Biden’s first days
21 min listen
Has Joe Biden done as much in his first days as he said he would? Freddy Gray talks to Jacob Heilbrunn about the Trump policies that Biden is keeping, and the ones that he’s already swept away.
Freddy Gray
Freddy Gray is deputy editor of The Spectator
Friday
Thursday
Biden time: can he stop America’s ‘uncivil war’?
35 min listen
Can Joe Biden unite America? (01:05) Why is the UK’s vaccine rollout its most important economic policy? (12:10) And how can re-enactments bring history to life? (22:15) With The Spectator’s economics correspondent Kate Andrews; US editor Freddy Gray; political editor James Forsyth; Capital Economics chairman Roger Bootle; re-enactor Chris Brown and historical consultant Justin Pollard.
At last, America has a gaffe-prone president again
‘Folks, I can tell you, I’ve known eight presidents, three of them intimately.’ So said then vice-president Joe Biden in 2012. A month earlier, he had assured a crowd in New York that President Barack Obama could, in Teddy Roosevelt’s famous words, ‘speak softly but carry a big stick’ when it came to international relations.
Wednesday
Donald Trump’s predictably hilarious pardon list
So endeth the Trump presidency, not with a bang but a long and and predictably hilarious list of pardons and commutations. There’s 143 in total. It’s a last, parting gift for those of us who, in our sinfulness, have always regarded the rule of Trump as a sort of divine cosmic joke. The headline pardon is
Friday
Are Boomers to blame for today’s chaos?
20 min listen
Helen Andrews is Senior Editor at the American Conservative and author of Boomers: The Men and Women Who Promised Freedom and Delivered Disaster. On this episode, Freddy Gray interviews her about the Boomer generation and why she argues they are to blame for the chaos of today’s world.
Thursday
What’s the point of impeaching Trump now?
18 min listen
Freddy Gray talks to Kate Andrews about the twice-impeached President. Was there any point in impeaching him, mere days from the end of his presidency? What does the law say with regards to impeaching a former president? And is this the start of ‘impeachflation’ – where the censure is used against any president who meets
Friday
Should Trump be impeached?
32 min listen
Freddy Gray talks to historian and Telegraph columnist Tim Stanley about the crazy week in US politics that has just happened – they discuss whether there’s any point in impeaching Trump now; the importance of understanding exactly what happened on Wednesday; and what will happen to the Republican party after Trump.
Thursday
The Democratic takeover is nearly complete
In the days following the US presidential election in November, political centrists reached a hasty verdict. Never mind all the squabbling about voter fraud — they had won. The extremes had lost. Donald Trump, the maniac, was out; Joe Biden, the moderate, was in. Yes, the increasingly radical Democratic party still controlled the House of
Tuesday
Will Democrats win the Georgia Senate runoff?
17 min listen
Tuesday
Year in review with Douglas Murray: China, neocons and the culture wars
37 min listen
Douglas Murray, the author of The Madness of Crowds, joins the last Americano of the year. On the episode, he and Freddy chat through the most important trends and events of the year, from China and the pandemic, to whether or not ‘neocon’ is still a usable term.
Tuesday
Is Joe Biden a ‘Democrat In Name Only’?
28 min listen
As the Electoral College confirms Joe Biden’s victory, Freddy Gray talks to Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of The National Interest, about whether or not the president-elect, with his centrist appeal, is really a ‘DINO’ – ‘Democrat In Name Only’.
Saturday
US Supreme Court ends Trump’s last hope
This is the end, my only friend, the end. The Supreme Court yesterday struck down Texas’s legal bid to challenge Joe Biden’s election. Donald Trump said the Court ‘really let us down’, but the truth is that the case was a legal Hail Mary. It has failed. Now the quixotic campaign to challenge the official
Saturday
The unbearable mawkishness of modern American politics
40 min listen
From Brett Kavanaugh to Joe Biden, American politics too often seems to be a display of emotions rather than policies. On the podcast, Freddy Gray talks to political analyst Thomas Frank, author of The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism.
Thursday
Will the Biden presidency mean more wars?
34 min listen
Joe Biden’s supporters say he will restore America’s standing in the world, but with his foreign policy team looking like an Obama-era reunion, will the country simply become more interventionist? Freddy Gray speaks to Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, senior adviser at the Quincy Institute, about whether a Biden presidency will mean more wars.
Here comes President Joebama
‘So you’re seeing a team develop that I have great confidence in,’ said former president Barack Obama this week when asked about Joe Biden’s incoming administration. Obama sounds a bit of a World King these days, but you can’t blame him for feeling chipper. He has his third book of memoirs out (he only writes
Wednesday
Is fatherlessness tearing America apart?
29 min listen
With essayist Mary Eberstadt, whose recent article for First Things argued that the riots in the wake of George Floyd’s killing come down to the sexual revolution and fatherlessness.
Friday
Did Big Tech sway the election?
30 min listen
Joe Biden won the 2020 election, but was support from social and legacy media the reason why? Freddy Gray speaks to Allum Bokhari, author of #Deleted, about whether Big Tech swung the result.
Thursday
Macron alone: where are France’s allies in the fight against Islamism?
36 min listen
First, France has been shaken by a series of gruesome terror attack – yet western leaders seem remarkably reluctant to support President Emannuel Macron. (01:04) Lara speaks to The Spectator’s associate editor Douglas Murray and writer Ed Husain. Next, this year’s US election was truly remarkable – but what was it like to report on
My post-election drink with Nigel Farage
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, is a useful stop for journalists looking for some rust-belt Americana not too far from New York. The city feels a bit like a museum. Not so long ago, Bethlehem Steel was one of the biggest steel and ship-building companies in the world. Today the vast mill, which shut down in 1995, is
Monday
Deplorables don’t riot
For months, the media has warned us that a narrow Joe Biden victory in the presidential election could lead to civil war. President Donald Trump would refuse to accept the result and his supporters would resort to violence. Well, the first part seems right; Trump is clinging on to the bitterest of ends. The second
