Amy Wax is a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania, known for her views on race, culture, and social policy. Recently, Amy faced suspension from her teaching duties following remarks that sparked debates over academic freedom and the limits of discourse in the classroom. Amy joins Freddy Gray on the Americano show to discuss her recent suspension, what is behind the feminisation of institutions and how school teaching should return to the 50s.
18 min listen
Last night the Vice Presidential nominees JD Vance and Tim Walz went head to head in a televised debate. It began with the war erupting in the Middle East, followed by a clash over abortion and immigration. Freddy Gray speaks to Sarah Eliot from Republicans Overseas about why Vance came out on top, and whether he could be in the running as the next Republican presidential nominee.
To manage expectations in the run-up to last night’s debate, Governor Tim Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, let it be known through anonymous sources that he was nervous. He didn't want to let Kamala Harris down. Well, he was tense and it showed. The first question was, inevitably, about the big story of the moment, the escalating conflict in the Middle East. Walz, speaking first, fumbled. He said ‘Iran’ when he meant ‘Israel’, twice, which hardly suggested a mastery of international affairs. He then rambled through various points about the ‘fickleness’ of Donald Trump in foreign affairs.
42 min listen
Israel has launched what it has described as "limited, localised and targeted ground raids" in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah’s deputy leader says they’re ready for a ground offensive. It comes as more than 1000 people have been killed in the past two weeks in Lebanon. Could they be heading for all-out war? Is it possible that Iran and the US will be sucked into the conflict too? With tensions between Israel and the US on the rise, what will the next few weeks look like – and is there a chance Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah open the way to strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities? Professor John Mearsheimer joins The Spectator’s deputy editor and Americano host Freddy Gray to discuss what’s next for Israel, and the geopolitical implications.
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.
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.
‘Some things are more important than staying in power,’ Joe Biden just told the United Nations, and the General Assembly broke into sustained applause. Biden left the stage clasping his hand to his chest, so touched that he had so touched the crowd. ‘It’s your people that matter the most,’ said Biden. ‘Never forget we are here to serve the people. Not the other way around.’ It says quite a lot about the state of modern political leadership that such remarks are construed as moving insight. Let’s try to put aside how bogus Biden’s departing shtick is. The truth, which we all know, is that he spent the best part of four years refusing to admit that he was too old to serve effectively as America’s Commander-in-Chief.
38 min listen
A handful of Big Tech companies seem to run our lives, and there's a good argument that they can be considered monopolies within their industries. In a landmark ruling recently, a US judge found that Google acted illegally with their exercise of monopoly power within the online search industry. On this episode, Freddy is joined by Barry Lynn, journalist and an expert on America's antitrust battles, to discuss how liberal societies can combat the power of monopolistic Big Tech.
A day after nearly being shot again, the 78-year-old Donald Trump is once more being mocked for sounding like a fool while talking about cryptocurrency. In an interview with Farokh Sarmad, another of these hugely popular male influencers whom the vast majority of people have never heard of, Trump ruminated on the importance of making America the ‘crypto capital’ of the planet. Sitting in Mar-a-Lago, underneath the hilariously kitsch ‘Visionary’ portrait of young Donald in white trousers and a tennis jumper, Trump told the Persian-Canadian Farokh that he learns about crypto from his sons. ‘Barron is a young guy,’ he said. ‘He's got four wallets or something. I'm saying "explain this to me". He knows it so well. And Eric and Don. I have a lot of respect for them.
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.
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, which so nearly ended Trump's life, killed a spectator and injured others. The Secret Service, who have faced so much criticism for their failings in Butler, found the would-be killer’s weapon before he was able to target Trump, shots were fired, and the suspect appears to have been arrested fleeing the scene. Nobody was seriously harmed. What took place in Florida will show voters that a lot of people want Trump dead It’s still big news, though.
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.
The first presidential debate of 2024 changed history by killing off Joe Biden’s career. The second presidential debate was nowhere near as dramatic, for the simple reason that it did not feature the President. Instead, Kamala Harris, Biden’s Vice President and now the Democratic party’s nominee, stood on stage at the National Constitution Center in Pennsylvania on Tuesday night and presented herself as a sort of change candidate for continuity, or perhaps a continuity candidate for change. This audacious move ought to be highly implausible, yet so far she seems to have got away with it. Certainly, by any fair measure, she won the debate and was duly rewarded with an endorsement from Taylor Swift and her cat on Instagram.
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.
28 min listen
The Spectator's chairman Andrew Neil and journalist Piers Morgan join Freddy Gray, host of the Americano show, to analyse the presidential race so far. Piers reveals what Donald Trump told him after he was shot, and they Andrew and Piers both give their predictions on whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump will win their first debate.
George Clooney this week praised Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the 2024 election as ‘the most selfless thing that anybody has done since George Washington'. We heard this idea echoing throughout Democratic circles even before Biden stood down in late July – that he was nobly standing aside, in the manner of America’s first president, relinquishing power to save democracy for the greater good. Step forward the 21st century answer to John Adams: Kamala Harris. It's all such obvious rubbish. George Washington wanted to retire (for the third time) to Mount Vernon after his first term but was persuaded to run again in 1792 by Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison and others.
37 min listen
Freddy Gray is joined by Bridget Phetasy, comedian and Spectator World columnist. They discuss whether everyone is suffering a bit of election, and Trump fatigue - including Trump himself. They also cover Putin trolling America, and Bridget gives her predictions for the upcoming presidential debate.
Barack Obama wrote The Audacity of Hope. The Kamala Harris story of 2024 could be called The Audacity of Desperation. Her brief candidacy has been an awesome display of chutzpah. With just weeks to go before the election, a panicked Democratic party pushed aside their failing Commander-in-Chief and replaced him with Harris, the distinctly unpopular vice-president. She was then shamelessly presented to America and the world as an agent of change, even though she has no clear vision or agenda of her own. Twelve days have passed since Kamala Harris accepted the nomination and still her campaign website offers no clues as to what she might do as president. She has made some noises that sound a bit like policies. She'll protect abortion.
34 min listen
Labor Day is a critical mile-marker on the road to the general election. Now just two months away, pollsters are busy processing data and making predictions, but nobody really knows whether it will be Donald Trump or Kamala Harris in the White House. Nate Silver is one of America's most well-respected pollsters. The former poker player set up FiveThirtyEight, a polling company and now writes The Silver Bullet Substack. Nate Silver's latest book On the Edge: the Art of Risking Everything takes a look at two mindsets: the River and the Village. Nate joins Freddy Gray on the Americano show to discuss probability in sport and politics, how luck is often undervalued in politics, whether VP picks are an key decision in general elections and why JD Vance may be a bad choice for Trump.
27 min listen
Kamala Harris and Vice President nominee Tim Walz have done their first interview together for CNN. They covered Kamala's first day in office if elected, Israel-Gaza, Walz's army credentials and the economy. Harris has been under scrutiny having avoided all media interviews since Biden's decision to step down. Did she do it justice? Jon Levine the political reporter for the New York Post speaks to Matt McDonald, The Spectator's managing director about the interview and RFK's influence in Trump's campaign.
