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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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 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.
Palm Beach, Florida Donald Trump’s bid to take back the White House has been triumphant. It is a decisive victory and even Trump’s bitterest enemies should recognise him for what he is: an American titan, the most extraordinary politician of our time. He has just pulled off arguably the biggest comeback in US history – a feat greater even than Richard Nixon’s Lazarus-like return in 1968. To understand the scale of his victory, recall how weakly he began. On 15 November 2022, when Trump launched his now-triumphant bid to regain the presidency, he did not seem himself.
21 min listen
Results are coming in across the United States, and the early signs (though it is still very early) look good for Donald Trump. At the time of recording, the betting markets are with him and the famous New York Times ‘Needle’ has swung to a 'likely' Trump victory. It is still much too early to call in an election that could drag on for days to come. No media outlet has called it for either candidate yet. To give you the latest updates from the States, Kate Andrews is joined by The Spectator’s team on the ground: Amber Duke is in battleground state Michigan; Matt McDonald joins from Washington DC, where Kamala Harris is having her election night party; and Freddy Gray speaks from team Trump's party in Palm Beach, Florida.
‘Nothing matters very much, and few things matter at all,’ said Balfour. Tell that to the American political class on the day of the 2024 presidential election. After months of the Trump–Biden–Harris drama – the criminal indictments, the disaster debates, the President dropping out, the assassination attempts – the nation is in a state of nervous exhaustion. Team Harris and Team Trump have both been clear: 2024 is existential ‘I just want this to be over,’ America’s politicos almost all say, as they tell you in the same breath that their country could, in fact, be on the brink of a long and possibly violent civil conflict. Team Harris and Team Trump have both been clear: 2024 is existential.
35 min listen
Freddy keeps up Americano tradition by speaking to Daniel McCarthy ahead of the election. On the podcast they discuss how Trump’s get-out-the-vote project is working and the impact low-propensity voters could have on the result, whether this election will be plagued by inefficiencies in the American electoral system and if J.D. Vance is actually the heir apparent to the MAGA title.
The ‘Trumpmentum’ of the last few weeks couldn’t last forever. Now, with less than four days to go until election day, concern is spreading in Republican circles that the Trump train has ‘stalled’ as the Democrats make late and potentially decisive gains in key areas. Across the battleground states, and especially in Pennsylvania, early voting numbers suggest that women are turning out in far bigger numbers than men. This is good news for the Democrats because 2024 is widely thought to be ‘the gender election’: a majority of men favour Trump; a majority of women support Harris. The Trump campaign is also lagging behind Harris in early voting among senior citizens in Pennsylvania.
