Wrestling with Trump’s ongoing popularity

Ed Balls’ new TV show features encounters with the US president’s supporters, writes Georgia Humphreys.

The former politician, 51, actually wears a skimpy Union flag number to enter the wrestling ring in new BBC Two show, Travels In Trumpland With Ed Balls.

“I’m not someone who previously had bikini line concerns, but they wanted me to wear a really tight-cut leotard, and I thought it would be unflattering,” quips the Norwich-born father-of-three, who’s married to Labour MP Yvette Cooper.

“I got a pair of black boxers under it. Had I only worn the bikini line, that might have ruined it for the viewer...”

He decided not to shave his legs and torso, like his fellow wrestlers did, either.

“My kids think dads should be embarrassing but that I substantially overachieve,” he adds with a grin.

“I could explain to my 13-year-old why it was important to do the wrestling, but if I’d have been waxed and shaved, she would have said it was too much.”

The series sees the ex-shadow chancellor walk in the shoes of a variety of supporters of US president Donald Trump, to try and understand why they voted for him.

“Lots of people will assume they’re either deluded and don’t understand, or extreme and dangerous, but we just met really nice, ordinary people,” he remarks candidly.

“I thought that after the first year Trump would be losing support, but we didn’t find that at all and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he won a second term.”

The three episodes look at different issues facing Americans, whether that’s the gun control movement or immigration policies, and how they feel about their country since former reality star Trump was elected in 2016.

As well as being an insightful and entertaining series, what might surprise viewers is how emotional it is to watch at times.

In the first episode, Balls stays at a farm with a group of war veterans, and as well as hearing their thoughts on Trump, he joins them round a campfire for a toast to friends who lost their lives in service.

And he asks to toast to Labour MP Jo Cox, a mum-of-two who was murdered by a far-right extremist outside her constituency surgery in Birstall, near Leeds, a week before the EU referendum.

“The only thing which felt comparable to me was Jo, who I knew very, very well,” Balls confides of the moving scene. “I did a lot of campaigning and fundraising with her.

“From a personal point of view... Jo losing her life is a terrible thing, obviously, but I’m somebody who has three kids, and a partner who does exactly the same kind of surgeries every Friday, so it could absolutely have been us.“I could both think about what it’s like to be Jo but also think about what it’s like to be her family.”

After tough days of filming, Balls knew he would be able to turn to his wife for support.

“The second episode deals with the Parkland shooting,” he says, referring to the shooting at a Florida high school in February, when a gunman killed 17 students and staff.

“We thought the pain was going to be talking to the 18-year-old in the class who was shot in both legs and face but actually, it was [talking to] her mother.

“After, I rang Yvette because it was so hard and you need a bit of empathy. Our kids are 19, 17 and 13 — they go to school each day, and you assume they will come home.”

Going back to politics, it’s an undeniably difficult time for the UK Government right now too, what with the ongoing Brexit negotiations.

Discussing why people voted to leave the EU, Balls suggests: “Some were anti-European, and the world, but maybe it was a roll of the dice.

“People think, ‘The status quo’s not worked for me, let’s roll the dice and try something new’, which is a very challenging thing for a politician.”

It was the 2015 general election when Balls lost his seat in West Yorkshire.

“But if you said to me, ‘You could be in Parliament or you could do this show at the moment’, I’d definitely choose this show.”

Travels In Trumpland With Ed Balls starts on BBC Two next Sunday.