The News Agents - USA

Russell Brand famously hated big tech. He ranted about their power as recently as last year. Yet now, he’s all over the websites he purports to despise - YouTube, TikTok, Rumble. How has he reinvented himself as an alt-right interviewer. And we ask why Donald Trump has changed his position on abortion. Is he already fighting the general election on the airwaves?Editor: Gabriel RadusPlanning Producer: Alex BarnettSocial Media Editor: Georgia FoxwellVideo Producer: Will Gibson-SmithYou can listen to this episode on Alexa - just say "Alexa, ask Global Player to play The News Agents USA".The News Agents is a Global Player Original and a Persephonica Production.

Putin has called Trump politically persecuted, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has opened an impeachment inquiry into the president, and Joe Biden has saved the economy but now just wants to go to bed. It's another normal week in America. David Frum - former speechwriter for George W. Bush - joins us and we ask if any of this is moving the state of political play.Editor: Gabriel RadusPlanning Producer: Alex BarnettSocial Media Editor: Georgia FoxwellVideo Producer: Will Gibson-SmithYou can listen to this episode on Alexa - just say "Alexa, ask Global Player to play The News Agents USA".The News Agents is a Global Player Original and a Persephonica Production.

The 14th Amendment is not something anyone has discussed much since the 1800s. But right now it's the talk of the town. It includes a post-civil war clause that bars anyone from holding public office if they've engaged in an insurrection or rebellion.Right now, there are lawyers, academics and die-hard constitutionalists who are working out if there's a legal channel to remove Trump's name from any electoral ballot on the grounds he tried to overturn democracy on January 6th 2020. We speak to a Watergate special prosecutor about what could happen. And we look at the Republican move to launch an impeachment enquiry into Joe Biden. Do they have evidence of wrong doing?Editor: Gabriel RadusSocial Editor: Georgia FoxwellPlanning Producer: Alex BarnettVideo Producer: Will Gibson-SmithThe News Agents is a Global Player Original and a Persephonica Production.

On Saturday, a 21-year-old killed three people in Jacksonville, Florida, in a racist hate crime. 60 years on from Martin Luther King's famous 'I Have a Dream' speech, and three years on from the killing of George Floyd, why does America seem to always go 'two steps forward and then two steps back'? And do the GOP frontrunners have a handle of the problem of racial discrimination in America?We ask Ron Christie, Republican strategist who's father used to vandalise segregationist signs in 1960s America.And.. Trump's court date for election interference is set for early March. The day before the biggest day in the race to be nominated as the Republican presidential candidate for 2024. That'll be some week.Editor: Gabriel RadusSocial Editor: Georgia FoxwellVideo Producer: Will Gibson-Smith The News Agents is a Global Player Original and a Persephonica Production.

There were eight candidates on stage last night in Milwaukee all vying for the Republican nomination to be president.But the man who’ll almost certainly get it was locked in a rambling conspiracy heavy chinwag with his recently sacked Fox friend Tucker Carlson. Who won the debate on stage? Will any of it shift the dial? And will they still pledge loyalty to Trump if he’s convicted of a crime ?Editor: Gabriel RadusSocial Editor: Georgia FoxwellVideo Producer: Will Gibson-Smith The News Agents is a Global Player Original and a Persephonica Production.

It's debate night in Milwaukee on Wednesday night. The big hitters of the Republican Party will all be there, fighting it out in the first chance to be on the same stage together. That is, all bar one, notable frontrunner; former President Donald Trump. Emily and Jon will be back in your feeds on Thursday morning digesting the overnight debate. See you then!

Donald Trump. Charged with racketeering in Georgia after allegedly attempting to meddle with election results - and he's now got 91 counts against his name... and counting. Will this change anything? And what about the whataboutery with Hunter Biden and Joe Biden? We speak to Republican strategist who worked in George W. Bush's White House, Ron Christie, Adam Klasfeld, legal correspondent who's followed all 91 charges closely, and Christopher Steele, the British spy who triggered the snowball that led to Trump's first impeachment whilst he was President - for alleged collusion with Russia.Editor: Gabriel RadusPlanning Producer: Alex BarnettSocial Editor: Georgia FoxwellVideo Producer: Rory SymonThe News Agents is a Global Player Original and a Persephonica Production.

Ever wondered what Trump's personal pastor has to say about all the law-breaking that the 45th President allegedly has engaged in? Jon speaks to him on today's episode.We mull that, and an impending fourth indictment, on The News Agents USA. And we're also joined by Biden's former strategist - who explains what the President has to do to thwart the oxygen-guzzler and limelight-stealer that is Donald J. Trump.Editor: Gabriel RadusSocial Media Editor: Georgia FoxwellPlanning Producer: Alex BarnettVideo Producer: Rory SymonThe News Agents is a Global Player Original and a Persephonica Production.

US prosecutors have charged Donald Trump for attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 Election. It’s the second federal indictment brought against the former president in as many months. We knew this was on the way. So why is he still the leading Republican to be president? And why doesn’t the party care ?On this episode of The News Agents USA, two former Republican congressmen - one of whom challenged Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election - go head to head on whether Trump is the right person to lead the Republican Party into the 2024 election. Trump still dominates the field.Ron de Santis keeps saying the word “ woke “ but Republican voters just keep getting turned off by him. And Hunter Biden’s business associate has claimed Joe Biden joined more than twenty work calls with his son - while he was Vice-President. A pretty major breach if the current president was improperly involved in his son's business proceedings, but how damaging could that be for the current incumbent of the White House?Editor: Gabriel RadusPlanning Producer: Alex BarnettSocial Media Editor: Georgia FoxwellVideo Producer: Will Gibson-Smith

Why is Ron DeSantis losing ground in the polls to an unknown? Why is the new Barbie film driving American right-wingers mad? And why did a young American soldier dash across the border to seek refuge... in North Korea?Editor: Gabriel RadusSocial Editor: Georgia FoxwellVideo Producer: Will Gibson-SmithThe News Agents is a Global Player Original and a Persephonica Production.

As we settled into News Agents USA HQ, the breaking news that Trump may be set to face trial for a third time, and criminal proceedings for a second time, wafted in. We talk to the Washington Post's Olivier Knox about what this means for Trump, his rivals and the ever-quickening race to be the next incumbent of the White House.Joe Manchin, the highly influential Democrat Senator of West Virginia, seems to be flirting with an independent run for the White House, forging a ticket with a former Republican Governor of Utah. What are third parties like in the US? Is it even possible to get close to the presidency without the backing of the two major US parties?And... don't send sensitive emails without checking who you're sending to. A lesson for the Pentagon, who, instead of sending private emails to staff, accidentally sent the missives to the government of Mali.

Joe Biden meets Rishi Sunak in London before flying out to Vilnius to a NATO summit in which he's set to snub the UK government's attempts to have Ben Wallace, Defence Secretary, become the next Secretary General of NATO. The famous 'special relationship' doesn't feel so special any more. Former US Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker joins Emily and Jon in News Agents USA HQ.This, all while US news outlets report that the President is a lot less mild-mannered in private than he appears in public. We ask Washington Post National Politics Reporter Olivier Knox, who's spent decades with US Presidents and in the White House, if that's really the case. And then, we turn to Trump and DeSantis, the two main candidates in the race to win the Republican candidacy for the 2024 election. Trump battles against court dates; DeSantis battles his lack of personality. And, an ode to Marjorie Taylor-Greene, the Republican congresswoman who, despite believing that Jewish people and their space lasers are to blame for Californian wildfires, is deemed too moderate for the right-wing Freedom Caucus in Congress. Another normal week on The Hill.

Joe Biden - that's President Joe Biden - has said the Supreme Court is "not normal". He's referring to the recent judgements the 9 justices have made - overturning Roe v Wade last year, overruling affirmative action policies at two US universities, refusing to allow the government to cancel student debt, and wading into LGBTQ+ issues on a spurious basis of complaints that don't even exist. Is this overreach? Or is this the logical consequence of the polarisation of America?And who polices the Supreme Court?

On Tuesday morning, CNN obtained leaked audio of Donald Trump showing classified documents to people who definitely shouldn't be seeing classified documents. He's still denying he didn't have classified documents... but we now have him admitting to it on tape. Surely he can't fudge his way out of this one....Meanwhile the Republicans have been wooing evangelicals and Robert Kennedy Junior is offering a bizarre counter factual to the Biden democratic nomination.On today's episode of The News Agents USA, Emily and Jon are joined by Investigations Reporter for The Washington Post, who's covered Trump extensively, Josh Dawsey.

Breaking news - that has left Republicans speechless for all the wrong reasons. Biden's son Hunter pleads guilty to three federal charges. But they are all miniscule. None of the ones the MAGA (Make America Great Again) gang really care about anyway. Meanwhile, Trump appears on Fox News to explain that he was too busy sorting out his golf shirts from his newspaper clippings to hand back hundreds of boxes of classified highly confidential documents... but does he incriminate himself in the process?

For a historical indictment it was an ignominious entry: Donald Trump entered the Miami courthouse via a freight lift from an underground garage. For once, the Reality TV president ducked the cameras as he appeared on 37 charges of mishandling classified documents and espionage. This is America 2023.The question is how big a role will he play in America 2024- and the next presidential election.

Welcome to The News Agents USA - a new weekly podcast hosted by Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel. Episodes are available every Tuesday on Global Player and on all other platforms from Wednesday.