Donald Trump hasn’t left his meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska with a deal to end the war in Ukraine. He told reporters that ‘great progress’ was made but ‘we didn’t get there’. To discuss who really got the upper hand, Freddy Gray is joined by Spectator associate editor and Russia correspondent Owen Matthews.
US President Donald Trump claims Washington, D.C. has been “overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals”. There are lots of stories about crime, including one very bizarre incident involving a sandwich. Just how unsafe is D.C.? Freddy Gray is joined by US managing editor Matt McDonald and Isaac Schorr, staff writer at Mediaite, who has written a piece on his experience in Washington for Spectator World.
Let the trolling begin. Chicken Kiev was the airline meal served to the first planeload of Russian diplomats, government officials and journalists as they flew to Anchorage, Alaska. Russia’s veteran foreign minister Sergei Lavrov arrived dressed in a white sweatshirt bearing the logo ‘CCCP’ – or USSR in Cyrillic. Russian State TV viewers have been treated to video montages of the greatest moments of US-Russian cooperation, from astronauts meeting in the Mir space station to soldiers embracing on the Elbe river in 1945. The US side, by contrast, has done their bit to make the visiting Russians feel unwelcome by billeting the Kremlin press corps in a sports stadium equipped
If you need to lose a few pounds after enjoying the French or Italian food a little too much on your summer holiday, there might soon be a problem. The cost of one of the new weight loss drugs that has become so popular in recent months is about to get a lot more expensive. The American drugs giant Eli Lilly doubling the price of Mounjaro in the UK. The price of one diet pill does not make a great deal of difference. The trouble is, the decision was prompted by President Trump’s determination to make the cost of medicines a lot fairer between the United States and the rest
The Alaska summit taking place today isn’t just about war – economics looms equally large. Vladimir Putin, with his forces pressing forward in Ukraine, faces neither military urgency nor economic desperation to halt the fighting. For him, this has never been a territorial grab but an existential struggle against Western hegemony. His challenge is to decouple the war from bilateral cooperation with America: the former proceeds too favourably to abandon, while the latter promises diplomatic triumph and relief from mounting economic pressures. Putin’s delegation tells the story. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov and Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s special envoy for international investment, signal that sanctions and economic cooperation will be discussed. Putin
When Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump meet in Alaska today, it will mark their first encounter since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. Although the talks are likely to be dominated by questions of a ceasefire, possible division of territory, and how the three-year war will conclude, North Korea will likely be more than a small elephant in the room. Amidst amplifying ties between Moscow and Pyongyang, neither Putin nor Kim Jong-un looks likely to abandon the other in the short term, irrespective of whether any piece of paper – however preliminary – emerges from the Last Frontier. On Tuesday, Russian and North Korean state media announced that
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Ukraine’s President Zelensky has spent today with Keir Starmer at Number 10. This is in anticipation of tomorrow’s Alaska summit between Presidents Trump and Putin – where European leaders will be notably absent. Zelensky’s visit to the UK is designed to project an image of solidarity with Starmer, and European leaders in general – but does it really matter? And is Putin really closer to accepting a ceasefire? Tim Shipman and James Heale join Lucy Dunn to discuss Plus – Tim talks about his article in the magazine this week, for which he spoke to George Finch, the 19 year old Reform councillor who is leader of Warwickshire County Council.
Every year the US State Department is required to produce a report on the human rights situation in every country in the world. The report card for the UK came out yesterday. While otherwise fairly anodyne, the US was painfully scathing about our record on free speech. Unsurprisingly, the State Department was unhappy about the Online Safety Act’s long-arm provisions affecting US websites, our abortion protest laws and our strict contempt rules (which last year forced the New Yorker to take the drastic step of geoblocking an important and informative article about the Lucy Letby case). It was particularly caustic about the fallout from Southport, where it did not mince its words. It stated,
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Sam Leith’s guest for this week’s Book Club podcast is Joanna Pocock, whose new book Greyhound describes two trips she took across America by Greyhound bus in 2006 and 2023. They talk about the literature of the road, that distinctively American and usually distinctively male genre, and the meaning of travel – and Joanna tells Sam how the America you see from a Greyhound differs from the one you see on television; and how dramatically it has changed even over the last couple of decades.
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are due to meet in Alaska this week. On the table: a discussion on how to end the war in Ukraine. Trump has been pushing hard to end the war. What’s the significance of meeting in Alaska, what are the prospects of the war ending, and what are both sides hoping to achieve? Freddy Gray is joined by The Spectator’s associate editor Owen Matthews, who writes on the subject in this week’s magazine.
Amidst contradictory leaks and rumours coming from the US administration, no one is quite sure what to expect when Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin meet in Alaska on Friday – not even the Russian press. Nonetheless, they seem rather less convinced that Trump is about to stitch up the Ukrainians than the Western media. On every side there are cautions not to expect miracles Of course, there is satisfaction at the prospect of Putin’s first visit to the US since 2015. Facing a campaign intended to try and isolate Russia, Putin had just sent troops into Syria to reverse what seemed then the imminent collapse of the Assad regime, and
With just a day to go until the expiry of his ultimatum to Vladimir Putin to halt the war on Ukraine or face dire consequences, Donald Trump has once more reset the clock. Trump intends to meet in person with President Vladimir Putin of Russia as soon as next week, the New York Times has reported. That summit will be followed by a second, trilateral meeting including Trump, Putin and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, Trump reportedly told top European leaders in a conference call on Wednesday night. The announcement came after Trump’s envoy, real state developer Steve Witkoff, met Putin for three hours of talks at the Kremlin. Trump
US special envoy Steve Witkoff was back in Moscow today to meet with Vladimir Putin, ahead of Donald Trump’s Friday deadline for Russia to make peace with Ukraine. This was Witkoff’s fifth meeting with Putin this year. Similar to his previous audiences with the Russian president, today’s one-on-one lasted for three hours. While broadly we know that the two will have been meeting to discuss the Ukraine war, the details or results of the meeting so far remain unknown: according to Russian presidential aides, the Kremlin will hold off from issuing public comments on what transpired until Witkoff has had a chance to brief Trump. The President’s increasing frustration and
In June, Tulsi Gabbard found herself in a difficult position. As a dovish Iraq war veteran who happens to be Donald Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, she’d spent weeks trying to stop America launching air strikes against Iran. She’d cited intelligence reports which contradicted Israeli suggestions that Tehran was just days away from having a nuclear bomb. Trump didn’t want to know. ‘I don’t care what she says,’ he told reporters, before ordering the strikes on Iran. Gabbard had been humiliated. Surely she had to resign? Nothing is sure in Trumpworld, however, and humiliation is half the fun. Rather than falling out with the Donald, Gabbard instead redoubled her efforts
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Freddy Gray is joined by US editor at large Ben Domenech. They discuss the return of Russiagate – what’s behind the new inquiry, who could be implicated, and what it means for the legacy of the Trump-Russia scandal.
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Nigel Farage hosted a press conference today as part of Reform’s summer crime campaign ‘Britain is lawless’. He unveiled the latest Tory defector: Leicestershire’s Police & Crime Commissioner Rupert Matthews. Amidst all the noise of whether crime in the UK is falling or not, plus the impact of migration on crime, is Reform’s messaging cutting through? Would US Vice President agree with Farage’s message that Britain is lawless? Vance is in the UK, staying in the Cotswolds, as part of his summer holiday. Tim Shipman and Lucy Dunn are joined by James Orr, associate professor at Cambridge University, and a friend of Vance’s to talk us through the dynamics between
Stockholm This week, the fate of the global economy could have been decided over a Mongolian barbecue in a Stockholm tourist trap. On Tuesday, just 50 yards from Sweden’s seat of government, Rosenbad – where the US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and the Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng had been wrangling over trade negotiations – the Chinese delegation suddenly exited the talks and headed for lunch near the Mongolian buffet place, where they had eaten the day before. Its windows were covered up and a sign announced it would be closed for three days for a ‘private event’. The Americans stayed behind, making do with salad. China, still the factory
Kate Andrews speaks to Damir Marusic, assignment editor at The Washington Post and co-founder of Wisdom of Crowds. They examine Donald Trump’s surprising foreign policy moves in his second term: his position on the Israel-Gaza conflict, why he’s armed Ukraine despite MAGA frustration, and whether his instincts are reshaping Republican foreign policy for good.
Eric Cartman, the antihero of South Park, is a disgusting bigot who mocks disabled people, demeans women and says hateful things about Jews. When the series debuted in 1997, much of what offended parents, educators and religious groups came out of the mouth of this school-aged Alf Garnett. Later, it was the forces of coercive progressivism who bridled, especially at its derision of the trans creed. Suddenly, the median South Park disapprover was Emily, 30 ans, who worked in HR, actually met a black person once, and renamed her dachshund because ‘Dumbledore’ made her feel complicit in JK Rowling’s gendercide. Now the series is displeasing MAGA groupies after its 27th
Donald Trump is in Scotland, holding court at Turnberry. He’s welcomed Sir Keir and Lady Victoria Starmer to his golf course, and had a long discussion with reporters at a wide ranging press conference, that covered Russia, Gaza, and his long running feud with London mayor Sadiq Khan. To unpack it all, Freddy is joined by political editor Tim Shipman, and deputy US editor Kate Andrews.
