Politics Weekly America
Episodes
The Trump purge: is the FBI’s Kash Patel next?
24 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Three cabinet secretaries have left – or been pushed out – of the US administration since the start of March. Recent reporting suggests more could...
Is blasphemy the last straw for Trump’s Maga base?
17 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
No matter how much Donald Trump outrages his opponents, nothing ever seems to stick. But what about his own base? With controversies surrounding the E...
Could Trump be forced out of office?
10 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This week, despite securing a temporary ceasefire with Iran, there were calls from both the left and the right to invoke the 25th amendment of the US ...
How Trump, Musk and Doge shattered the US government
02 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In the end, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or Doge, sort of just … fizzled out. So did Musk save the taxpayer any money? What ha...
Is Trump losing it? (the war of course)
27 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump says the US has won its war with Iran. Iranian officials responded to this by mocking him. This week, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Susan ...
Off Duty: The Crime, episode I
24 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This is episode one of Off Duty, a new Guardian Investigates podcast series by Melissa Segura. On the evening of 29 December 2011, the police officer ...
What’s really behind Trump’s latest tantrums over Iran?
20 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump has told his Nato allies: ‘We don’t need you.’ He also threatened to ‘massively blow up’ the world’s largest gasfield, despit...
Could the US military turn on Trump?
13 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Since coming back into office, Donald Trump has sent troops to Venezuela, Iran and US cities. He has threatened to deploy them to Greenland in order t...
Was Trump ever in control of the Iran war?
05 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
If you’ve been listening to the Trump administration this week, you would be forgiven for being confused about who started the war, why America got ...
‘Peacemaker’ Trump starts a war with Iran
01 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The US and Israel launched a joint military operation against Iran on Saturday, killing Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Why did Trump...
‘I could see myself stepping into that void’: Gavin Newsom on fighting Trump and running in 2028
28 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, is widely regarded as one of the Democratic party’s leading contenders for the 2028 presidential election....
The ‘golden age of America’? Trump delivers the State of the Union address
25 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump made history again on Tuesday evening, delivering the longest State of the Union address on record. But while the president declared the ...
Jesse Jackson’s political legacy in the Trump era
20 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
On Tuesday, we learned that the US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson had died at the age of 84. Tributes flooded in from political figures across the ...
Trump dismantles the arts and tries to rewrite history
13 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
When Donald Trump returned to the White House last year, he vowed to kill off ‘woke’ in America. From the Kennedy Center to the Smithsonian museum...
Epstein files: why is Trump defending the Clintons?
06 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
After months of negotiations, threats and refusals, Bill and Hillary Clinton have finally agreed to testify in front of Congress as part of a Republic...
Is Trump’s ICE dream over?
30 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
After weeks of federal insurgency, Minnesota fought back, and it seems Donald Trump has lost faith in the people running his ICE operation in the stat...
Finding the remedy to ‘Trump exhaustion syndrome’
22 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
At the beginning of Donald Trump’s trip to Davos, the US president’s plans for Greenland were vague, and a worry to European leaders. By the end o...
Is Trump regretting his battle with the Fed?
16 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Last week, Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation into the chair of the Federal Reserve – and longtime foe of Donald Trump – Jerome...
Watch out Greenland: Trump is pro-imperialism now
08 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
If it’s not threats of military action against Colombia and Cuba, or talk of taking Greenland from Denmark, it’s seizing oil tankers in European a...
Trump captures Maduro and vows to ‘run’ Venezuela
03 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Early on Saturday morning, Donald Trump announced that US forces had captured the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores. H...
Revisited: Is Trump building a political dynasty? – episode three
01 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathan Freedland and the Politics Weekly America team are taking a break this week, so we’re replaying a special series made during the summer, al...
Revisited: Is Trump building a political dynasty? – episode two
31 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathan Freedland and the Politics Weekly America team are taking a break this week, so we’re replaying a special series made during the summer, al...
Revisited: Is Trump building a political dynasty? – episode one
30 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathan Freedland and the Politics Weekly America team are taking a break this week, so we’re replaying a special series made during the summer, al...
A Christmas message
26 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathan Freedland and the Politics Weekly America team are taking a break this week, but will be back with a new episode in the new year
Trump in the White House: is it time to call it corruption?
19 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The White House has consistently denied that Donald Trump has ever engaged in conflicts of interest while president. But experts have been tallying up...
The Birth Keepers: I choose this – episode one
13 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Free Birth Society was selling pregnant women a simple message. They could exit the medical system and take back their power. By free birthing. Bu...
The real reason behind Trump’s nasty breakup with Europe
12 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week, Donald Trump described Europe as ‘weak’ and ‘decaying’ and warned of ‘civilisational collapse’ on the continent due to immigrat...
“This is war”: Is Trump about to invade Venezuela?
05 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump has in recent months turned his attention to ousting Venezuela’s leader, Nicolás Maduro. But the US president and his secretary of war...
Has a Texas law created ‘abortion bounty hunters’?
04 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A law has come into effect in Texas that will allow individuals in the state to sue abortion pill providers in other states. Proponents say it is a wa...
Maga moms, Trump babies and Erika Kirk: Republicans woo women in run-up to midterms
28 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Erika Kirk – the widow of Charlie Kirk, the rightwing activist killed in Utah in September – has indicated she would be willing to support JD Vanc...
Trump’s U-turn on the Epstein files and his bust-up with Marjorie Taylor Greene
21 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In an incredible U-turn, Donald Trump this week signed a bill directing the justice department to release more files from the investigation into the c...
The Epstein files are back to haunt Trump
13 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Just when Donald Trump thought he could celebrate the end of the longest government shutdown in US history, the Democrats had a trick up their sleeve....
As Americans face going hungry, Trump builds a ballroom
07 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The US government shutdown became the longest in history this week, crossing the 36-day mark. Food stamp benefits have been delayed for millions of Am...
Mamdani wins in New York and takes the fight to Trump
05 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This time last year, no one had really heard of him. Now, Zohran Mamdani is the first Muslim, millennial and person of south Asian heritage to run Ame...
Why is Trump talking about nuclear weapons?
31 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Less than an hour before Donald Trump met the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, to discuss a deal that could end the trade war between the two superpower...
Is Trump preparing for civil war?
24 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Millions of people across the US attended No Kings protests against Donald Trump last weekend. The president publicly denied he wanted to be a king, b...
Donald Trump: King of the world?
17 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump has his hands in multiple pies around the world. Not satisfied with the Middle East, the president is attempting to end the war in Ukrain...
Gaza ceasefire plan: how much credit does Trump deserve?
09 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday night that Israel and Hamas had agreed the first phase of a new ceasefire deal in Gaza. We’ve been ...
When did the US supreme court become so ‘lawless’?
03 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The US supreme court starts a new term on Monday, and the nine justices are preparing to take on cases that could prove crucial to the future of Ameri...
US government shutdown: now what?
01 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After weeks of threats from both sides and negotiations that went nowhere, the US is once again experiencing a government shutdown. This week, Jonatha...
Why is the Trump administration obsessed with autism?
26 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has long been consumed by the neurological condition autism – what causes it, and whether there’s a ...
What does Donald Trump think free speech means?
19 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week, the US president has announced he is suing the New York Times for $15bn, and gloated that the late-night TV show Jimmy Kimmel Live! had bee...
Where does the US go after the Charlie Kirk shooting?
11 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On Wednesday night, Charlie Kirk, an influential rightwing activist and Donald Trump ally, was shot dead at a university campus in Utah. The US presid...
Is Trump trying to rig the midterm elections?
05 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump wants to change the way Americans vote, promising to introduce measures such as mandatory voter ID and a ban on mail-in voting. But what ...
Can the Democrats win by trolling Trump?
29 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A fight over a redrawing of the congressional map in Texas united Democrats across the country. This week, we hear from the state representative Nicol...
The ‘Nerd Reich’: how tech billionaires infiltrated the White House
22 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week, Jonathan Freedland speaks to the journalist Gil Duran about his upcoming book The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Global ...
Is Trump abandoning his ‘America First’ policy for Ukraine?
19 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump has been all smiles with both Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy over the last few days, but in trying to be ‘peacemaker-in-chief, ...
Is Donald Trump too weak to be a strongman?
14 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With a summit in Alaska and national guard troops in DC, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Susan Glasser of the New Yorker about the week that may dent the...
Trump, Sydney Sweeney and the ‘war on woke’
08 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump needed his Maga base to focus on something other than the Jeffrey Epstein files. Enter Sydney Sweeney and the uproar over a jeans advert....
Is Trump building a political dynasty? – episode 3
04 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the final episode of our special Politics Weekly America series, Eric Cortellessa, Rosie Gray and Dan Adler look ahead to the future of the Trump f...
How much longer can the Fed defy Trump?
01 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Despite growing pressure to lower interest rates to appease the president, the Federal Reserve voted to leave them unchanged. This week Jonathan Freed...
Is Trump building a political dynasty? – episode two
28 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the second episode of our special Politics Weekly America series, the reporters Ashley Parker, Rosie Gray and Eric Cortellessa explain why some of ...
Murdoch v Trump: will the media tycoon be the president’s downfall?
25 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump has filed another lawsuit against a media company. This time though, he’s up against the billionaire media tycoon Rupert Murdoch. Jonat...
Is Trump building a political dynasty? – episode one
21 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this first episode of our special Politics Weekly America series, author Gwenda Blair, and reporters Rosie Gray and Ashley Parker introduce us to t...
Trump goes to war with Maga over Epstein files
17 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump really wants people to stop talking about Jeffrey Epstein, but his Maga base, including some prominent commentators such as Laura Loomer,...
Why is the media paying millions to Trump?
11 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS News, settled a lawsuit filed against it by Donald Trump for $16m last week. It came after Disney and Meta...
The winners and losers of Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’
03 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathan Freedland is joined by Eleanor Mueller of Semafor to look at the potential fallout from Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill – financiall...
A socialist underdog makes history in New York
27 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How did a political nobody, Zohran Mamdani, beat one of New York’s best-known establishment figures, Andrew Cuomo? Rachel Leingang speaks to Moira D...
Trump’s plan for Iran divides Republicans
19 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What is Donald Trump’s plan for Iran? Is he about to break his campaign pledge for ‘no more wars’? And if he does, could this be the moment he l...
Has Trump turned the US into a police state?
13 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As Donald Trump deploys more troops to fight protesters in LA, and as plans come together for a military parade in Washington DC on the president’s ...
Missing in the Amazon: the disappearance – episode 1
07 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Three years ago British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian indigenous defender Bruno Pereira vanished while on a reporting trip near Brazil’s rem...
Trump and Musk’s spectacular bust-up
05 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As Elon Musk and Donald Trump continue to sling accusations at each other on their social media platforms, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Susan Glasser ...
Has RFK Jr misdiagnosed America?
30 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Last week Robert F Kennedy Jr, Donald Trump’s health chief and a longtime vaccine sceptic, presented a report on children’s health by the Make Ame...
Did the White House cover up Joe Biden’s ill health?
23 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As scepticism grows over Joe Biden’s mental and physical health during his presidency, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Bakari Sellers, a political comm...
Who are the players behind Trump’s foreign policy?
16 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From a trip to the Middle East to talks between Russia and Ukraine, it’s a busy week for Donald Trump and US foreign policy. Jonathan Freedland spea...
Trade deals, global wars and AI Jedi posts: where is Trump’s focus?
09 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathan Freedland and the senior Washington editor of Semafor, Elana Schor, discuss what the US president is choosing to make a priority, and what he...
What does Trump really think of his first 100 days in office?
02 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
To mark his 100th day in office, Donald Trump sat down with the Time journalist Eric Cortellessa, who here speaks to Jonathan Freedland about what he ...
‘Armed agents nearly turned up at my house’: fired DOJ attorney on defying Trump
01 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The US justice department says it did not fire a former pardon attorney, Liz Oyer, after she refused to recommend reinstating Mel Gibson’s gun right...
America’s universities stand up to Trump
18 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week, Harvard University, the oldest and wealthiest in the US, defied Donald Trump a list of demands. The Trump administration responded by freez...
Why did ‘strongman’ Trump back down on tariffs?
11 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After doubling down on his promise not to pause his latest tariffs, Donald Trump has announced a 90-day pause for most countries except China. Why did...
Has Donald Trump broken Congress?
08 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In a special episode, Jonathan Freedland and Annie Karni of the New York Times look at what seems to be a long-term question for US politics. With Rep...
Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ and Musk’s bad week
04 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Guardian’s Rachel Leingang speaks to Nikki McCann Ramirez, from Rolling Stone magazine, about Donald Trump’s decision to upend US trade policy...
Trump’s ‘Signalgate’ blame game
28 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As Donald Trump and his top officials scrabble to respond to the Signal leak scandal, Jonathan Freedland and the New Yorker’s Susan Glasser discuss ...
Why are Democrats so divided?
21 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week a Democratic lawmaker became the first to officially call for the senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, to step down. The veteran Democrat ...
Has Trump broken the US economy?
14 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Heather Boushey, an economist and former adviser to Joe Biden, about what Donald Trump’s long game is with h...
Trump turns America’s allies into enemies
07 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week, Donald Trump picked fights with Canada, Mexico, Ukraine, US veterans and every Democrat sitting in Congress for his State of the Union addr...
Is the tide starting to turn against Trump?
27 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week, Donald Trump continued to dominate the world stage, welcoming a procession of global leaders to Washington, including Keir Starmer. But whi...
Trump brings Russia in from the cold, but at what cost to Ukraine?
20 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In a matter of days, Donald Trump completed the most radical shift in US foreign policy in decades, bringing Putin back into the fold while sidelining...
Oh, Canada! Can Trump just take it?
14 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On the first day of his second term in office, Donald Trump suggested he wanted the US to ‘expand’ its territory. Few thought he could actually me...
Trump and Musk’s plan for world domination
07 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Between Donald Trump’s suggestion that the US could take control of the Gaza Strip, forcibly removing Palestinians from their homes, and Elon Musk’...
The fight to protect LGBTQ+ rights from Trump
31 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Less than two weeks into his second term as president, Donald Trump has signed several executive orders restricting the rights of LGBTQ+ people. But, ...
Can anyone hold back Donald Trump?
24 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the first few days of his presidency, people tried to challenge and reason with Donald Trump – suing his administration, questioning his decision...
Executive orders, Gulf of America and flags on Mars: Trump’s first day in office
20 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The cold forced the speeches indoors but it didn’t stop Donald Trump from announcing a flurry of executive orders dismantling much of the work of hi...
The Middle East, inflation and Trump’s return – what will Biden’s legacy be?
17 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After 15 months of war, a ceasefire deal in Gaza has been reached. In his farewell address to the nation, Joe Biden tried to convince the US public th...
Silicon Valley leaders bend the knee to Trump
10 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week we learned that Meta is dropping third-party fact-checking, the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, spiked a cartoon that made fun of him and other ...
What happens if Trump pardons the January 6 rioters?
03 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Four years after the 6 January attack on the Capitol, Donald Trump has promised he will pardon hundreds of his supporters who were convicted over thei...
Jimmy Carter’s legacy: Politics Weekly America
30 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, has died. He was 100 years old. Today, Jonathan Freedland talks to Jimmy Carter’s biographer,...
UFC, boxing and golf: what is Donald Trump’s relationship with sport?
27 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The US president-elect’s ties with the Ultimate Fighting Championship and boxing, as well as World Wrestling Entertainment, might tell us about the ...
Who does Trump want in his cabinet, and why?
20 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As Donald Trump’s nominees woo Senate Republicans to secure their confirmation, Joan E Greve and Hugo Lowell look at who could be in charge of the m...
Revisited: Did the assassination of JFK kickstart the conspiracy theory movement?
13 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathan Freedland speaks to Prof Kathryn Olmsted, author of Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11 about why t...
Revisited: Henry Kissinger and the man who wanted to confront him
06 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Journalist and author Michael Goldfarb, talks to Jonathan Freedland about the legacy of the former secretary of state under Richard Nixon, Henry Kissi...
How the left is defending itself in the Democratic blame game
29 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Last week on this podcast, James Carville blamed identity politics and ‘woke’ theory for the Democrats losing the election. Waleed Shahid, a forme...
James Carville on where he thinks the Democrats went wrong
22 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Everyone in US politics has an opinion on why the Democrats lost the election, and finger-pointing within the party is rife. As the debate rages, Jona...
Matt Gaetz: who is Trump’s controversial nominee for attorney general?
14 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump has shocked Democrats and Republicans by announcing far–right congressman Matt Gaetz as his pick for the role of attorney general. As t...
Can the Democrats salvage the House of Representatives?
08 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump has won the presidency more comprehensively than expected. Republicans have flipped the Senate. However, the Democrats are still holding ...
Donald Trump is victorious. What happens now?
06 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the end it was not even that close. Jonathan Freedland is joined by Susan Glasser and Nikki McCann Ramirez to discuss what went wrong for Kamala Ha...
The final countdown of a historic US election campaign
04 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathan Freedland crosses several state lines ahead of 5 November, following the candidates and their surrogates, as they try everything to pick up t...
Will young voters in swing states decide this election?
31 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Harris campaign is making a special effort to reach out to young voters. So how important will they be? The Guardian democracy reporter Alice Herm...
Why Elon Musk needs Donald Trump to win
25 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Why is the tech billionaire owner of X spending millions on helping the Trump campaign? What does he get out of it? What’s at stake for him if Kamal...
Do Democrats have a ‘men’ problem?
18 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Harris campaign, which has been praised for how it has managed to reach out to women, is now having to balance their attention and pitch some poli...