for all the world to see.
09:33To the rest of Manhattan,
09:35to see this young guy,
09:37kind of good-looking and glamorous,
09:39arrive and say,
09:41I believe in Manhattan,
09:43I believe in New York,
09:45and here's the building to prove it,
09:47that was a big deal at the time.
09:49Here's a guy who did get New York talked about.
09:51He is the new player in town,
09:53he's the new kid on the block.
09:55Start pushing,
09:57and start pushing as hard as possible.
09:59So long.
10:01Donald used his father's fortunes,
10:03spending lavishly and publicly,
10:05to burnish his own image.
10:07It stands 68 stories high,
10:09took four years to construct
10:11at a cost of over £100 million.
10:13The brainchild
10:15of a New York entrepreneur,
10:17Donald Trump,
10:19who modestly lent his name to the building.
10:21Donald Trump
10:23was becoming successful in New York.
10:25Cash is king in New York,
10:27money matters.
10:29You've got to spend it
10:31on stuff that people notice.
10:33So he buys lots of things.
10:35He buys department stores,
10:37he buys football clubs.
10:41Trump buys boats,
10:43he buys estates.
10:45He buys planes,
10:49and puts his name on the side.
10:51That had never been done before.
10:53It was about showmanship,
10:55it was about display.
10:57When you're designing a brand,
10:59there's no place for shame.
11:01Spending money in an extravagant way
11:03is success.
11:07Trump moved into the gaming industry
11:09in Atlantic City,
11:11opening huge casinos,
11:13furnished with his trademark
11:15glitz and glamour.
11:17This is a castle.
11:19You're the king of the castle.
11:21We called it Trump Castle.
11:23He called it Trump Castle.
11:25We kind of thought that was a joke,
11:27but he loved it, because who lives in a castle?
11:29A king.
11:31Five centuries earlier,
11:33another natural showman,
11:35with a genius for self-publicity,
11:37had used a very similar strategy.
11:41When Henry VIII comes to the throne,
11:43he inherits all of the coin
11:45that his father has been meticulously
11:47piling up for him.
11:49375 million pounds
11:51in today's money.
11:53And he immediately set about
11:55spending it on tournaments,
11:57jousting,
11:59basically great parties.
12:01Henry went off to
12:03fight wars, which cost
12:05vast sums of money.
12:07He wanted to be the most glorious person
12:09in the known world.
12:11He built about 60 palaces,
12:13filled them with splendour and jewels.
12:19Henry was effectively building
12:21a brand. With all of this
12:23lavish expenditure,
12:25he was not just going to reign,
12:27he was going to rule.
12:29For some people,
12:31size equals power.
12:35Power is the perception of power.
12:37If people perceive you as powerful
12:39and important, then you are.
12:43And that was the case for Henry,
12:45it's the case for Donald Trump.
12:49But enforcing that power
12:51would take an iron will.
12:53And those who crossed Henry and Donald
12:55were about to feel their wrath.
13:09Like all powerful leaders,
13:11Donald and Henry needed close advisors
13:13they could trust.
13:15But in both cases,
13:17they chose them from outside
13:19the traditional circles.
13:21Part of Henry VIII's genius
13:23was his ability to recognize ability
13:25in others. He liked surrounding himself
13:27with new men.
13:29He plucked these people from obscurity.
13:31Henry VIII wants loyalty
13:33from these men.
13:35That's the other advantage of pulling
13:37from the sort of lower ranks of society.
13:39He makes them and he can break them.
13:41So people like
13:43Thomas Cromwell,
13:45Thomas Wolsey, giving them
13:47real power to negotiate
13:49things very much on his behalf.
13:51To the point that ambassadors refer to
13:53Wolsey as the alter-rex,
13:55the other king.
13:57What Donald Trump realized is that in order
13:59to be successful in business,
14:01you have to be surrounded by
14:03very loyal retainers, call them henchmen
14:05if you like, who were very good
14:07at kind of representing his business interests,
14:09who could also tell him about his opponent's
14:11dirty secrets, and who were
14:13slavishly loyal and ruthless.
14:21Roy Cohn was an extraordinary character.
14:23He was feared
14:25and known in Manhattan
14:27as the man you just wouldn't
14:29dare to cross.
14:31He'd worked with mobsters, he'd worked
14:33with politicians, he knew how
14:35to deal with Congress.
14:37Trump was brilliant in realizing that this
14:39guy would pave the way for him.
14:47Donald and Henry also expected
14:49loyalty from the women in their lives.
14:51But as history
14:53remembers, it was often a one-way
14:55street.
14:57Henry VIII is famously known as the king who
14:59married six times, and we know
15:01of three affairs.
15:03But one of the interesting things about
15:05Henry and women is
15:07that he's a total romantic.
15:09He loves being in love.
15:13Henry fell in love with Catherine of
15:15Aragon, his older brother Arthur's
15:17widow, choosing her as his
15:19first wife.
15:21Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon
15:23started very well, and in fact, I think
15:25Henry genuinely loved Catherine.
15:27She certainly adored him.
15:29One of the examples of
15:31domestic bliss that
15:33I like is that Catherine always
15:35sewed Henry's shirts by hand.
15:39Donald Trump
15:41falls in love with Ivana,
15:43who was a beautiful
15:45Eastern European model.
15:47You can see the physical attraction,
15:49but also there seems to be a mental attraction there.
15:51She's attracted by his dynamism.
15:53They get married.
15:55They have children.
15:57It's really quite a happy relationship.
16:03Yet these first marriages
16:05were destined to go wrong,
16:07and both Ivana and Catherine
16:09would learn the perils of upstaging
16:11powerful men in public.
16:15Henry
16:19Henry went off to war
16:21again with his old enemy France,
16:23leaving Catherine in charge.
16:25But there's a real threat.
16:27Because he's away, the King of Scotland
16:29invades, so Catherine
16:31has to order troops
16:33to go and meet the Scottish forces,
16:35and the English absolutely
16:37rout the Scots.
16:39And she sends a letter to Henry.
16:41She actually says,
16:43this battle has been worth more
16:45than anything you can achieve in France.
16:47But Henry took that
16:49as boasting,
16:51and actually her victory
16:53had outshone his,
16:55and he hated it.
16:59Worlds and centuries away,
17:01Ivana Trump
17:03would touch a similarly raw nerve.
17:07Ivana was by now
17:09working in Donald's business empire,
17:11with her in charge of relaunching
17:13the Plaza Hotel in New York.
17:15And she refurbishes it,
17:17she starts running it,
17:19and she does incredibly well,
17:21and has a kind of opening party.
17:29To which Donald is invited
17:31as a guest,
17:33as a bystander, but not as the protagonist.
17:35And he can't stand
17:37the idea that
17:39he has given her something
17:41that she's made a great success of,
17:43upstaging him.
17:45He can't stand that.
17:53He cannot stand the idea
17:55of being upstaged
17:57by powerful women,
17:59especially if they're his own wife.
18:01That really is the beginning
18:03of the end of their marriage.
18:05Eventually,
18:07both Donald and Henry
18:09turned against their first wives.
18:13Catherine hadn't given Henry
18:15what he wanted most,
18:17a son and heir.
18:19And their relationship came to an end
18:21with one of the most famous affairs
18:23in English history.
18:27In the context of the tensions
18:29that Henry and Catherine had in their marriage
18:31enters Anne Boleyn.
18:33Anne Boleyn is young,
18:35she's very well-educated,
18:37very cultured, charming,
18:39very beautiful,
18:41but in a sort of different kind of way,
18:43very dark eyes, dark hair.
18:45She seems to capture
18:47Henry's heart.
18:49The pile of love letters
18:51that we have from Henry to Anne
18:53are really illuminating,
18:55very passionate, very romantic.
18:57Henry rapidly
18:59became obsessed
19:01with Anne Boleyn.
19:03He knew what Anne wanted.
19:05She wasn't going to be a mistress.
19:07She wanted to be queen.
19:09And Henry decided
19:11that he was going to try and put her on the throne,
19:13whatever the cost.
19:19Henry would stop at nothing to marry Anne.
19:21Henchmen who didn't tow the line
19:23were cast out or killed.
19:25And when the Pope refused
19:27to annul his marriage to Catherine,
19:29Henry broke off relations,
19:31made up his own rules
19:33and put himself in charge.
19:37He did this extraordinary thing.
19:39He moved heaven and earth
19:41to be with Anne Boleyn.
19:43He changed the very religion
19:45of the country in order to marry her.
19:47He broke with
19:49the Roman Catholic Church
19:51and established himself
19:53as head of a new church
19:55of England.
20:00Donald's own affair
20:02with actress Marla Maples
20:04didn't have quite the same impact
20:06on his nation's destiny.
20:08But it did pitch him
20:10into a very public
20:12multimillion-dollar divorce battle
20:14and revealed in him
20:16the same determination to win,
20:18whatever the cost.
20:20A side of Trump the world would get to know well
20:22in the decades to come.
20:26When he started having his affair
20:28with Marla Maples,
20:30it gets incredibly messy and incredibly public.
20:32I mean, it's all over the tabloids in New York
20:34practically all the time.
20:36And it's deeply hurtful
20:38and deeply embarrassing to the wider family.
20:40The impression that some people got
20:42was that actually he quite liked it
20:44because it was a way of getting back
20:46at Ivana Trump.
20:48It was the divorce of the century.
20:50A Manhattan fairy tale
20:52was turning to dust.
20:58By the time Henry and Donald
21:00had reached their mid-40s,
21:02both men had shown a ruthless streak
21:04and both had succeeded
21:06in marrying their mistresses.
21:10And Trump himself began to draw parallels
21:12with his illustrious predecessor,
21:14as the invitation to his
21:1647th birthday party shows.
21:20You don't get it.
21:22Yikes!
21:24Holy cow!
21:26Wow.
21:28Is it really?
21:30See, I think a lot of people
21:32would think that's horrible.
21:34I think that's actually pretty cool.
21:36Unbelievable.
21:38He has a sort of woman at his feet.
21:40He's sitting on her.
21:42I guess that's how he sees himself.
21:44I think Donald Trump would only really be satisfied
21:46if he was called King Donald.
21:48The president doesn't quite cut it.
21:52But as Donald would learn,
21:54nothing has changed in nearly 500 years.
21:58When powerful men marry their mistresses,
22:00it doesn't always turn out well.
22:10In their mid-40s,
22:12both Donald and Henry hit fresh problems.
22:16The marriages they had battled to make happen
22:18began to sour.
22:20Henry has been good-looking
22:22and good for his athletic abilities.
22:26And then he hits this crisis point.
22:28It's in the year that he turns 45.
22:30He falls from his horse whilst jousting.
22:32It gives him constant and debilitating pain.
22:36He becomes very sedentary
22:38and yet he doesn't moderate his diet.
22:46He's eating about 5,000 calories a day.
22:52And the result of that
22:54is very rapid and colossal weight gain.
23:00His temper gets shorter and shorter.
23:02And this really was a huge
23:04contributory factor
23:06to Anne Boleyn's downfall.
23:08She miscarries for the third time.
23:12She's not going to give him a son, clearly.
23:14Tiffany Ariana Trump
23:16left a Florida hospital Thursday
23:18with her parents,
23:20and the honeymoon was over for Donald, too.
23:24The one thing Donald Trump can't stand
23:26is women, including wives,
23:28telling him to do stuff.
23:30He only eats Kentucky Fried Chicken,
23:32well-done steak,
23:34chips, burgers.
23:36Marla Maples starts telling him,
23:38eat less meat,
23:40eat more organic fruits and vegetables.
23:42It drives him nuts.
23:46It was in the New York papers
23:48that he saw their explosive falling out
23:50day after day after day.
23:52There's one columnist who wrote about nothing else.
23:56There's all sorts of reports
23:58of blazing rows between the two of them.
24:00Anne Boleyn can't seem
24:02to crawl back into favour.
24:04Henry is aggravated with her,
24:06and Cromwell, again,
24:08is given the role
24:10of getting rid of the wife.
24:12Thomas Cromwell
24:14was the advisor
24:16who had helped Henry
24:18find a way to marry Anne.
24:20Now he would be pivotal
24:22in her downfall.
24:24Cromwell concocted charges
24:26of adultery,
24:28and Henry signed Anne's death warrant.
24:30We all know
24:32that Henry VIII had wives executed,
24:34so we forget
24:36what an extraordinary thing it was.
24:38No Queen of England
24:40had ever been executed before.
24:42Suddenly, at this point, something turns him,
24:44something so fundamental
24:46that he will go to the point of having a swordsman
24:48come and behead his wife.
24:50This demonstrates
24:52very, very graphically
24:54Henry's pathological ability
24:56to cut himself off
24:58from those who are no longer useful
25:00to him.
25:02And it changes his relationship to power.
25:04Suddenly, everybody
25:06has to follow his line,
25:08and that means that he himself
25:10has stepped over into a new territory.
25:18In the years that followed,
25:20both Henry and Donald would reinvent themselves.
25:24And it would begin
25:26with finding younger wives.
25:28Henry went through
25:30two quick, troubled marriages
25:32before choosing Catherine Howard,
25:34a wife
25:36some three decades younger than him.
25:38The marriage to Catherine Howard
25:40was Henry's midlife crisis.
25:42She was really a trophy wife
25:44for the ageing king.
25:48And Donald divorced
25:50Marla Maples and married
25:52model Melania Knauss,
25:54who was 24 years his junior.
25:56The thing to remember about Donald Trump
25:58is that women are his form
26:00of self-rejuvenation.
26:02Along comes Melania,
26:04much younger,
26:06very beautiful.
26:08It's Donald Trump's way of saying,
26:10you know, I've still got my mojo.
26:12I can still be attractive.
26:14The brand isn't dead.
26:22Henry and Donald had one challenge in common
26:24that few rulers have had to face.
26:28Both took power in the middle
26:30of a communications revolution,
26:32and both used it to their advantage.
26:36In Tudor England,
26:38the printing press was still
26:40a relatively new invention,
26:42and Henry, at war again,
26:44found himself under attack
26:46from a barrage of pamphlets.
26:48Henry was getting a really bad press
26:50for the war with Scotland,
26:52thanks to, really, the beginning
26:54of newspapers.
26:56These news sheets were being printed,
26:58which conveyed news about
27:00children in Scotland,
27:02about the razing of Edinburgh to the ground.
27:04Henry was now
27:06at an all-time low
27:08in terms of his popularity.
27:10He had to do something
27:12to win back public opinion.
27:14Henry VIII was someone
27:16who was very vulnerable
27:18to criticism.
27:20He reacted very fiercely
27:22to criticism,
27:24and so as his critics
27:26blast him in pamphlets,
27:28Henry reacts in kind
27:30by using the exact same means
27:32against them.
27:34The pamphlets branded Henry
27:36a horrible monster,
27:38but the King developed an ingenious method
27:40of dealing with such attacks.
27:42Henry had pinned up around London
27:44that these were false fables
27:46and tales,
27:48essentially that they were fake news.
27:50Because they so poisoned the minds
27:52of people by writing false stories.
27:54Because you have a very
27:56dishonest newspaper up here,
27:58so here you can have it, darling.
28:00That's all it's worth,
28:02a piece of garbage.
28:04This is a strategy.
28:06This is a strategy used by people in power
28:08who want to show
28:10that criticism is untrue,
28:12that only they have
28:14the truth.
28:16Fake news!
28:22Centuries later, Donald Trump
28:24installed our own communications revolution
28:26and famously
28:28exploited it to the full.
28:30This is a rather ironic moment
28:32in the Obama presidency
28:34when President Barack Obama
28:36sends out his first tweet.
28:38And it's like, look, guys,
28:40I can tweet from the Oval Office.
28:42Isn't that marvellous?
28:44I think I have done this properly,
28:46but here's the test.
28:48Little did he know that five years later
28:50his successor would build
28:52his candidacy, his presidency
28:54on his ability to tweet.
28:56Why? Because in Trump's hands
28:58Twitter becomes
29:00the most powerful tool of communications
29:02because it's direct
29:04to the elected.
29:06I call him Twittler.
29:08He's changed
29:10the game because he's made politics
29:12now an expression
29:14of personal will
29:16and a personality.
29:18Twitter is an insight into his mind.
29:20He's incontinent
29:22with opinion.
29:24He's incontinent with Trumpness.
29:26It just comes out all the time
29:28and increasingly almost
29:30monarchical moments of magnanimity.
29:36Donald Trump's personal helicopter
29:38descended onto the small airfield
29:40greeted by a one-man Trump
29:42for president bandwagon.
29:44Trump spent over a quarter of a century
29:46flirting with the idea
29:48of his candidacy.
29:50As his power and profile increased
29:52he attracted international attention
29:54and one
29:56British journalist unearthed
29:58a rather bizarre connection
30:00between Trump and Henry.
30:02I read somewhere that
30:04you don't like shaking people's hands
30:06because you're afraid of germs.
30:08Well, I'm not afraid of germs, Matt.
30:10I don't think it's a great custom.
30:12It's been proven, as you know,
30:14a person has a cold, a horrible cold
30:16and all of a sudden two days later you have a cold
30:18you say, I wonder how that happened.
30:20So if I shook your hand again, no fear?
30:22No fear.
30:24You withdrew that very quickly though.
30:26It's not a fear thing.
30:28Well, I mean
30:30it was a bit of a gimmick, the hand thing
30:32because I didn't think it was actually true
30:34but it turns out it was true.
30:36He is a germaphobe and he didn't want to be
30:38at the same time
30:40seen as someone who's
30:42afraid of germs.
30:44He would do fear, even with bacteria
30:46even with viruses.
30:48Which is good because if you want to run
30:50for president, as you might well do
30:52then shaking hands is kind of part of the job, isn't it?
30:54His eyes almost sort of swivelled
30:56at the thought of these millions of hands
30:58he would have to shake in order to get into the White House.
31:02Henry is the greatest hypochondriac
31:04ever to sit on the throne
31:06of England.
31:08He submits himself to a detailed
31:10examination by a whole team
31:12of physicians every single morning
31:14before he does anything else.
31:16There was a real fascination for him
31:18with sickness and with avoiding it.
31:20He won't come
31:22within a five mile radius of anyone
31:24who so much as sneezes.
31:26You seem to have quite a thin skin.
31:28When I ended that interview
31:30I said, if you do actually run
31:32for president, what would your campaign
31:34slogan be? He leant back and said
31:36simple, make America
31:38great again. And I
31:40chortled with laughter. I said, that is so
31:42simplistic. No one's going to take that
31:44seriously. I was so wrong.
31:46Thank you, everybody.
31:48Thank you, everybody.
31:58To cement their power and make their
32:00mark in history, Henry and
32:02Trump each had to sideline
32:04an old establishment.
32:06What's really fascinating about
32:08comparing Henry and Donald
32:10is that they have both
32:12defined power on their own terms.
32:14You know, Henry takes on the
32:16most powerful institution in Europe. He takes on the papacy
32:18because he's fallen out of
32:20love with a woman.
32:22Donald Trump takes on the Republican Party because he wants
32:24to get into the Oval Office. He starts
32:26off with his candidacy
32:28being ridiculed and he
32:30launches a hostile corporate
32:32takeover of this rather snooty
32:34club. And the minute you're
32:36unafraid to be outside the
32:38club, it gives you an enormous
32:40amount of power to tear the club down
32:42and make it your own.
32:48That is the secret of his power, ultimately.
32:50As his father said, be a
32:52killer, be a king.
32:54Congratulations, Mr President.
33:00Once they'd achieved the power they
33:02sought, both Donald and Henry
33:04would be merciless.
33:08The advisers they had trusted
33:10to get them there could easily
33:12be disposed of.
33:18Steve Bannon had masterminded
33:20Trump's election campaign,
33:22but even he wasn't indispensable.
33:24When he was cast
33:26out of the inner circle, he compared
33:28his fate to that of Thomas Cromwell
33:30in Henry's court.
33:32If you are an adviser, a henchman
33:34working for a powerful politician or
33:36monarch, one thing
33:38you know is that one day you
33:40will be out. That happens
33:42to Steve Bannon.
33:44Well, for Trump, what does for you is disloyalty.
33:46You're disloyal to the leader, you're out.
33:48It's the same for Henry VIII, except
33:50he called it treason.
33:52Henry could not
33:54abide any hint of disloyalty.
33:56Cromwell's enemies had accused
33:58him of trying to make himself
34:00king. It was all ridiculous,
34:02but Henry didn't care. Henry was
34:04so paranoid by this time,
34:06Cromwell found himself on the way to
34:08the tower.
34:10The executioner botches the job
34:12and hacks away at Cromwell
34:14while he's still alive,
34:16taking several strokes to finally
34:18kill him.
34:20You do the Faustian bargain
34:22by working for these guys,
34:24this will be your fate.
34:30Having dispatched
34:32the most trusted courtiers,
34:34both Henry and Donald
34:36became more isolated,
34:38unpredictable, and volatile.
34:40The last decade of Henry's
34:42rule was savage.
34:44There very much is a sense that
34:46Henry is falling apart
34:48and during these years
34:50he also begins to feel
34:52that he is under threat more
34:54than he was before.
34:56It's a sense of
34:58He begins to feel that he is under threat more.
35:00He was constantly paranoid
35:02about enemies around him
35:04and trying to get rid of them.
35:06This increases through
35:08his reign.
35:10We know that Henry is personally
35:12responsible for some 300
35:14or so executions.
35:16Treason has become this blanket
35:18term that will cover
35:20doing things that Henry VIII doesn't like.
35:22Raise your right hand
35:24and repeat after me.
35:26Both Henry VIII and Donald
35:28Trump govern by chaos.
35:30Disordered departures
35:32have become the rule in the Trump administration
35:34with aides and even
35:36cabinet officials pushed out
35:38at a record pace.
35:40No ban, no wall,
35:42sanctuary for all.
35:44It's this constant
35:46keeping people
35:48off balance because
35:50he's President of the United States and he has
35:52his hand on the nuclear button
35:54and Henry VIII has his hand
35:56on the nuclear button. You can get your head
35:58cut off. You can lose your life.
36:02Fear had become a governing
36:04principle in both the Trump White House
36:06and the Tudor court.
36:12Within a year and a half
36:14of his marriage to Catherine Howard,
36:16Henry learnt his younger wife
36:18was having an affair.
36:20Henry is devastated
36:22when he is told
36:24of Catherine Howard's betrayal.
36:26He's completely humiliated
36:28but that humiliation
36:30soon turns to rage.
36:32Catherine is arrested.
36:34She tries desperately
36:36to see Henry, to plead
36:38for her life. Henry refuses
36:40and she goes to the block.
36:44Henry's method of dealing with women
36:46was brutal, even by the standards
36:48of the 16th century.
36:52Trump's record is brutal
36:54by the standards of ours.
36:56In 2016,
36:58a shockingly explicit recording
37:00hit the headlines.
37:02I'm automatically attracted to beautiful women.
37:04I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet.
37:06I don't even wait.
37:08And when you're a star, they let you do it.
37:10You can do anything. Grab them by the...
37:14I can do anything.
37:16Hello, how are you?
37:18Nice to meet you.
37:20Give him a little hug, Donald.
37:22One of the
37:24puzzles about Donald Trump's
37:26election as president
37:28is that so many of the people who voted for him
37:30would deplore his behavior
37:32in anyone else.
37:34The evangelical right
37:36doesn't approve of adultery,
37:38doesn't approve of grabbing women
37:40and forcing yourself on them
37:42and yet they forgive Donald Trump for this.
37:44He gets away with it, I think,
37:46because he is completely
37:48in no sense that he shouldn't be doing it.
37:50He simply looks ahead, moves on.
37:54In addition, since Trump came to office,
37:56over 20 women have come forward
37:58with accusations of sexual
38:00misconduct against him.
38:02Their testimony give in graphic detail.
38:04He has denied
38:06them all.
38:08I stood up and he came to me
38:10and started kissing me open-mouthed
38:12as he was pulling me towards him.
38:14He then grabbed my shoulder and began
38:16very aggressively and placed
38:18his hand on my breast
38:20and I tried to push him away.
38:22My attorney and I are committed
38:24to making sure that everyone finds out the truth.
38:28But an even darker accusation
38:30against Trump has been made.
38:32During their divorce,
38:34in her sworn deposition,
38:36his first wife, Ivana, alleged he raped her.
38:40When the marriage with Ivana Trump is over,
38:42Ivana Trump
38:44comes back to Trump Tower
38:46to collect some of her things.
38:48He basically drags her through the apartment
38:50by the scruff of her hair
38:52and then rapes her.
38:56Trump denied her claim
38:58and Ivana later said that she didn't mean
39:00rape in a literal or criminal sense.
39:04She hasn't spoken of the incident
39:06since signing a non-disclosure agreement
39:08as part of her divorce settlement.
39:10The one constant in Donald Trump's life
39:12is that his relationship with women
39:14is both the high point of his persona
39:16but also the low point.
39:22By the end of his reign,
39:24Henry VIII was feared by all.
39:28Henry's final years
39:30are a time when actually
39:32he probably could justifiably
39:34be described as a tyrant
39:36but for a reason.
39:38He's lashing out at others
39:40because of an intense paranoia
39:42that has taken over him.
39:44He's also a man tormented by pain.
39:48Right up until the end,
39:50Henry is still
39:52executing many of those around him.
39:56Right in the last months of his life,
39:58he has a father and son
40:00committed to the Tower.
40:02What happens to you when you get that top office
40:04is you don't change.
40:06You never change.
40:08You become an exaggerated,
40:10coarsened, more caricatured version of yourself.
40:12More threatening.
40:14They will be met
40:16with fire and fury
40:18like the world
40:20has never seen.
40:22This is a very different
40:24administration.
40:26Do not underestimate us
40:28and do not
40:30try us.
40:32And that's what we've seen with Trump in recent months.
40:34That his nativist rhetoric
40:36has become coarser,
40:38more aggressive.
40:40Representative Alexandria
40:42Ocasio-Cortez.
40:48As far as I'm concerned,
40:50if you hate our country,
40:52if you're not happy here, you can leave.
40:58What he's done is he's turned the underbelly
41:00of the American dream,
41:02which is very fragile,
41:04and he's turned it upside down
41:06and exposed what's underneath it.
41:12To the beat of USA,
41:14there's this kind of
41:16hyper-nationalistic
41:18element. That he is energized
41:20and he's legitimized.
41:22And when he's
41:24gone, they will look to somebody else to deliver
41:26the same kind of hit.
41:28And that, to me, is the scary thing.
41:30That he's the start of something. And that, I think,
41:32is what is so worrying.
41:42When Henry died in 1547,
41:44England saw a decade of power
41:46struggles and short-lived rulers.
41:50In the end, it was his youngest daughter
41:52who proved to be his true successor.
41:58It was not easy
42:00to get her to the court of Henry VIII.
42:04Elizabeth I,
42:06as she became, was very careful,
42:08even from a very young age.
42:10And she survived. She was a real survivor.
42:12And I think Ivanka Trump
42:14plays quite a clever game.
42:16She is not threatening to her father.
42:18She's supportive.
42:20And I think it's been quite cleverly done
42:22because Trump, obviously, listens to her
42:24trusts her in a way that he doesn't to the other children.
42:26So,
42:28there he is on the state visit.
42:30Ivanka gets her own platform.
42:32She comes out separately.
42:34She is being
42:36road-tested for the campaign.
42:38I bet you that, in his own mind,
42:40he is convinced that she will be
42:42the first female president of the United States.
42:44And I think you'd be a fool
42:46to say that can never happen.
42:56So,
42:58how will history judge
43:00Donald Trump's time in office
43:02as the 45th president?
43:04And what can we learn from its verdict
43:06on Henry VIII?
43:08Henry
43:10dominates our history.
43:12Even many centuries on, we're still talking
43:14about him. We all know
43:16about him. And I think
43:18that's exactly what he set out
43:20to achieve. He wanted to stand
43:22out as being not like anyone
43:24who had gone before or
43:26after.
43:28I think Donald Trump will be
43:30seen as a moment in American
43:32history. He'll be seen as
43:34an aberration. It's a product
43:36of the revolution when the Republican Party
43:38turned to the right.
43:40You know, if we survive him, which I think we will,
43:42that's how he'll be placed in history.
43:44He'll be a valuable lesson.
43:46The thing about history's
43:48verdicts is they often change.
43:50Fifty years from now, people may be saying,
43:52you know, Donald Trump, yes, problems
43:54and some of what he did was very wrong,
43:56but he did stand up to China.
43:58We don't know, but it may well be that
44:00the verdict on Trump is going to shift just
44:02as it has done on Henry VIII.
44:04The entire American
44:06system was set up to
44:08prevent George Washington
44:10from becoming another King George.
44:12What Donald Trump is saying
44:14essentially is that, I want to reverse
44:16that. I want to be King Donald.
44:18He wants that kind of power.
44:20Because who knows what he'll do with his second term?
44:22The world is waiting like a sort of,
44:24like an audience, you know, at a
44:26great season finale.
44:28What is the star going to do next?
44:30And frankly, we have no
44:32idea. And this time
44:34we're going to finish the job.
44:50Music
44:52Music
44:54Music
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45:00Music
45:02Music