Freddy Gray is deputy editor of The Spectator
Washington D.C. For Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, it’s a case of today Ukraine, tomorrow the world. In their much-hyped telephone call this week, the Russian leader didn’t appear to give much away: a step towards a sort-of ceasefire, a prisoner swap and a few other bits and bobs. But Putin knows that Trump wants
24 min listen
Russia and Ukraine have launched air attacks on each other, hours after Vladimir Putin told Trump that Russia would stop targeting Ukrainian energy sites. Has Putin outplayed Trump? And will Trump regret bringing Europe’s militaries back to life? Deputy and US editor Freddy Gray is joined by Americano regular and author Jacob Heilbrunn to discuss.
Almost exactly seven years ago, on Monday 19 March 2018, Donald Trump decided he wanted to telephone Vladimir Putin to congratulate the Russian president on his re-election. The call was set up for the following day, though Trump’s then national security advisor H R McMaster ordered his team to give the President helpful note cards.
27 min listen
Freddy Gray is joined by Fox News broadcaster Deroy Murdock to discuss Trump’s America. They cover what could be the real reason behind Trump’s tariffs, how concerned Americans should be about a recession, the Ukraine-Russia peace plan and what the Democrats can do to recover from the election defeat.
26 min listen
Is mental health overdiagnosis harming children? Abigail Shrier, author of Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up, joins Freddy Gray on the Americano show to discuss how mental health experts are potentially damaging children. Have our efforts to support our children backfired?
48 min listen
Freddy Gray is joined with Michael Auslin who is an academic and historian at the Hoover Institute and author of the Substack ‘THE PATOWMACK PACKET’. They discuss China’s response to Trump’s tariffs, whether China is serious about threats of war and how concerned Trump is about China’s relationship with Russia.
It’s great that JD Vance is all for free speech, though he does tend to shoot off his mouth in an off-putting way. He is, as Disraeli said of Gladstone, ‘a sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity.’ In an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity last night, the Vice President said: ‘If you
31 min listen
Donald Trump announced last night he is suspending military aid to Ukraine until Zelensky is ‘ready for peace’. Following this, the Vice President JD Vance sparked further international outrage in a Fox News interview referring to Britain as ‘some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years’. JD Vance has since
25 min listen
Freddy is joined by The Spectator World’s deputy US editor, Kate Andrews, and The Telegraph columnist, Tim Stanley, to talk about Keir Starmer’s much-anticipated meeting with Donald Trump in Washington. Across the board, it has been read as a success – at least domestically, that is. The victories include movement on the Ukraine backstop, some positive discussions around
14 min listen
Unbelievably, Keir Starmer arrives back from Washington today after a successful meeting with Donald Trump. In fact, it’s hard to see how it could have gone much better. Top of the list of victories: it looks like some headway was made in avoiding tariffs on the UK and, on Ukraine, the pair discussed the prime
28 min listen
Robert Bryce, an energy expert and author of The Question of Power, discusses the state of global energy, electric vehicles, and government policies both in the UK and America. Freddy and Robert look at how government subsidies and mandates have driven automakers toward unprofitable EV production, what is energy humanism, and how foreign interference has
Keir Starmer seemed on unusually good form as he arrived in Washington last night. He cracked quite a good joke about the United Kingdom’s new ambassador to the United States, Lord Mandelson. Maybe, just maybe, there’s a charismatic statesman lurking behind the Prime Minister’s dreary exterior. We shall see. At any rate, assuming no bizarre media blow
24 min listen
Donald Trump attacked the Ukrainian President overnight, describing him as a ‘dictator’ and saying he’s done a ‘terrible job.’ In return, Zelensky has accused Trump of ‘living in a disinformation space.’ The West has invested a huge amount of capital in the fight against Russia – and failed to secure peace. Is Trump using these
And just like that, we are back in 2017. Donald Trump, the President of the United States, is posting ridiculous hyperbole on his socials and mouthing off from Mar-a-Lago, as he always has. In the last 24 hours, however, the global political and media classes have gone back to gnashing their teeth and wailing in
29 min listen
Oren Cass, founder and chief economist of think-tank American Compass, sits down with Freddy Gray at the ARC conference in London. They react to the announcement by President Trump over the weekend of reciprocal tariffs: the decision by the US to match import duties levied by other countries. What’s the strategy behind Trump’s decision? And
15 min listen
The fallout continues from US vice-president J.D. Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference. Criticising Europe over what he sees as the retreat of free speech, he singled out the case of Adam Smith-Connor in the UK as something that worries him about the direction that Britain is heading in. Smith-Connor was arrested in 2022
36 min listen
Political commentator, and author of Troubled, Rob Henderson joins Freddy Gray from the ARC conference in London. They discuss the political reaction to the news that Elon Musk has allegedly had his 13th child – are there signs of a new, more permissive conservatism? They also discuss Trump’s administration so far – particularly his flurry of
56 min listen
Professor John Mearsheimer comes back on the Americano show with Freddy Gray to discuss how seriously we should take Trump’s foreign policy. They cover the President’s plans to rebuild Gaza, why Netanyahu and Trump won’t agree on what to do with Iran and whether Trump can strike a deal with Putin.
25 min listen
Angus Hanton, author of Vassal State: How America Runs Britain, joins Freddy Gray to talk about the economic relationship between Britain and America. As the world adjusts to the new US administration, every day seems to bring news of new potential tariffs. Is the UK a prime target for Trump? What could the impact of tariffs
20 min listen
When Netanyahu visited the White House, Donald Trump said in a press conference that the US could take over the Gaza Strip and suggested the permanent resettlement of its 1.8 million residents to neighbouring Arab countries. It has sparked global condemnation raising questions about where the Gaza citizens could be resettled to, and how this
