Donald trump

Wednesday

Andrew Watts

Who do US psychics predict will win the election?

From our UK edition

A week away from the American election, and the polls cannot tell us who will be president. But can they ever? A poll is, as the pundits always remind us, a snapshot of public opinion, not a prediction. Nate Silver himself said that anyone dissecting an individual poll is ‘just doing astrology’. So what predictions are actual astrologers making about the election? She looks relieved when she draws the High Priestess: a trump card, but possibly not a Trump card Under the electoral college system, nationwide data is not as important as predictions for the swing states, so I look for astrologers in the seven states which will decide the election. The drawback to this methodology quickly becomes apparent: predicting the future is illegal in half of them.

Martin Vander Weyer

Still hunting for a Trump trade? Gold may have further to rise

From our UK edition

Anyone hunting for a ‘Trump trade’ at this late stage has probably missed the US election bus. If you bought gold as a traditional safe-haven asset back in February at £1,600 an ounce, you’d be a smug 33 per cent up by now – though my man in the bullion market tells me the rise is by no means all to do with presidential hopes and fears. There has also been big buying from China possibly linked to moves, with Russia and other unfriendly actors, towards ‘de-dollarisation’ of world trade using a partially gold-backed alternative currency. Which means there could be more upside ahead, my man says, and gold ETFs are still worth a look.

Thursday

Lara Prendergast

Cambridge in crisis, Trump’s wicked humour & the beauty of AI ceramics

From our UK edition

53 min listen

This week: Decline and Fall – how our greatest universities are betraying students.Our greatest universities are betraying students, writes David Butterfield, who has just resigned from teaching Classics at Cambridge after 21 years. What went wrong? First, class lists of exam results became private, under alleged grounds of ‘data protection’, which snuffed out much of the competitive spirit of the university. Now even the fate of examinations hangs in the balance. Grade inflation is rampant, and it is now unheard of for students to be sent down for insufficient academic performance. For students, the risks have never been lower.

Lionel Shriver

America’s last undecided voter

From our UK edition

This is the last column I’ll file before the American presidential election, and I’ve dreaded writing it for months. (The next one, filed on election day itself, may prove impossible. Perhaps that’s when I’ll choose to share my recipe for parsley as a side vegetable.) Meanwhile, I’ve watched fellow ‘double haters’ squirm in print. There are two models for wrestling with this dilemma, one exemplified by Andrew Sullivan. The conservative commentator ‘came out’ in a September Substack newsletter – no, not in that dated sense: everyone knows he’s gay – in support of Kamala Harris, only to lavish the overwhelming majority of that column on what a ghastly candidate she is.

Wednesday

Freddy Gray

Is Labour interfering in the US election?

From our UK edition

16 min listen

Keir Starmer can’t even fly to Samoa without another international British embarrassment breaking out. The latest is an angry accusation from Donald Trump’s campaign that Labour is committing the crime of ‘election interference’ in the United States. ‘The British are coming!’ screamed a typically camp Trump-Vance official press release last night. The campaign denounced Britain’s ‘far-left’ governing party for attempting to subvert democracy by sending almost 100 of its activists across the pond to sway American voters. But are the British actually coming? Freddy Gray speaks to James Heale, The Spectator's political correspondent.  Produced by Oscar Edmondson.

James Heale

Trump’s crusade against Labour

From our UK edition

16 min listen

Donald Trump has made the extraordinary move to file an official complaint against the British Labour party for their volunteers campaigning for the Democrats. On this episode, James Heale talks to Katy Balls and the Financial Times's Stephen Bush about what's behind the Labour tradition of sending volunteers to other democracies, and why a second Trump presidency might be the defining theme of this Labour government. Produced by Oscar Edmondson and Cindy Yu.

James Ball

Conspiracy theories are as old as witch hunts 

From our UK edition

To millions of people across America, Hillary Clinton sits atop a global network of satanic child-traffickers and is battling an underground resistance led by Donald Trump to maintain her malign influence. That is the core tenet of the QAnon movement, a conspiracy theory that originated in obscure corners of the internet before being seized upon by members of the Republican elite for their political advantage. Did the Clintons get rich while undertaking a life of public service? Absolutely QAnon is at the heart of Gabriel Gatehouse’s The Coming Storm. But the book begins with a conspiracy theory from centuries earlier, about witches in medieval Europe.

Friday

Freddy Gray

Which campaign has the better ground game?

From our UK edition

Republican strategist, and friend of Americano, Luke Thompson joins Freddy Gray to talk about the ground game of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. From postal voting, to party registration, to machine politics, whose is better? And what impact did Biden's exit from the race have on the organised parts of the Democratic Party?  With Luke's unique insight working on two current senate races, and as a longtime consultant to Vice-Presidential nominee J.D. Vance, they analyse the state of an election that continues to be unpredictable.  Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Thursday

Lloyd Evans

Confessions of a political gambler 

From our UK edition

What could be more exquisite than the life of the professional gambler? I began my career in 2016 with a modest punt of £1,000 on the London mayoral election. Bingo. Sadiq Khan won and I banked a profit of £100. Then Brexit. My guess was that the pollsters had overestimated support for Remain and that the country was keen to evict the conjoined twerps, David Cameron and George Osborne, from Downing Street. The referendum was our chance to vaporise both their careers simultaneously. One cross, two graves. That’s what happened. And I cleared another tidy sum. I cursed the day that I’d ever started gambling. I was a fool. A dunce. A clueless moron But I was haunted by a wager I’d laid in the winter of the same year while watching Fox News over a relaxing pint of Tesco claret.

Wednesday

Ian Birrell

What do we mean when we talk about freedom?

From our UK edition

When the Yale historian and bestselling author Timothy Snyder was 14, his parents took him to Costa Rica, a country lauded for its conservation of natural resources that is rated freer and happier than the United States. He recalls feeling liberated and unfettered as he hiked in cloud forests with his brothers, seeing monkeys, sloths and spectacular birds. One day, a local friend led the boys on a mysterious quest to view something special; after walking for three hours through a maze of paths, they arrived at a cascade hiding a cave, where they could gaze out at the green world through curtains of falling water.

Friday

Damian Thompson

Could religious voters in the swing states decide the US election?

From our UK edition

30 min listen

The US presidential election looks as if it’s coming down to the wire in a handful of battleground states. Neither Kamala Harris nor Donald Trump has established a clear lead, and that raises the question of whether, even in today’s increasingly secular America, evangelical Christians could give former president Trump a crucial advantage in the rust belt. On the other hand, could his role in the demise of Roe v Wade tilt the race towards Harris?  In this episode of Holy Smoke, Damian Thompson talks to Dr Melissa Deckman, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute, a specialist in the influence of religion on US politics, and Justin Webb, presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, widely respected as an impartial commentator on presidential campaigns.

Thursday

Andrew Sullivan

The magic of The Spectator

From our UK edition

Not since South Park Elementary’s election campaign between a Giant Douche and a Turd Sandwich has an election bedevilled me as much as this one. On the one hand, the choice is disarmingly simple. One of the candidates is obviously mentally unhinged, delusional, malignant and contemptuous of the rule of law. One of the candidates hasn’t just broken norms. He has broken the norm, the indispensable norm for the continuation of the republic: accepting the results of an election. This is the third time Donald Trump has told us in advance he won’t do that if he doesn’t win. And the second time, he incited a mob to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.

Sunday

Freddy Gray

What happens if the American election is a tie?

From our UK edition

32 min listen

America has a peculiar way of deciding national elections. Instead of a cumulative national vote, the president and vice president are determined by fifty separate state elections. The top ticket in each state (except Nebraska and Maine) receives all that state’s electoral votes, no matter how slim the margin of victory. Each state’s electoral votes are equal to its number of House members plus its senators. The winner needs 270 electoral votes.  What if, in this razor-thin election, both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris fall one vote short? Freddy Gray is joined by Charles Lipson, contributor to The Spectator and political scientist,  to answer that question. You can read the rest of his piece here.

Friday

Oscar Edmondson

Inside Starmer’s dinner with Donald Trump

From our UK edition

16 min listen

The political equivalent of the Rumble in the Jungle happened last night when Starmer sat down for a two-hour dinner with Donald Trump, following the Prime Minister’s speech at the UN General Assembly. Details of what Trump and Starmer talked about are scant: the official read-out merely says they discussed the ‘longstanding friendship’ between Britain and America. Is this good politics from the prime minsiter?  Elsewhere, the Tory party conference kicks off in Birmingham this weekend and with it the beauty contest for the next Conservative leader. What should listeners expect?  Oscar Edmondson speaks to James Heale and Kate Andrews.  Produced by Oscar Edmondson.

Thursday

Freddy Gray

Will Pennsylvania decide the US election?

From our UK edition

31 min listen

Freddy Gray is joined by Oliver Bateman, historian and journalist based in Pittsburgh. They discuss how important Pennsylvania will be during the election, the mail-in ballot system, and the state of the race.

Thursday

Toby Young

The science of voting for Kamala Harris

From our UK edition

The latest issue of Scientific American, a popular science monthly published by Springer Nature, contains an editorial endorsing Kamala Harris. She is the candidate that anyone who cares about science should vote for, apparently. Her positions on issues such as ‘the climate crisis’, ‘public health’ and ‘reproductive rights’ are ‘lit by rationality’ and based on ‘reality’, ‘science’ and ‘solid evidence’, while her opponent ‘rejects evidence’ in favour of ‘nonsensical conspiracy fantasies’. There’s something a bit odd about a science magazine getting embroiled in the grubby world of politics On the face of it, there’s something a bit odd about a storied science magazine getting embroiled in the grubby world of politics.

Tuesday

Freddy Gray

Are Democrats to blame for the repeated attempts to kill Trump?

From our UK edition

23 min listen

As if there hadn’t been enough drama in America in 2024, Donald Trump has survived another assassination attempt. The attempted killing of the 45th president at his golf course in Palm Beach, Florida yesterday afternoon was not nearly as threatening or deadly as the shooting nine weeks ago in Butler, Pennsylvania - but questions remain about how the incident could have happened.  Freddy Gray is joined by Kate Andrews to discuss the second assassination attempt, the state of the race, and what's next for Donald Trump.

Thursday

Lara Prendergast

Trump’s debate woes, how to catch a paedo & the politics of the hotel breakfast buffet

From our UK edition

39 min listen

This week:  The US election is back on a knife-edge. Republicans hoped this week’s debate would expose Kamala Harris’s weaknesses. ‘They forgot that, when it comes to one-on-one intellectual sparring matches with candidates who aren’t senile, Donald Trump is very bad indeed,’ writes Freddy Gray. ‘A skilled politician would have been able to unpick Harris’s act, but Trump could not.’ Harris is enigmatic to the point of absurdity, but Trump failed to pin her down and may well have squandered his narrow lead. To discuss further, Freddy joined the podcast alongside Amber Duke, Washington editor at Spectator World.

Wednesday

Freddy Gray

What did we learn from the Harris Trump debate?

From our UK edition

24 min listen

Millions of viewers tuned in to watch the first debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump last night. Was there really any big winner from the evening? Freddy Gray is joined by Sarah Elliott, spokeswoman for Republicans Overseas UK, to assess the highlights and discuss where the race might go following their first interaction.

Katy Balls

Trump vs Harris debate: who won?

From our UK edition

14 min listen

Last night saw the first Trump vs Harris debate and the consensus seems to be that Harris came out on top. She managed to avoid sticky issues about her political past and goaded Trump into some rambling and – at times – outrageous remarks. What did we learn?  Also today, we have had new figures on the economy with GDP flatlining for the second month in a row. Does this vindicate Rachel Reeves' tough decision on the winter fuel allowance?  Katy Balls speaks to Kate Andrews and John McTernan.  Produced by Oscar Edmondson.