All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
44 min listen
In this episode of Americano, Freddy speaks with former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci about his new book All the Wrong Moves, breaking down the systemic failures driving American populism, the economic fallout of foreign conflicts and rising national debt and his sharp critique of Donald Trump's political strategy and economic policies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?
After the counting of the ballots comes the number crunching to identify the level of fraud in this weekend’s Russian elections. The Kremlin has claimed a crashing victory for Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party, but preliminary analysis paints a picture of voter disillusion and frantic electoral manipulation. The more blatant the rigging, the less plausible the fiction Putin had framed these elections to the State Duma, the lower chamber of the Russian legislature, as a referendum on his rule and the war. In a TV address on Wednesday, he told his people that “your choice and your will shall once again demonstrate that millions of people stand behind our soldiers, that we are a united people bound together by shared values, historical memory, and love for our motherland.
A colleague of mine has a sizable collection of sportscars. He has, he notes, every expression of his favorite, the Lotus Esprit. He lovingly cleans them, occasionally changes up the way they’re displayed. What he might then jokingly add is just how easy this is. The biggest of his cars is just a few inches long. They’re models, of the kind that small children might push over the carpet making “brrm, brrm” noises, once they’ve passed out of what the toymakers call the “bash and crash” phase, when motorway carnage is the name of the game. What might appear strange to an older generation – overlooking their own love of train sets – is that this mid-life interest in toys is not unusual.
Friedrich Merz is the most tragic chancellor in the young history of the reunified Germany. It is time for him to step down. This was made very clear, when he faced the cameras after yet another election that was lost by his party, the CDU. After losing Saxony-Anhalt and then Mecklenburg-Vorpommern to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) – while Berlin fell to the socialist far-left Die Linke – everyone here in Germany expected a speech with consequences. Would he declare the “Brandmauer” – the firewall, that would prevent the CDU from ever even getting majorities on bills through in parliament with the AfD – to be over? Would he step down and make way for a new chancellor? Painstakingly, nothing of the two happened: Friedrich Merz stated simply that he will stay.
The way US prosecutors tell it, Huawei is a bunch of racketeers whose crimes range from stealing technology to evading sanctions against Iran. The company allegedly ran what it called a "competition management group," whose purpose was to award monthly bonuses to employees who stole the most valuable information from competitors. Staff were invited to submit entries via a special encrypted email box. "The entire business operated through a pattern of theft, lies and cover-ups," according to Taylor Stout, a federal prosecutor in the Justice Department, as he laid out the government’s criminal case to jurors.
"GREAT NEWS," hollered @realDonaldTrump on Truth Social yesterday. "Thanks to the bold leadership of my friend, Karol Nawrocki, President of Poland, major progress is being made toward establishing a US Army base in Poland." A lot is going on on Europe’s Eastern Front. The Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk declared around the same time that Russia is planning "hybrid strikes using drones and missiles against countries supporting Ukraine, including Poland.
Just two weeks after the Alternative for Germany's (AfD) victory in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, two more state elections are taking place in Germany this Sunday. Friedrich Merz's government, already under pressure, is in for more bad news. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin are both heading to the polls this weekend. The former could see yet another win for the AfD, though it remains a head-to-head race between the anti-immigration party and the Social Democrats (SPD). In Berlin, polls suggest that a total of four parties are in the running for the most votes on Sunday, with the socialist Left (Die Linke) leading the Christian Democrats (CDU), AfD and the Greens.
To lose one Middle East sea lane vital for the global economy may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness. As every armchair strategist knows, Donald Trump has lost free passage through one strait: Hormuz. Last week he let another slip from his grasp, Bab al-Mandeb, taken by Tehran’s allies, the Houthis. More than a quarter of the global oil supply could now fall under Iranian control – and Trump's war is more doomed than ever. For those confused about Middle Eastern waterways, a look at the map... The Strait of Hormuz, conduit for a fifth of the world’s oil, is east of Saudi Arabia and south of Iran. All the way over on the other side of Saudi Arabia, on its western coast, is the Red Sea leading down to the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.
23 min listen
In this episode of Americano, Freddy speaks with Steve Bannon – former White House chief strategist for Donald Trump – about the ideological convergence between national populists and progressive leftists as they confront the existential risks of unbridled AI, the suppression of internal whistleblower warnings by Silicon Valley elites, and the urgent necessity of cutting off Chinese access to Western microchips and capital. https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Freddy is joined by Michael P. Gibson, co-founder of the 1517 Fund, to discuss the weekend's warnings about AI catastrophe from Anthropic's Dario Amodei, Elon Musk and others, and the Trump administration's insistence on a light touch. Freddy and Michael discuss why Michael thinks the warnings should be read alongside Anthropic and OpenAI's plans to go public in the next six to nine months; how the role of Silicon Valley villain passes to whichever lab has the strongest model; why data centers, and now AI safety, have become Democratic talking points ahead of the midterms; why Michael believes existing product liability law already does the job; and why Peter Thiel suspects a one world body to regulate AI, sold in the name of peace and safety, could be the project of the Antichrist.
So now we know what happens if you refuse to prostrate yourself before the Gaza cult. If you politely decline wearing the keffiyeh like a holy shroud and chanting “Free Palestine” on a mindless loop. They will destroy you. They will hound you like an infidel and seek your excommunication from polite society. Just look at what is happening to Ed Sheeran. The anti-Ed hysteria really is spinning out of control Pop’s Mr. Nice Guy, penner of bloodless ballads, is being ripped to shreds online. He’s damned as a “coward,” a “lowlife,” even as “complicit” in one of the great crimes of the 21st century. “Call off the rest of your American tour!” cry the frothing Ed-hunters. What sin did he commit to warrant such venom?
The Piddington result is in. Ninety-two percent of the voters in the tiny Oxfordshire village have voted to secede from the United Kingdom – 285 yes, 26 no. Why? Because the British government plans to dump hundreds and hundreds of small boat “asylum seekers” in a military base slap bang next to the Piddingtonians. Of course, this is a symbolic gesture. There is no legal mechanism to actually achieve secession, which is perhaps just as well. As we know, it’s hard enough to get British politicians to acknowledge the results of an official national referendum, let alone a wildcat local one.
Freddy is joined by Representative Randy Fine, the Republican congressman for Florida's 6th district, to speak about his viral post, calling for a four-state solution for the United Kingdom. The post which parodies a popular pro-Palestinian chant, “From the river to the sea,” targeted the British government's fresh sanctions on Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Freddy and Representative Fine discuss his claim that 38 states are ready to boycott British companies that comply with the sanctions, why he blames European allies for a war with Iran he insists is being won, whether the Falklanders' votes to remain British count for anything, and why he says Britain's Israel policy is a play for voters who “never should have been in the country in the first place.
After four years in office, Sweden’s right-wing government appears to have lost its parliamentary majority in Sunday’s election. The count is not yet complete, and the center-left opposition leads by just over 30,000 votes. As of writing, the red-green parties hold 176 seats versus 173 for the right-wing bloc. Late postal votes and ballots from Swedes living abroad are being counted this week. One seat may still change hands, although few expect the balance to change. The government made a mistake by allowing citizenship applications to continue under the old rules while the new and much stricter citizenship law was being prepared Even so, it is far from certain that the left-wing Social Democrats will be able to form a new government.
Sydney Sweeney is at it again. After causing a collective coronary for some very silly people last year by appearing in a sexy ad for American Eagle jeans, she’s appeared in another ad. This time, it’s for Novig – a sports “prediction” betting app. And this time, Sweeney is naked. As I write this, almost two million people have watched the ad and only a minuscule minority will be traducing the use of Sweeney’s body to sell a very unsexy tech product Well, not quite naked. She’s partly concealed by various sports accoutrements as she gazes into the camera and repeats the word “sports” over and over again. In so doing, she’s driven some men wild and some women even wilder – but for very different reasons.
How many of the migrants who crossed from Morocco to Ceuta at the end of July remain in the city? Madrid has suggested that “only” about 5,000 remain in its North African exclave (population 83,000). But in that case why has Spain’s socialist government promised to create reception places for 6,000? The Ceuta government, meanwhile, puts the figure at about 13,000. Other local estimates run as high as 15,000. The argument over what Madrid knew about Ceuta beforehand is becoming increasingly embarrassing Hundreds of migrants unable to find places in official accommodation have been sleeping rough. One resident told El País: “Do you know what it is like to live with hundreds of blokes outside your front door shitting and pissing on the corners?
“They haven’t gone away, you know.” Gerry Adams’s chilling words, uttered during the peace process, to remind everyone that the IRA still existed, would do as well for al-Qaeda, the architects of the 9/11 outrage, the 25th anniversary of which fell on Friday. Osama bin Laden’s killing in May 2011 may have removed the titular head of al-Qaeda but, neither that well-deserved death, nor the subsequent splintering of al-Qaeda from ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) in 2014, has diminished either the virulence or potential danger that al-Qaeda presents.
In Joseph Heller's Catch-22, the anxious Colonel Cathcart is in the habit of compiling little lists of recent events. He draws these lists up under two headings: “Black Eyes” and “Feathers In My Cap.” Into the former, he puts everything that seems to damage his chances of preferment – bombing his own runway again, and so forth – and in the latter, everything that will redound to his credit. I like to imagine Sam Altman, the boss of OpenAI, and his fellow AI overlords doing something similar. In the “Black Eyes” column, we might find near the top of the list the original sin of generative AI.
Space is back in the news. Whether it’s Donald Trump unveiling Space Force uniforms inspired by Starship Troopers, the SpaceX flotation that made Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire (for a whole 12 days), or NASA’s Artemis II, which carried four astronauts around the Moon in April – the final frontier suddenly feels fashionable once more. Not that jackboots ever really went out of fashion. The next few years will see even bigger milestones in mankind’s journey toward the stars: Artemis IV will land astronauts at the Moon’s south pole in 2028, for the first time since 1972; China plans to follow suit before 2030; new privately owned space stations such as Vast’s Haven-2 and Axiom are due to start replacing the aging International Space Station at about the same time.
Such is the pace of change in AI that it has been, yet again, quite a weekend. On Saturday, Dario Amodei, boss of Anthropic, published an essay, "We Must Pace the Frontier," urging his industry to slow down. Within the hour Elon Musk replied: “Dario is right.” Sam Altman, the boss of OpenAI, followed. By Sunday, Amodei was on Face the Nation, again asking everyone to apply the brakes on the grand and momentous technology of our time. None of it proves imminent superintelligence. But it is the sound of something ominous The cynical explanation is obvious. OpenAI has just shelved this year's IPO; Altman suddenly believes it unwise.
The Norman Conquest is a crime against humanity that remains, over a millennium on, entirely unsettled. The French still refuse to pay reparations for the 1066 genocide. And the rapacious Norman invader class remains firmly at the pinnacle of every aspect of public life in Britain. Indeed, the economist Gregory Clark has shown that, in some ways, the Conquest never truly ended because Norman last names remain overrepresented at Oxbridge some 30 generations on. Some of the nation's most glittering buildings still wear their Norman Caen stone shamelessly; walk past many great ecclesiastical facades and the conspiracy is right there in plain sight, yet no one mentions it. France owes us money and the math is fairly simple So France owes us money and the math is fairly simple.
19 min listen
What is behind Albania’s so-called “Flamingo Revolution,” and why has Jared Kushner found himself at the center of it? Freddy is joined by Ian Thomson to discuss Kushner’s controversial plans to build luxury resorts on Albania’s coastline, the protests they have sparked, and the country’s long-running battles over land and property. They also explore Albania’s turbulent history, the legacy of communism, and why the country’s ancient traditions and rapid growth as a tourist destination are colliding with Trump-era ambitions for real estate development. Learn how to earn yield on gold, paid in gold, at Monetary-Metals.com/Americano Produced by Abigail Brierley. https://www.youtube.com/watch?
“We gotta take care of business this November,” said Vice President J.D. Vance, demurely, at the Republican convention last night, “then we’ll worry about what comes next.” He was referring to the chants of “28! 28!” that emanated from the exuberant MAGA crowd – an appeal for him to be the next Republican presidential nominee. The message of the night was clear, though. Following something of a wobble in the early months of 2026, Vance has re-emerged as the clear favorite to succeed Donald Trump. For now, the MAGA inheritance, and all its problems, seems to be his. Trump has reportedly stopped doing his private “Marco or J.D.?” polls among house guests, friends and Rupert Murdoch.
Lonnie G. Bunch III, the first black head of the Smithsonian Institution, is stepping down after a tenure of some seven years. NPR had the news: “In 2019, Bunch was named secretary of the Smithsonian, becoming the first historian and the first African American to hold the position.” The Wall Street Journal also got the memo: “The first Black historian to lead the world’s largest museum and research complex says he’s retiring and will leave by year’s end.” NBC looked behind the headline. “Bunch, the first Black person and first historian to lead the institution, has said he would have retired a year ago but felt he had to stay to defend the institution from the White House attacks, the person said.
The ghostly silence and calm that settled over Washington, DC is what many in the city remember most about the aftermath of the 9/11 plane hijackings and ensuing destruction of the Twin Towers and a portion of the Pentagon. City streets were emptied of traffic. The airports closed and most public transit came to a halt. Not since British troops burned the Capitol and the White House during the War of 1812 had there been an attack of that magnitude on mainland America. The threat has not gone away. It has since morphed into smaller-scale events carried out by lone actors Virtually all of the nation’s elected leaders and much of its bureaucratic workforce were evacuated.
One year ago, Charlie Kirk was shot dead; the British government immediately got to work. Following Kirk’s murder, the Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU), a UK government counter-extremism and anti-terrorism unit, began monitoring thousands of social media channels, gauging the reaction of what they describe as “Extreme Right-Wing” (ERW) activists. RICU has stirred controversy over its role in coordinating ‘controlled spontaneity’ campaigns in the aftermath of terrorist attacks Published here for the first time, a memo written by RICU reveals that officials assessed that “Extreme Right-Wing” activists, including Tommy Robinson, would use Kirk’s assassination to “push pro-free speech narratives.
On a balmy autumnal evening in October 2001, a secret task force assembled by the CIA and the Pentagon met in a nondescript concrete-and-glass corporate building at the end of Fiji Way, a run-of-the-mill thoroughfare 20 miles west of Los Angeles. That task force, however, was anything but run-of-the-mill. Dubbed the Entertainment Industry Task Force, it comprised 30 of Hollywood’s most renowned filmmakers and creatives, including household names such as Oliver Stone (Platoon), David Fincher (Fight Club), and Randal Kleiser (Grease). Their mission was to imagine the next devastating terrorist attack, mere weeks after the 11 September 2001, attacks set fire to the Manhattan skyline and shook the world.
Two big stories are driving interest in artificial intelligence this week. The first is the resignation of Jacob Coxon, a researcher at Anthropic (maker of Claude) who used to work for OpenAI. He said in a statement on X: https://twitter.com/hilbertspaess/status/2097476196791709843?s=20 Coxon went on to say that “the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade”, and that employees at Anthropic are aggressively driving forward because they believe they are in the only company capable of managing the technology safely and ethically. At OpenAI, “many have not deeply internalized the civilizational stakes.” Scary stuff.
Twenty-five years after 9/11, and five years after the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, armed resistance against their rule is growing. The new militias are finding support in a population weary of Taliban rule. The latest group to join the fight, the Afghanistan United Front (AUF), have had their campaign blessed in a fatwa by a large group of Afghan Islamic clerics and scholars, who question the religious legitimacy of the Taliban. “It is our duty,” they write, “to destroy the lying and deceptive narrative of the Taliban to save our religion and our people from this extremist and heretical group.
I must return, regrettably, to the subject of the Church of England. Readers with long memories may recall the year of our Lord 2024. In February of that year, the people who are meant to care for Canterbury Cathedral allowed a “silent disco” to take place over two nights in the place where St Thomas à Becket was martyred. Two thousand revelers turned up to take part in what became known as “a rave in the nave.” Naturally the Church of England authorities denied that this constituted any sort of defilement of one of England’s holiest places. Fast forward to September of that same year and it was Peterborough Cathedral’s turn. That was when it announced an Ibiza-themed nightclub evening with DJs spinning an “epic” set of “soul, funk and contemporary hits.
On Tuesday, a 27-year-old British researcher called Jacob Coxon walked out of Anthropic, the San Francisco lab that has made “AI safety” its raison d’être. As he left, he announced on X that he was quitting not just the company, but the whole industry. He did this, he said, because the people building AI seriously believe it could kill us all by the end of the decade. And yet they still rush on, researching something that might extinguish our species. In a normal industry, Coxon’s old employer might have dismissed his laments as wild scaremongering. Instead, Evan Hubinger, who actually runs Anthropic’s alignment science (i.e. the business of keeping AI safe), publicly agreed, and put the odds of mass human extinction within a decade at more than one in ten.
A year ago, on the afternoon of September 10, 2025, I was 20 feet away when my friend Charlie Kirk was murdered, shot dead for holding a public debate on whatever topics the students of Utah Valley University wanted to talk about. I spent the rest of the day in the waiting room of Timpanogos Hospital, first hoping for a miracle and then coming to grips with the miracle that did not come. I had little to do except reply to the dozens of messages pouring in, asking how I was holding up. Over and over, I shared how I honestly felt: I was heartbroken, but beyond that, I felt ill, sick to my stomach not just over the friend I had lost in the most horrible way imaginable, but over what it meant for the country Charlie loved so dearly. America's freedom of speech is nigh-absolute.
"People don’t need no jobs," said Mike Judge’s marvelous comic creation, President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho. "I’m gonna tell you what people need, people need money, lots and lots of money… we gonna print so much damn money, I’m gonna give every single American one million dollars. Ain’t gonna be no more one percenters. Everybody’s gonna be million percenters." President Donald Trump hasn’t yet gone full Camacho. But he’s getting there. Last night, at the glitzy Republican midterm convention in Dallas, Texas, he introduced the "Trump Dividend" – a $5,000 reward for every adult US citizen on the condition that his party keeps the House and Senate in November.
When Donald Trump's political obituary comes to be written, none of his colorful phrases over the years will seem quite as outrageous as his remark in June, when the Consumer Prices Index hit 4.2 percent: "I love the inflation." He later claimed that he meant he loved the inflation figures because they weren't as high as they could have been. But that isn't going to wash: he had scorned the very people who had voted for him, and for whom inflation is a very big deal, by dismissing inflation as something unimportant. He won't be making the same mistake, presumably, now that oil prices have hit $100 a barrel once more, for the first time since July.
