Freddy Gray

Freddy Gray

Freddy Gray is deputy editor of The Spectator and the editor of the US edition. He hosts Americano on YouTube.

Monday

Freddy Gray

There is no ‘do no harm’ VP pick

If you’ve kept half an eye on the ‘who will it be?’ story that is the Democratic party’s vice-presidential nomination, you’ll have heard commentators suggesting that Biden will pick a ‘do no harm’ candidate.In other words, Biden should play it safe: given his lead in the polls, he can only slip up, so boring is better than original; boring is better than exciting; uninspiring beats edgy. Do no harm — it’s become journalistic shorthand for boring.The trouble is, there is no such thing as a harmless Veep pick. A candidate who has obviously been picked because of his or, in this case, her inability to excite will damage Biden’s campaign. She will fall flat.Just look at what happened four years ago. Hillary Clinton chose Sen.

vp pick

Saturday

Freddy Gray

Is Biden blowing the election?

From our UK edition

17 min listen

The polls are tightening, meanwhile Joe Biden is on the back foot over another gaffe about African American voters. Is the Democratic challenger blowing the election? Editor of the National Interest Jacob Heilbrunn joins Freddy Gray, editor of Spectator USA.

Monday

Freddy Gray

Have we passed peak Biden?

A consensus has formed about this presidential election: it is Joe Biden’s to lose. As long as his vice-presidential nomination doesn’t backfire, or he does not spectacularly bungle the debates, the soon-to-be-confirmed Democratic nominee will be in the White House by the end of January. Just look at the polls.Well, do look at the polls, and you’ll notice that Biden is losing ground. He’s still ahead, and comfortably, but the race narrowed in July, just as the media started to discuss a Biden presidency as if it were a fait accompli. Trump’s job approval rating is rising slightly, too, from 41 percent on June 29 to almost 44 percent today, according to the RealClearPolitics tracker.

peak biden

Saturday

Freddy Gray

Freddy Gray, Douglas Murray, and Katy Balls

From our UK edition

26 min listen

On the episode this week, Freddy Gray, editor of the Spectator's US edition, reads his cover piece on the real Joe Biden. We also hear from Douglas Murray on the trial of Amber Heard and Johnny Depp - and about allegations that can't be proved or disproved. At the end, Katy Balls relays the government's anxiety over a second wave.

Thursday

Freddy Gray

Who is the real Joe Biden?

From our UK edition

34 min listen

Joe Biden is leading Donald Trump in the polls, so what is at the root of his appeal? (00:50) The government is anxious about a second wave - can it avoid repeating its mistakes? (11:15) And Rachel Johnson on her generation of high flyers and early retirees (23:30).With editor of the Spectator's US edition, Freddy Gray; our economics correspondent Kate Andrews; deputy political editor Katy Balls; former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt; journalist Rachel Johnson; and comedian Dominic Frisby.Presented by Cindy Yu.Produced by Cindy Yu, Max Jeffery, and Sam Russell.

Freddy Gray

The real Joe Biden: what would his presidency look like?

From our UK edition

It is usually a bad idea for a presidential candidate to leave himself open to the accusation that he is soft on law and order. Yet last weekend Joseph Robinette Biden Jr did exactly that. He attacked the ‘egregious tactics’ of the federal officers trying to control the apparently never-ending riots in Portland, Oregon. Sensing an open goal, President Trump’s campaign promptly accused Biden of ‘siding with the criminals’. In any normal election year, such an exchange would be a major flashpoint. In the Covid-19-riddled anarchy cauldron that is America in 2020, nobody much cares. Joe Biden can say pretty much anything, or nothing at all, and his lead in the polls just grows and grows.

Friday

Freddy Gray

What’s going on in Portland?

From our UK edition

19 min listen

Freddy Gray talks to the journalist and author Nancy Rommelmann about the ongoing protests in Portland, Oregon as Trump begins to send in federal forces.

Friday

Freddy Gray

A brief history of anti-populism with Thomas Frank

From our UK edition

69 min listen

Freddy Gray interviews Thomas Frank in Spectator USA's second online event. Frank argues that populism isn't frightening, but rather an account of enlightenment and liberation; it is the story of American democracy itself, of its ever-widening promise of a decent life for all.To catch Freddy's next event, subscribe to Spectator USA now.

Thursday

Freddy Gray

Why Jeff Sessions lost to a Trump-backed candidate

From our UK edition

32 min listen

With Daniel McCarthy, contributor to Spectator USA and editor of Modern Age. On the podcast, he talks to Freddy Gray about how Sessions was defeated by the new cyborg that is the Republican party — half-Trump, half-GOP machine of old, and what this means for Trump's re-election prospects.

Thursday

Saturday

Freddy Gray

The arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell

From our UK edition

20 min listen

This week, Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested in New Hampshire on charges of sex trafficking and perjury as part of the FBI's ongoing investigation into the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. Freddy Gray discusses Maxwell's surprise arrest and her relationship with Epstein with Alana Goodman, senior investigative reporter at the Washington Free Beacon and co-author of A Convenient Death: The Mysterious Demise of Jeffrey Epstein. Get 50 per cent off of a Spectator USA subscription here with offer code 'NOTNYT'.

anti-nationalism
Freddy Gray

Trump takes on anti-nationalism

Even the most ardent Trumpist must admit that it has been a bad few months for the President. The COVID-19 crisis robbed Donald Trump of his strongest argument for re-election, the economy, and made his administration seem ineffectual. He was wrongfooted by the riots after George Floyd’s death. The country has been in chaos under his watch. He has looked weak, even disorientated. His polling slid.Yet Trump, ever the reality entertainer, loves a comeback story — and last night he launched his. Under the heads of Mount Rushmore, on a blue-white-and-red dais, the President marked Independence Day with a fiercely patriotic and defiant speech. It was an address that tackled, head on, the crisis that has rocked America in recent weeks.

Friday

Freddy Gray

Have the polls got Trump wrong again?

From our UK edition

23 min listen

Freddy speaks to Marcus Roberts, head of International Politics at YouGov. When Freddy and Marcus spoke before the 2016 election, Marcus was adamant that Hillary Clinton would win. With the benefit of four more years, what do the polls say about Trump now?Get 50 per cent off of a Spectator USA subscription here with offer code 'NOTNYT'.

Thursday

Freddy Gray

John Bolton is a greedy hack

From our UK edition

Bolton is a peculiar and stubborn man – you can tell that from his moustache. He’s also a greedy hack. Earlier this year, when all his old neocon NeverTrump allies were begging for him to testify in the president’s impeachment trial, he decided to stay quiet. He wanted to keep his powder dry for his tell-all book, no doubt in some small part because he was offered a $2 million (£1.6m) advance from publishers Simon & Schuster. If he cared even half as much as he claims to about America’s national interest, maybe he’d have acted differently. Bolton’s new book is certainly newsworthy. The bombshells go bang.

Sunday

Freddy Gray

Society isn’t systemically racist. It is systemically woke

Structural, systemic, systematically — we’re hearing these words a lot at the moment. Racism isn’t individual. It is structural or systemic. So are poverty or injustice. People aren’t just oppressed or tortured; they are systematically oppressed or tortured. This is the language of Black Lives Matter and some of the noisier Democrats, and it’s telling. It comes from Marxist academia and the Black Power activism of the 1960s, and it evokes the radicalism of that time, which is generally now regarded as having been on ‘the right side’ of history. These words are also helpfully vague — nobody knows precisely what they mean — which means you can stress them without being contradicted.

systematically

Friday

Freddy Gray

What is racism in America?

From our UK edition

27 min listen

The Merriam-Webster dictionary has updated its definition of racism – so what does racism in America actually mean? Spectator USA editor Freddy Gray speaks to writer Coleman Hughes.

Tuesday

Freddy Gray

Why is America so angry?

From our UK edition

31 min listen

Freddy Gray talks to the author and President of the National Association of Scholars Peter Wood about the prevalence of anger in modern America.

Saturday

Freddy Gray

The snowflakes turn to ice

About a year ago, I went to see my friend John R. MacArthur, the publisher of Harper’s magazine, in his office in New York. When I reached him, he was in a state. One of his authors had used the word ‘tartly’ — the adverb, meaning sharply or sourly — and one of his junior editors had ruled that the word was problematic. The junior editor thought it might be connected to the word ‘tart’ — the noun, meaning prostitute — and therefore misogynistic. ‘See what I have to put up with?’ he asked. Rick was laughing but it wasn’t altogether a joke.

media

Thursday

Freddy Gray

Our duty to Hong Kong: time to grant citizenship

From our UK edition

40 min listen

As China looks to push through its national security law, is it time to offer Hong Kongers a way out? (01:00) And with the Black Lives Matter protests continuing to rage in America, can they unseat Donald Trump? (15:30) And last, do animals have culture?

Freddy Gray

America is burning – and it could cost Trump the presidency

From our UK edition

‘The crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end,’ said Donald Trump on 21 July 2016, as he accepted the Republican party’s nomination for the presidency of the United States. ‘Safety will be restored.’ Mark that down as a broken promise. On Friday, as a seething mob menaced the White House, the Secret Service rushed Mr Trump down to the emergency bunker under the East Wing. Downtown Washington has come to resemble a war zone. On Monday, police deployed cavalry and tear gas to clear Lafayette Square so the President could shoot a video of himself walking outside looking tough. In other parts of the capital, rioters carried on smashing buildings and starting fires.