As public messages of support go, it scored pretty low on the conviction-o-meter. ‘Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the United Kingdom acknowledged that he “exercised wrong judgement” when he chose his Ambassador to Washington,’ said President Donald Trump on Truth Social last night. ‘I agree, he was a really bad pick. Plenty of time to
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A ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon has just come into effect. Iran’s Foreign Minister says ‘in line with the ceasefire in Lebanon, the passage for all commercial vessels through Strait of Hormuz is declared completely open for the remaining period of ceasefire’. Freddy Gray is joined by Spectator contributor Charlie Gammell, an expert on Iran,
In America, important men don’t seem to suffer too much over their links to the late Jeffrey Epstein. Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Howard Lutnick and Paolo Zampolli, among others, might regret their past friendships with the world’s most famous sex criminal. Certainly, they resent having to face pesky questions about it. But the
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Donald Trump’s latest clash with the Pope has stunned even the more hardened of America-watchers. According to the President of the United States Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV, the spiritual leader of 1.3 billion people, is ‘WEAK on crime and terrible on foreign policy.’ He also claimed that, ‘If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo
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The Pope is ‘WEAK on crime and terrible on foreign policy’ – this was the verdict of the President of the United States this week, as he appeared to deepen his row with the leader of the Catholic Church. In the magazine this week, Damian Thompson reports on why the President appears to have engaged in
Donald Trump’s latest clash with the Catholic Church stunned even the most hardened veterans of culture-war X. According to the President of the United States, the Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV, the conspicuously holy spiritual leader of 1.3 billion people, is “WEAK on crime and terrible on foreign policy.” He also claimed, “If I wasn’t in
Freddy Gray speaks to Shadi Hamid, author of the book The Case for American Power, which explores – and puts forward – the case for American power in spite of Donald Trump.
A useful rule, when trying to understand current affairs, is AAL: Acronyms Always Lie. A case in point would be the acronym of the year so far: TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out). It means that Donald Trump is always bluffing and, when push finally comes to shove, he folds. TACO has caught on since Liberation
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Freddy Gray is joined by Jacob Heilbrunn, Americano regular and editor of the National Interest. They discuss the Strait of Hormuz, rising energy prices and whether the US can extricate itself from a conflict it may not be able to win – and whether we’re watching the end of Trumpism.
Will America’s ground invasion of Iran begin in the early hours of tomorrow? Everybody knows, by now, that Trump likes to initiate action late on Fridays, after the markets close. And late last night, the so-called Pentagon Pizza Watch channel – which monitors late-night food orders from the Pentagon for evidence that something big is
33 min listen
Steven Crowder, host of Louder with Crowder, joins Freddy Gray to discuss the warring factions in the podcast world, worsened since Charlie Kirk’s assassination; the global leftwing alliance promoting communism in Cuba, whether Trump was wrong to attack Iran & why Mark Carney kowtowed to China.
On Friday night, Donald Trump announced that America was “very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great military efforts in the Middle East.” He even pinned the announcement to the top of his Truth Social account to make sure everyone realized he meant it. That did little to settle the markets over the
“Whoever rules the waves rules the world” – Alfred Thayer Mahan. Would Donald Trump have attacked Iran on February 28 if the Supreme Court had not ruled against his tariffs on February 20? The two issues may seem unrelated. Yet, as a fascinating piece by Captain John Konrad has pointed out, a closer inspection of Trump’s international
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The attack on Iran is so wildly inconsistent with the wishes of his own base that it is likely to mark the end of Trumpism as a project. Freddy Gray is joined by Spectator columnist Christopher Caldwell to discuss Trumpism, JD Vance vs Marco Rubio, what’s left of the Republican party after Trump, and the
22 min listen
King Charles is due to travel to the US on a state visit to see President Donald Trump. Given the turbulence between Starmer and Trump over the war in Iran, some politicians such as Ed Davey have suggested the King should not go. Freddy Gray speaks to royal author and Daily Mail journalist Robert Hardman
30 min listen
Freddy Gray speaks to James D. Boys, author of the new book US grand strategy and the madman theory. He is also a senior research fellow at UCL. They discuss the origins of the madman theory – which applies insights from psychology to understand how your enemies think. James covers it from from Nixon to
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Freddy Gray speaks to Roger Kimball, editor of the New Criterion and Spectator writer about Trump’s SAVE act – a bill to tackle voter integrity soon to be voted on in the Senate.
Remember Signalgate? It was quite the story, and worth revisiting now in light of Operation Epic Fury, the ongoing crisis in the Strait of Hormuz and its dire implications for the global economy. In March last year, Donald Trump’s then National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, somehow added Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, to a
‘Donald Trump is a complicated person with simple ideas,’ said Kellyanne Conway, the former White House senior counsellor. ‘Way too many politicians are the exact opposite.’ It’s a good way of understanding the 45th and 47th US President and his extraordinary success. His turbulent personality causes mayhem, yet his political aims have remained constant, straightforward
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Trump has signalled that the Middle East war could be ‘over soon’ and pledged to lift sanctions after talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Freddy Gray is joined by Jacob Heilbrunn and Robert Bryce to discuss why Trump was potentially unprepared for Iran’s retaliation, what could come from the talks with Putin, and why Britain
