Is politics killing art?
45 min listen
Freddy Gray is joined by journalist Dean Kissick, a writer and author, to discuss the contemporary art sector and how it has come to be overrun by superficial forms of political gesturing.
Freddy Gray
Wednesday
Tuesday
Is Trump an energy humanist?
27 min listen
Freddy speaks to Robert Bryce – author of an authoritative susbstack on energy – about Trump's energy plans for his second term. The President elect's Cabinet picks have been raising eyebrows, including the appointment of Chris Wright as Secretary of Energy. He is an 'unapologetic energy humanist' according to Robert and this is a statement of intent when it comes to energy production and driving energy costs down. But what exactly is an energy humanist? And will Chris Wright be able to 'drill baby drill'? Freddy and Robert discuss.
Monday
Joe Biden was always going to pardon Hunter
Joe Biden’s whole presidency has been built on untruths. We were led to believe, for instance, that since 2021 the Commander-in-Chief has been fit and well enough to serve, when everybody could see that he was not. So the latest proof-of-dishonesty over the pardoning of Hunter Biden comes as no great surprise. Of course, Joe was going to grant clemency to his errant and only living son. He just pretended he wouldn’t all year for electoral reasons. The maudlin love of the father used to dress up the presidential deceit ‘I believe in the justice system,’ said the president in a statement. ‘But as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.
Sunday
Is ‘testosterone politics’ surging?
56 min listen
Freddy Gray is joined by Charles Cornish-Dale, an academic and bodybuilder known for writing under the pseudonym Raw Egg Nationalist. On the podcast they discuss the recent surge in testosterone politics on the right, what's behind the fall in male testosterone levels, and why this could lead to the end of humanity...
Saturday
Is Labour’s football regulator an own goal?
30 min listen
The Football Governance Bill is currently being considered in the House of Lords. It’s designed to establish an independent football regulator. No team in the football pyramid will be allowed to play professionally without the regulator’s permission. Does the Premier League really require these sorts of regulations? Will such a rigid system, and unprecedented powers, change the game for the better? Paul Goodman, Senior Fellow at Policy Exchange, wrote about the bill in The Spectator. He discusses alongside Rod Liddle, Spectator columnist, and Freddy Gray.
Friday
What’s going on in Mar-a-Lago?
45 min listen
Freddy Gray is joined by Tara Palmeri, senior political correspondent for Puck. They discuss how the presidential transition is going. Is the breakneck speed with which he appointed his cabinet even more chaotic than last time? Is the process rife with backstabbing? And are your really ever 'in' or 'out' when it comes to Trump?
Wednesday
Do the Democrats hate Kamala Harris?
26 min listen
Freddy Gray is joined by Ben Domenech, editor-at-large of Spectator World to discuss a strange video of Kamala Harris released by the official Democratic party account, Trump’s counter-signalling appointments and the realignment of the Republican party.
Tuesday
From Gabbard to Gaetz: Ambassador John Bolton on Trump’s ‘crackpot’ Cabinet
20 min listen
John Bolton has served under both Republican administrations of the 21st Century: first as US Ambassador to the United Nations under George W. Bush, and then under Donald Trump where he was – surprisingly – his longest serving National Security Advisor. In this episode of Americano, Freddy Gray discusses the incoming second Trump administration with Amb. Bolton. From Tulsi Gabbard to Elon Musk, what does he make of Trump’s appointments? How could U.S. foreign policy change? And what are the implications for Ukraine? Produced by Patrick Gibbons.
Thursday
The ‘experts’ who enabled RFK Jr’s rise
22 min listen
The nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr to be secretary of health and human services in the second Trump administration has horrified ‘experts’. A left-wing Democrat who admires the late Venezuelan Marxist dictator Hugo Chavez, hates big business, rails against the ultra-processed food that Donald Trump likes to eat and wants climate sceptics jailed. But in the magazine this week Matt Ridley explains how the experts who now bash him have contributed in putting him where is, and that official Covid misinformation has contributed to his rise. So what could he do in office? Will he release these Covid files? Matt joins Freddy to discuss.
Musical chairs at Mar-a-Lago
Welcome to the United States of Disruption. From his ‘Winter White House’ in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, Donald Trump has been busy lobbing hand-grenade cabinet appointments in the direction of Washington and watching on happily as each one blows up in a variety of stunning ways. Explosiveness is the point. ‘Personnel is policy,’ Trump’s transition team like to tell reporters with a wink. What they mean is that the second administration is setting itself up to be even more radical and incendiary than the first. The outsiders are in, the insiders are out, and the old world is driving itself mad trying to figure out what’s going on.
Monday
What is Trump 2.0 going to do with the world?
25 min listen
Freddy Gray sits down with Jacob Heilbrunn, a longstanding friend of Americano to discuss Biden's decision to allow Ukraine to send long range missiles into Russia, how significant this decision is ahead of an incoming Trump administration, and what the rest of foreign policy could look like with Trump.
Friday
Is Trump making America Florida?
31 min listen
Freddy Gray is joined by political operator and consultant Roger Stone, a Floridian, to discuss Trump’s cabinet appointees. Susie Wiles, Marco Rubio, Matt Gaetz are all part of Trump’s new team – what’s behind Florida's growing influence within the Republican Party?
Trump’s RFK Jr appointment is going to cause trouble
Of all Donald Trump’s cabinet appointments this week, his selection of Robert F. Kennedy Jr to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is in some ways the least surprising. Yet it could prove the most controversial. RFK Jr’s mistrust of Big Pharma and Big Food resonates widely If confirmed, RFK Jr will oversee a sprawling federal agency of some 80,000 employees. HHS shapes which drugs Americans can access, the food they consume, and directs billions of dollars into medical research.
Thursday
Will Elon Musk Make America Great Again?
28 min listen
As Donald Trump selects his new cabinet, Elon Musk has been chosen to head up the new efficiency department. Douglas Murray, Spectator columnist, joins Americano host Freddy Gray to discuss. How will their relationship shape Trump’s presidency? What will Musk’s ownership of X, formerly Twitter, mean for free speech? And will their newfound friendship last the stretch of Donald Trump’s second term?
How will the ‘deep state’ swallow Tulsi Gabbard and Matt Gaetz?
Yesterday morning, I asked why President-elect Donald Trump seemed to be pausing before announcing Marco Rubio as Secretary of State. By the evening, we appeared to have an answer. He wanted to combine that news, which distressed the anti-elitists in the MAGAsphere and reassured Republicans in Washington, with his announcement that Tulsi Gabbard would be his Director of Intelligence, which has delighted the anti-elitists and horrified Washington. With one hand the good Donald giveth, with the other he taketh away. How will Gabbard cope in a cabinet now stuffed with hardline pro-Israel hawks who despise her? Gabbard’s appointment should please those who don’t like futile wars and deep-state deceptions.
Wednesday
Can Donald Trump deliver on his pledge to fix the border?
24 min listen
Freddy Gray is joined by Todd Bensman, journalist and fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies. They discuss the border crisis that Trump will inherit from the Democrats, and whether he can do anything to solve it.
Why hasn’t Marco Rubio been announced as Trump’s Secretary of State yet?
Rubio, Rubio, wherefore art thou Rubio? How Little Marco, as Donald Trump dubbed him in 2016, must be squirming. It was reported on Monday, with great confidence, that Trump had chosen Rubio as his Secretary of State, along with Congressman Mike Waltz as his National Security Adviser. The news came as a relief to national security establishments across the West. There had been grave concerns in the foreign policy world that Trump would choose somebody antithetical to the interests of Nato. The elevation of Rubio and Waltz also served as further evidence of the growing power of Florida in Trump’s America – Waltz and Rubio are both politicians from the Sunshine State.
Tuesday
Can Trump really end the war in Ukraine?
31 min listen
Freddy Gray speaks to the Spectator's Russia editor Owen Matthews about Trump's plan for Ukraine. How much leverage does he have in negotiations with Putin? Plus, what does a Trump presidency mean for the future of NATO itself?
Friday
Will Trump make good on his election promises?
32 min listen
Kate Andrews, standing in for Freddy Gray is joined by Nick Gillespie, host of The Reason Interview and Freddy Gray himself. They discuss whether Trump 2.0 could be different in his final time in office. Will he 'drain the swamp'? And will the Democrats learn the lessons from their election loss?
Susie Wiles and the rise of the Floridian right
‘Susie Wiles is a great choice for President Trump’s chief of staff,’ said Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida and the man Donald Trump so humiliated in 2016. Uh oh. Bush’s approval of the second Trump administration’s first major appointment instantly rang alarm bells in some quarters of the new American right. Wiles, who ran Trump’s campaign with Chris LaCivita, is seen by some Trumpist insiders as a suspiciously old-fashioned operative, in hock to the moneyed interests who used to run the Republican party. Over the summer, we heard whispers of clashes between Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s most doggedly loyal aide, and Wiles and LaCivita over funding.