
Americano
American politics is ever more divisive and The Spectatorโs Americano podcast delivers in-depth discussions with the best American pundits to keep you in the loop. Presented by Freddy Gray.

American politics is ever more divisive and The Spectatorโs Americano podcast delivers in-depth discussions with the best American pundits to keep you in the loop. Presented by Freddy Gray.
The pro-immigration protests that erupted last week in Los Angeles have now spread across the United States. On Tuesday there were confrontations between police and demonstrators in Atlanta, Chicago and Denver, where tear gas was used to disperse a crowd. Police in New York City arrested 45 people as they came under attack from a variety of projectiles thrown by a mob that numbered several hundred. Demonstrators shouted โshame, shameโ; one local councillor, Shahana Hanif, accused the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of โattacking our communitiesโ. The anti-ICE protestors are in the minority The protests began in L.A. last Friday when ICE officers began rounding up suspected illegal immigrants in
On the night of Monday, June 9, Russia carried out a combined strike on the territory of Ukraine, launching ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as attack drones. The first to fly, as always, were the so-called Shaheds, invaded into the country from various directions. Not long ago, American leadership meant something We in Kyiv anxiously awaited the continuation, remembering that in a recent telephone conversation with Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin had warned he would have to respond to Ukraineโs major drone attack on Russian airbases. We also understood that the US president preferred not to interfere, portraying the bloody war as a conflict between โtwo young children fighting like
19 min listen
In the new edition of Spectator World, author and anthropologist Max Horder argues the US is experiencing a change in its psyche, and left-wing violence is being normalised. He joins Freddy Gray on the Americano podcast to discuss the various examples attached to this, and what the dereliction of democratic disagreement means for us all.
So, there we have it. The President of the United States wants to bypass state governors and deploy the National Guard and the US Marine Corps against his own citizens. This comes after Donald Trumpโs administration, apparently impatient with the existing legal immigration process, started bundling black and brown people into vans with a view to summary deportation. Trump wants to be king. He doesnโt even slightly attempt to conceal it Is there some point at which those who like to sneer at the โorange man badโ school of thought will swallow their pride and come round to the realisation that the orange man is, in fact, bad? Come on,
23 min listen
Billionaire Elon Musk and US President Donald Trump have had a very public falling out. Musk, whose time running the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) came to an end last month, publicly criticised Trumpโs spending bill (the โOne Big Beautiful Bill Actโ). The row then erupted onto social media with Trump expressing his disappointment with Musk, Musk accusing Trump of โingratitudeโ โ and even making insinuations about Trumpโs relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Teslaโs stock has taken a hit, Trump and Musk are yet to speak and there could be implications for the government contracts that Muskโs companies have, but the full consequences are yet to be understood. What do this
Only a few months ago, Elon Musk took to his social media platform X to share a confession with his 220 million followers: โI love @realDonaldTrump as much as a straight man can love another man,โ he wrote. This week, Musk and the sitting president had such a violent public breakup that it sent Tesla stock crashing by 17 per cent. The drama, which rivaled a Real Housewives season finale, finally exploded when the President threatened to pull Muskโs billions in federal contracts. Musk returned the favour by claiming Trump hasnโt released the โEpstein filesโ because heโs implicated in them. It was an eruption that most political observers had, from the start,
Letโs face it, no one expected Trumpโs โBig, Beautiful Billโ to be perfect. But for Elon Musk to adopt the intransigent position that the work of government should stop in its tracks in pursuit of perfection is a manifest nonsense. Especially when considering OMB chief Russ Voughtโs explanation of how the bill helps reduce the deficit. Musk has a habit of failing to see the wood for the trees. Heโs been a long-standing backer of China, which my website has reported on for years. He supported DeSantis, not Trump, in the primary. He recently tried to depose Brexit leader Nigel Farage (it went badly for Musk), and just a few weeks ago lashed out at the architect of
When the White House uses a press briefing to lambast a foreign broadcaster by name, something seismic has shifted. Thatโs exactly what happened today when Donald Trumpโs press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, publicly accused the BBC of treating โthe word of Hamas as total truthโ and challenged the White Houseโs description of the broadcaster rushing out anti-Israel claims only to later bury the corrections. Holding up printouts of BBC headlines that morphed from โ26 dead after Israeli tanks open fireโ to โ31 killed in Israeli gunfire,โ then โRed Cross says at least 21 killedโ, before publishing another piece admitting โclaim graphic video is linked to aid distribution site in Gaza is
It has only been a few weeks since the UK agreed to a trade deal with the United States that exempted us from the worst of President Trumpโs tariffs. There was a grand, if slightly awkward, ceremony in the White House. The deal was sold as a triumph of negotiation and diplomacy for the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, and even more for our ambassador in Washington, Lord Mandelson. But it seems Starmer may have got ahead of himself, for this deal appears to only have been a temporary truce. Right now there is a real risk that the government may blow the deal โ and that would be hugely
36 min listen
From the decline of meritocracy to the rise of anti-Western ideology, author Heather Mac Donald joins Freddy Gray to discuss race, merit, and victim hierarchy. Why is the West so desperate to self-cancel? And is now a moment of reckoning considering weโre five years on from the BLM protests?
Nobody wants to buy his cars anymore. He has been too distracted to pay any attention to his companies, and his fortune has been shredded. As Elon Musk brings his short spell in government to an official close today, and gets back to the day job, his many political opponents will take a malicious pleasure in noting that getting mixed up with President Trump has been a financial disaster for the billionaire. But hold on. As so often, their maths is more than a little wonky. In fact, public service has been very lucrative for Musk. He will leave the government richer than ever, and remains one of the most
Donald Trump did not get to where he is today by taking no for an answer. Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada, could scarcely have been clearer when he visited the White House earlier this month that the Presidentโs notion of Canada becoming Americaโs 51st state was not even being entertained. โCanada is not for sale,โ he said bluntly. When Trump chided him that he should never say never, he mouthed silently, โNever, never.โ Undaunted, President Trump has tried a new tack: the proposed Golden Dome, a missile defence system covering the United States which Trump initiated by executive order in January. He announced on his Truth Social platform
27 min listen
Freddy Gray speaks to writer and author Karen Hao, whose new book Empire of AI looks at a new, ominous age of empire with OpenAI. On the podcast they discuss the impacts of artificial intelligence on society and democracy and how Open AI founder Sam Altman has become a controversial figure.
โGlobalise the intifada,โ they chanted. This is what that looks like. Two Israeli embassy staffers gunned down as they left the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington DC. Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgram had been attending an event for young Jews working in foreign policy organised by the American Jewish Committee. One of the focuses of the evening was finding a way to alleviate the humanitarian suffering in Gaza. Yaron and Sarah were not only colleagues but a couple. Yechiel Leiter, Israelโs ambassador to the United States, says Yaron had bought an engagement ring and was planning to propose to Sarah next week in Jerusalem. There will be no next
Waking early on Thursday in London, I read the news on a half-lit phone screen: two people, Israeli embassy staff, gunned down outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington D.C. A man shouted โFree Palestine,โ โ of course he did โ after he had fired his weapon and walked inside the building โ where, in an extraordinary confusion of roles, guests offered him water and comfort, believing he too had been a victim. In a way, maybe he had. A man shouted โFree Palestine,โ โ of course he did โ after he had fired his weapon Though our airwaves and streets have been filled with talk of genocide, that word
Donald Trump has already caved in on tariffs, pausing the โretaliatory leviesโ he announced on โLiberation Dayโ at the beginning of April. Now the President is under pressure from the markets on spending. As his โBig, Beautiful Billโ on the budget goes through Congress, investors are panicking over the mix of spending and tax cuts, with bond yields spiking sharply upwards and equities falling. President Trump will now have to decide whether to yield to Wall Street again โ or tough out a potential crash. The US remains the biggest economy in the world, so investors cannot abandon it completely The post-tariff recovery on Wall Street came to a juddering
The suspect, identified as 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez, was seen pacing around Washington DCโs Jewish Museum in the minutes before last nightโs attack. According to Pamela Smith, DCโs chief of police, he then shouted โFree Palestineโ before shooting and killing two Israeli embassy staffers โ a couple, named as Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, who reportedly were soon to be engaged. He then walked into the museum, where he was briefly mistaken for an innocent bystander before being apprehended by the police. The murdered couple had been attending an event inside the building, described online as a โYoung Diplomats Receptionโ for Jewish professionals between the ages of 22 and 45. Israelโs ambassador
We got another round of extraordinary scenes coming out of Donald Trumpโs Oval Office yesterday. During his meeting with โโCyril Ramaphosa, South Africaโs President, Trump asked his staffers to press play on video footage showing what appeared to be violent chants against white farmers. โWe have thousands of stories talking about it, we have documentaries, we have news stories,โ the US President said over the audio. He would not let President Ramaphosa look away. The footage went on, to which President Ramaphosa finally responded: โThis is not government policy.โ President Trump did not let up. โTheyโre being executed and they happen to be white, and most of them happen to
Donald Trump has outlined his plans for a โGolden Domeโ missile defence system over the United States. The aim is to establish a shield capable of defending against all types of missile threats, including hypersonic missile systems, cruise missiles and nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. The name is a nod to Israelโs โIron Domeโ missile defence system, which protects Israeli territory against short-range rockets and projectiles, including mortar and artillery rounds. The Golden Dome envisioned by Trump is very unlikely to be realised within the next three years According to the plan, the US Congress is being asked to provide an initial โdown paymentโ of $25 billion, followed by an additional $175
30 min listen
Polish รฉmigrรฉ Zbigniew Brzezinski โ known as โZbigโ โ rose to prominence in America during the Cold War as a key intellectual architect of US foreign policy. He was National Security Advisor to President Carter and was a trusted advisor to many US presidents from John F Kennedy onwards. Yet, despite helping to shape American foreign policy during critical moments, he is not as well-known or celebrated as his lifelong rival Henry Kissinger. The Financial Timesโ chief US columnist Edward Luce joins Freddy Gray on this episode of Americano to talk about his new book Zbig: The Life of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Americaโs Cold War Prophet. The book aims to bridge the
For clues as to where US policy towards Beijing goes next, look beyond Donald Trumpโs chaotic and erratic tariffs and focus instead on the small print of the US-UK draft trade deal. It has a clear message: that if you want to do business with Washington, keep China at bay. The agreement itself doesnโt quite put it that way. It doesnโt need to. Instead, there are broad pledges to cooperate and coordinate on โthe effective use of investment and security measures, export controls, and ICT [information and communications technology] vendor securityโ, and โto address non-market policies of third countriesโ โ all tailor-made for China, even if the country is not