Americanswers…on 5 Live! Could Andrew answer Epstein questions before Congress?

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. How has America shaped the world? I'm Asma Khalid, host of the Global Story podcast from the BBC. As the United States marks its 250-year anniversary, we've been exploring the surprising and often hidden ways the US has shaped the modern world. And today on the show, we answer your questions about this moment and what to expect in the years to come. From the BBC, it's the United States at 2.50. Listen to The Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

0:39Welcome to another Monday Q &A on AmeriCast, where Anthony Zerker, Marianna Spring and I joined Matt Charlie to talk about, among other things, a big week in American politics where we've got elections happening in New York, Virginia and New Jersey. we're talking about what Americans make of the person formerly known as Prince Andrew losing all of his titles and what it could mean for any Americans caught up in the Epstein case as well as whether or not Donald Trump is really going to start testing nuclear weapons for the first time since 1992. And do stay till the end because then you will catch us talking about huge Supreme Court cases coming up this week when Donald Trump's flagship tariff policy will be scrutinised as to whether or not it's even legal.

1:26Welcome to AmeriCanswers.

1:31AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News. When Donald Trump calls, they say, yes, sir. Right away, sir. Happy to lick your boot, sir. We are the sickest country in the world. Oh, dear. Are you worried that billionaires are going to go hungry? Of course the president supports peaceful protests. What a stupid question. Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?

1:57Let's kick off then with a huge week for American politics. Big election day tomorrow. Some very big races happening right across the US, but particular interest in the next mayor of New York City, mainly because of the Democratic frontrunner Zoran Mandani. And we've had this email from Zach. Zach says, I was listening to a recent episode about Zoran Mandani and I kept thinking throughout, what would we be saying if he were a UK politician? If he were in the UK, would we still think of him as being on the far left and extreme? Lots of his ideas, like looking to freeze rent or provide free buses or childcare, sound totally like Labour in years gone by, even down to his lack of support on Israel.

2:36In the UK, that would be significantly more normal and certainly not a reason for party bigwigs not to endorse a candidate. Sarah, having covered politics on both sides of the Atlantic, can you try and place Zora Mendani on the sliding scale of politics? Yeah, I will. Well, Zach is 100 % right that he would be perceived differently in the UK. And one of the things that's still a real divergence between American and British politics that always sounds a little bit odd to my ear is how socialism is perceived in America. So Zora Mandami describes himself as a democratic socialist. And that's considered a reasonably extreme label.

3:14Now, of course, most people in the British Labour Party, even on the centre right of the British Labour Party, would call themselves democratic socialists. Here, socialism means the opposite of capitalism. It's like an entire economic structure that's separate. It's not just on a continuum of conservatism to some kind of democratic socialism. Basically, it means communism in America. And he frequently is derided as a communist by his opponents. So that's one of the reasons why they see him so very differently as though he is on the extreme. In terms of his policies, I mean, Zach has an extremely good point.

3:47These are all things that we've heard from certainly some centre-left parties in the UK, whether it's the Labour Party or the SNP in Scotland, things like freezing the rent, free buses, free childcare. care. I don't think we've heard quite such universal provision of them all at the same time. So he's talking about a pretty big giveaway of services or ways to dramatic ways to tackle the cost of living crisis, whilst really upfront saying where the money is going to come from, in three words, tax the rich. He wants to increase income tax on anybody who earns over a million dollars a year, which obviously sounds like a huge sum of money.

4:24But in New York, there are a lot of people who earn over a million dollars a year who will not be very happy about this. So no, I think he would be perceived probably somewhere sort of towards Jeremy Corbyn to the left of Keir Starmer, but not extreme in any real way at all. It's just the way he highlights the things that would be considered more controversial so very, very clearly in this campaign is why he's captivated a lot of people, but also frightened some people who here do think he is pretty extreme. And then so if he is extreme by American politics, Anthony, what is his appeal in New York?

5:02Is it because New York is more to the left than the last part of America? Is it because of the unpopularity of Donald Trump and the Republicans? How is it then that this particular strand of left-wing politics in America is taking hold now in particular? Well, I think New York definitely is more to the left than most of America. New York City is unique. And Mamdani has touched into economic concerns in the city, in particular the higher cost of living there. Rent in New York City is ridiculously high for most people. The cost of groceries, the cost of everyday life is very expensive. And he has focused like a laser on that and gotten a lot of headway, particularly connecting with younger voters in New York City, a constituency that had been really activated in the past.

5:52And and also with ethnic minorities in New York City, particularly Muslim voters, he has had a lot of success with. And I think the controversy, if you knew Sarah was talking about what was controversial about Mamdani here in the United States and why it's become such a lightning rod. It's a democratic socialism. Yes. But even more than the policies, it's who he is. The fact that he is a Muslim, the fact that he was born in Africa, there's a there's a particularly on the right in American politics, a lot of distrust of Islam ever going back all the way to the the attacks on the World Trade Center and the war on terror.

6:31and so he has been painted with these kind of broad strokes as being some kind of an outsider and some kind of a threat. And I think that is what you're seeing nationally, at least on the right. But in New York City, it's interesting when you talk to New York voters, they care about the economy. They care about the cost of living. And that is what Mamdani has been very successful at making progress on. And his views and those policies he's talking about are all kind of geared towards making things more affordable. And he's not talking about big cultural issues. He's not talking too much about Israel or the Gaza war.

7:08Every time you try to pin him down on that, he goes back to the economy. And that is why he looks like he is going to win tomorrow. It's worth saying as well, Matt, that as I would always say, that he is especially good at social media. And I guess it's not... I was about to ask, is he bossing the internet? He is. He is bossing the internet with capital letters. and part of this is the messaging itself. It's clear, it's simple, you know, issues around, like both Anthony and Sarah are saying, but the economy, for example, or the war in Gaza, those are things that his messaging has cut through online because it is quite unified in that sense.

7:43It's clear. But also he's just really good at making what we'd often call sort of authentic, genuine content. It doesn't feel overly slick. A lot of the criticism of, for example, Kamala Harris during the presidential election was that it was trying to seem sort of authentic, throwback to Brat Summer, etc. But it didn't really feel that way. Whereas Mandami has succeeded in doing what Donald Trump has been very good at doing on social media for a long time, which is sort of making a virtue of his personality and what he believes in and building an online profile around that. And when we're thinking about British politics, there are lots of similarities to be drawn between his strategy and the current leader of the Green Party, Zach Polanski's strategies, which are not dissimilar at all.

8:22I'll add one more thing, which kind of interesting, you know, we like to say online isn't real life. It doesn't reflect America writ large. And New York does not reflect America writ large. I saw a CBS poll just the other day that said about half of the American public wasn't following the New York mayoral race at all. So it hasn't broken through on the national level, although certainly conservatives and people on the left will be trying to promote him for better or for worse if he wins. Yeah, like, for example, there were these clips of him on club nights out in New York that were popping up over the weekend that came up all over TikTok on my hidden undercover voter feeds that I was looking at.

8:58And to your point, Anthony, it's like those are the kinds of clips that are not going to be popping up on everyone's feeds, but they are popping up on the kinds of people's feeds who might vote for him. And I think the question is, does he win and then go on to build something bigger out of this? Or like you say, is it a bit of a flash in the pan? Well, it's Donald Trump who's going to make him bigger, isn't it? Because Donald Trump is so opposed to him and calling him a communist all the time, that he wants to paint him as the face of the Democratic Party. So he's going to talk about him as much as he can and how left-wing he is and try and persuade voters across the whole of America that the Democrats are represented by this radical in New York.

9:37So he's going to do as much as he can to promote Mme Dami's profile across the whole country if he wins. And so you mentioned Jeremy Corbyn when you're trying to place his politics. Jeremy Corbyn is holding a phone bank, or last night held a phone bank, to try and, as he said, get Zoan over the finish line for a New York that is affordable for all. Do you think Jeremy Corbyn could be the man who won it for him?

10:03Well, ask Mariana whether there's Jeremy Corbyn's social media clips cutting through. I just love the idea where a New Yorker picks up the phone and on the other end of the phone says, hello, it's Jeremy Corbyn here. I'd like to talk to you about who you should vote for to be mayor of New York. It is worth saying that Jeremy Corbyn, again, is someone who was very, very good at building a following online and building a profile on social media in that way a few years ago. Although now I would say that, for example, like I mentioned, Zach Polanski from the Green Party is the person on the left who perhaps is building the loudest voice at the moment.

10:39But it remains to be seen how much all of this lasts. Like Donald Trump is a good example of someone who has managed to boss the Internet capital letters for a prolonged period of time. Some people boss the Internet for only short periods of time, like Matt. Unbelievable. Right, let's move on because I'm conscious we haven't already done very many questions yet. And Joel is hanging on the phone, standing by with his question, which actually leads very nicely on for this. Hi, Joel. What's your question? Hi there. So my question is about the Republican Party. And it feels like the Republican Party has abandoned their traditional conservatism, such as like small government and fiscal restraint in favour.

11:16They tend to do basically whatever Donald Trump says on any given day. I'm wondering if this is a permanent shift. If Trump were to one day step away from politics, do we think the party would return to its pre-Trump ideology? Or is Trumpism the new ideology that's overcome the Republican Party? Interesting. I suppose it goes to the heart because there is clearly a tension there between what Trump talks about and what is traditional Republicanism. What do you think, Anthony? There's not much of the old Republican Party left. I mean, Donald Trump, in the 10 years he has been the dominant figure among Republicans, has really reshaped it.

11:52And there's a whole new generation of conservatives who have come up under Donald Trump in this kind of right wing populism. Certainly culturally conservative, but policy-wise a little more in favor of big government using the power of government to advance a conservative agenda. And I think that is the reality that is going to exist long after Donald Trump. And you can see it in people like J.D. Vance, his vice president, even people like Marco Rubio, who was more of a traditional Republican 15 years ago, but now is very much a Trumpist conservative. So Donald Trump has left his mark. And I think you see politics and political parties realign at times in America.

12:38And this is going to be viewed, I think, by historians as another kind of realignment, moving the Republican Party more towards a working class, culturally conservative party. Well, Anthony, you just mentioned there about the fact that Donald Trump's Republican Party has swept up so many working class votes and put together this astonishing coalition of the working class where they've got black voters, Hispanic voters, as well as whites supporting them. It's such a winning coalition. They'd be fools to move away from it and be seen again as the kind of patrician Republicans looking after the elites and the better off.

13:12It'll all come down to what happens in terms of who becomes the successor to Donald Trump. And of course, there'll be a primary battle for that. It's quite difficult at the moment to see who your traditional small government, fiscally restrained representative could be, who could possibly win the nomination, though, because Donald Trump happily spends money hand over fist. and increases the deficit in a way that most Conservatives are absolutely appalled by, but, you know, his supporters like it very much because quite often they do quite well out of it. And, you know, we will see a battle between Marco Rubio or J.D.

13:45Vance and somebody from the more traditional wing of the party, but viewing it right now, it's really hard to see how some kind of Mitt Romney-style Republican comes through the middle and takes this party back from Donald Trump and his acolytes. Let's move on now to the Prince Andrew story, which has obviously dominated in the last few days. And we've got a voice note from Jane in Grantham. Given the way that Peter Mandelson and Andrew, formerly known as Prince, have been dealt with in the UK in light of their Epstein connections, I was wondering what the mood is like in America now towards dealing with the Epstein question and with known high-flying Americans and others who have links to the files.

14:30The Americans will surely be amazed at how King Charles has been prepared to banish his own brother and has shown support for victims of abuse. We should say, obviously, that Andrew denies all wrongdoing. Let's come to you first of all, Marianna. Are your secret voters seeing lots of formerly Prince Andrew content? There was a period of time where, particularly the pro-Donald Trump accounts, actually, the MAGA profiles, they were dominated by conversation about Epstein and about the Epstein files. And there are some corners of very committed people in the MAGA circle online who do continue to post about Epstein and post about wanting to know more about powerful connections.

15:09But interestingly, and this is often the way, the social media noise happens and then things happen in the real world, like, for example, what we've seen happening with Andrew and the title being stripped away. And, you know, there are some plaudits within those circles and they say, OK, great, but they've kind of moved on a bit. And I guess this is maybe what Donald Trump knows about this world because he was, you know, even though he very strongly denies any connection to Epstein, he was being constantly associated with him and so were lots of other powerful people. I think that it will absolutely rear its head on social media again, but often it's not the things you think that trigger that conversation, that you'd think that the news about the king would be a real sort of talking point, but actually it almost feels like the sort of result of a lot of discussion, for example, about Virginia Dufresne's book, which made various allegations about Andrew, that he denies.

15:59In terms of what happens now, on Newsnight Friday night, I spoke to a Democrat, Raja Krishnamurti, who sits on the Oversight Committee, which is investigating the Epstein case. And he told me that he wants Andrew to testify before Congress and would go as far as to subpoena him. Is that something that's realistic, Anthony? Not realistic. I mean, congressional subpoenas, people here in the United States ignore them and only very rarely does that lead to any kind of criminal charges. I mean, Steve Bannon went to prison for ignoring a congressional subpoena, but that was an unusual alignment of Congress and the Justice Department both being controlled by Democrats who wanted to push this investigation forward.

16:40I have the feeling that Donald Trump's Justice Department may be less inclined to try to enforce that kind of a subpoena. And even trying to do so and get in an extradition of Andrew from the U.K. seems like another leap to make. So they could try it, but I wouldn't hold my breath. It will be interesting to see what happens next with the Epstein investigation here. We're still waiting for Grijalva, a Democrat who was elected in Arizona, to be seated. She hasn't been seated into a new role since the shutdown began because the House of Representatives hasn't been meeting. But if she is ultimately given her seat in Congress, she will be the final signatory to bring a vote to the House of Representatives to release all the Epstein files.

17:26And that could, in theory, unlock a treasure trove of new information about this case that so far the Justice Department has been reluctant to reveal. So it is a waiting game right now to see. But I think our listener does point out it's interesting to see how the on the other side of the Atlantic, there has been consequences for relations to Epstein at the highest levels. Meanwhile, here in the United States, we're still waiting for some kind of price to be paid and more information to turn out about exactly who was close and personal with Jeffrey Epstein through all this. We've also had quite a lot of questions about what Donald Trump had to say about directing defence officials to start testing nuclear weapons.

18:08So this is what Donald Trump said to CBS, 60 Minutes, on Friday. If you notice, North Korea is testing constantly. Other countries are testing. We're the only country that doesn't test, and I don't want to be the only country that doesn't test. Are you saying that after more than 30 years, the United States is going to start detonating nuclear weapons? I'm saying that we're going to test nuclear weapons like other countries do. But the only country that's testing nuclear weapons is North Korea. Russia's testing nuclear weapons. My understanding. And China's testing them, too. You just don't know about it.

18:42So Nick emailed. Was Trump's threat to restart nuclear testing a petulant response to those ungrateful folks in Oslo for denying him the Nobel Peace Prize he so clearly earned? And John from West Yorkshire texted. Does ordering nuclear arms testing align with the Nobel Peace Prize? the testing of nuclear weapons, Sarah, does that align with winning the Nobel Peace Prize? Well, OK, so what we don't know is what exactly he means by that, but it is assumed, and the Energy Secretary kind of said this as well, that it's more about testing the missiles. It's not about actually blowing up nuclear warheads and creating a huge mushroom cloud somewhere and all of the attendant pollution and poisoning that would come from that.

19:24It's probably, you know, it's a reaction, I think, to the fact that North Korea didn't reach out and want to meet him when he was in the Far East, despite some very, very strong hints from Donald Trump. And the need to be seen to be as, I don't think it's really necessarily that much more sophisticated than to be seen to be as manly and as macho as Putin and Xi and Kim. And, you know, if they are going to test their weapons, then Donald Trump's going to test his weapons too. Just the way, you know, he had a big military parade and then he was probably a bit embarrassed that when President Xi in China had a bigger, better military parade, it's, yeah, I don't know.

20:03To be honest, it all sounds a little bit juvenile, but that's to underplay something that could be quite important. But I don't think we need to worry about actual nuclear explosions taking place. Anthony, do you think we do? A voiceover. Yeah. Well, reassuring message. He's been asked multiple times about this, including when I was on the trip with him last week on Air Force One. We asked him multiple times about what he meant by this. And it's still not clear what he means by nuclear testing, which makes me think maybe he doesn't know what he means by this. I think he probably saw Russia testing its nuclear cruise missile, this nuclear powered missile that can fly 6 ,000 miles around the world and North Korea launching its cruise missiles.

20:43And he was like, well, if they're going to do that, I'm going to do my nuclear testing, too, without differentiating between testing your nuclear missiles, as Sarah said, testing your nuclear nuclear delivery devices versus actually exploding a nuclear bomb. And and so it's all just kind of a muddled mess, which cuts to what we see about Donald Trump time and time again, which is he can post something on his social media website, make these threats, whether it's hinting at a ground invasion, some kind of invasion of Nigeria or a land invasion of Venezuela or testing nuclear weapons. and there may not be a whole process much beyond just Donald Trump rattling it off on his social media site of policy behind all this.

21:30So it's difficult once you see this to get any kind of a solid answer. It's all very confusing and lots of people are certainly concerned about the idea of nuclear testing, but we just don't know what he means yet. And, you know, this one might just eventually go away without anything happening. Just following there, Marianna, are your secret voters pro or anti a nuclear apocalypse? I have to say that it's probably something that everyone's quite united on not wanting. However, I would say that there are certain social media feeds that are much more tinged with the conspiratorial than others. And as ever often, a kernel of truth is extrapolated.

22:05And then you would think if you spent most of your time scrolling on social media like I do, that the world was about to end every 10 seconds. So perhaps unsurprising that when you're deep in your algorithm, you are much more inclined towards some of these much more negative ideas that often get the views and the clicks and the eyeballs.

22:30Hello there. We've just come off the air on Five Live, where we were answering your questions with Matt Charlie. Mariana has had to leave us. She's had to dash away. But Anthony and I want to catch up with some of the questions that we didn't quite get time to get through on the radio, including this one that was sent in from Lizzie. Hi, Amerikars. This is Lizzie. I'm wondering, President Trump is often portrayed as insensitive or harsh in the media, yet he keeps winning elections. It can seem like his supporters are reluctant to admit that they support him. Are Americans reluctant to say they support him, or is this just how the media portrays it?

23:09And if they are reluctant, why? Thank you. Yeah, no, I thought that's an interesting question. I mean, Donald Trump has been good at winning elections. He's won two out of the three where his name has been on the ballot. And in each of those three elections, he has overperformed what the consensus polling was at the time, which suggests that maybe there is some either polling mistaking under under registering his support because they are polling the right people or their their models aren't correct. or people are saying that they don't support Donald Trump. And then when they get in their secret ballot polling booth, they vote for him.

23:47It is interesting also to note that when Donald Trump's name isn't on the ballot, Republicans haven't been doing as well. They lost in 2018. They underperformed in 2022. We're going to see how they do on Tuesday with some of these regional elections. And then next year with the congressional midterm elections, that'll be another test to see whether Donald Trump's political power extends beyond just his name. But but it is there does seem to be a trend where Donald Trump ends up being stronger at the ballot box than he is in the polls leading up to Election Day. Conversely, Lizzie, I would say the people who do support Donald Trump can be very, very voluble about it.

24:26I mean, in a way, I don't think I've ever seen with any other U.S. president. If you go to some parts of the country, generally the states in the middle and more rural areas, you will see people all over the place wearing Trump T-shirts and Trump hats, things that folk would normally only do around about election time. They happily go to the shops wearing. You'll drive past many, many houses that still have Trump signs or flags in their front gardens and in their yards. I was down in Tennessee last weekend. I came across two separate Trump stores, like whole shops that only sell Trump branded clothing, mugs, caps, bumper stickers, key rings, pint glasses, you name it.