Americanswers… on 5 Live! Is Trump a better friend to Britain than Biden?

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1:30Hello. This was a bit of a treat for us because all four of the AmeriCast team, for the first time at ages, were reunited with Matt Charlie for our live edition of AmeriCancers that went out on Five Live on Monday afternoon. We talked about all the big stories that are going on this week. The Epstein saga that's causing Donald Trump so many political problems with his own MAGA base. Whether or not UK-US relations are actually warmer and more friendly now that Donald Trump is in the White House than when Joe Biden was there. And we surmise what might happen in American elections if 16 and 17 year olds were allowed to vote here the way they're going to be in the UK.

2:12So that's all coming up and more on this episode of AmeriCancers. AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News. You're gambling with the lives of millions of people. You're gambling with World War III. President Trump's message is very simple. We are done being taken advantage of. Mr. President, in the name of our God, have mercy upon the people. We're scared now. Are you supportive of these onesies? I'm supportive of vaccines. What is happening? Like, this is not America. This is a terrible nightmare. This is what victory feels like. Yeah!

2:57Right, the Epstein story. There's so much to unpack in this, and in particular, Donald Trump's reaction to it and why he seems to be more panicky than he is normally. Sarah, can you just bring listeners up to date who haven't been following it? What are, I mean, this is the million-dollar question, what are the Epstein files? Why is Donald Trump so panicky about it? And do they even exist? And whether or not they exist. And then we'll come to why he's declared war on Rupert Murdoch. But yeah, just give us a little bit of background on this. So Jeffrey Epstein, as I'm sure listeners remember, was a very rich New York financier who was also a sex offender, surrounded himself with young women, some of them underage, but also socialized a lot with rich and famous men, including Donald Trump and other politicians as well.

3:38He was then arrested in 2018 or 19. He died in prison in 2019 before a big case could be brought against him. He'd already been convicted in Florida a few years earlier of sex offences. Donald Trump made a very big deal about this for the last few years, and so did many of his lieutenants. They suggested that Jeffrey Epstein had a secret client list of very rich, influential, powerful people, and that he used it to blackmail them, and that all kinds of secrets were contained within that. And Donald Trump used to go on all the time about how Bill Clinton had been seen with Jeffrey Epstein, had flown on his private plane, had been to his parties.

4:18The irony is, of course, that Donald Trump's done all those things too. He admits that he used to fly on Epstein's plane. There's lots and lots of photographs of them partying together. And they were friends for about 15 years until they fell out in about 2004. So he promised his supporters when he got into office, he would publish this Epstein client list. and this became a real kind of foundational myth of the whole MAGA concept that there is a deep state out there which is protecting the rich and powerful who are doing very bad evil things. They're looking after their own at the expense of ordinary people and Donald Trump was going to get into office and change all of that and one of the things he would do would be reveal the deep state secrets starting with the Epstein list.

5:00So when his Department of Justice turned around a couple of weeks ago and said, actually, we've had a look, and there's no credible evidence to back up any of these theories, the theories Trump and his friends have been putting out there for years. His MAGA base have absolutely revolted and said, you two are now trying to keep the secrets. Now that you're in office, you're just part of the establishment, you're covering this up, you promised to reveal it to us, show us the files. And no matter how often he says there's nothing there and tells them to move on, think about something else, they will not shut up about it.

5:32And what's fascinating is it's the first time Donald Trump has kind of issued an order to talk about something else or to change your mind on a topic and his base haven't followed. He's done a 180 on lots and lots of policies and stories and his base have happily gone along with saying, oh, well, yesterday we thought A, today he's told us to think B, we'll go along with that. This time they haven't. And so it shows that there is a disconnect between Trump and his base and it shows the limit of his power with them, basically. Which is what makes this story, aside from the specifics of the story, which makes it so fascinating politically.

6:04But we've got a question here from Abby who says, Hi, AmeriCasters. Given that Trump is already a convicted felon, would finding out what's in the Epstein files make that much of a difference to him politically? Mariana, I suppose you're a good reader of what the MAGA base is saying online. Take us through what normal MAGA supporters are saying. Yeah, so I have, of course, taken my undercover voters, my fictional voters, with their profiles across the main social media sites, over to France with me on their holidays. You're taking them on holiday? Of course. Do they all need a passport? They do, they do.

6:37They travel in hand luggage. Seriously, you can imagine the customs issues, can't you? Don't ever get behind her in a queue. It's a big tip to America. I've got 15 people travelling in my bag. If anyone ever spots her in an airport queue, go the other way. They all have passports. But anyway, I have been looking at their feeds and in particular, populist right, Brittany, who is the biggest kind of MAGA fan of all of the undercover voter accounts. And one of the things that's been so interesting and I think helps to answer this question is, you know, when Donald Trump has found himself in hot water before and, you know, the various cases and charges that were brought against him and so on and so forth in the run up to the presidential election.

7:18On the whole, those things were seen in MAGA circles online as victories. They were seen as, look, great, this is Donald Trump sort of sticking it to the man, standing up against what they perceive to be the corrupt political elites establishment. The problem with this is that Donald Trump has found himself the subject of the same accusations that this group of supporters usually level at his enemies, essentially, or people that he doesn't like very much. So instead, they're saying, hold on a second, you told us that you were exposing the, you know, powerful elites who are doing bad things. And now you've not come up with the goods.

7:52And is that because there's something else going on here? And that's how, you know, this this way of thinking works. They're immediately suspicious of, well, hang on a second. Are you hiding something? Are you a part in this? Et cetera, et cetera. Even though Donald Trump has very firmly and categorically distanced himself from Epstein and said, you know, that's not why this has happened. It's just that this doesn't exist in the way that they necessarily thought it might, et cetera, et cetera, and has made other promises and so on and so forth. But the problem is, is that in the very vocal and active MAGA world online, which Donald Trump has done a very good job of courting and often courting some of the conspiracy theory beliefs.

8:26This now is the thing that that stands out to them as, whoa, hold on this. This is not the narrative you usually spin. This is you being a kind of part of the problem and hiding stuff from us. And that is certainly the online world's memory is often short, but in this case, not so short at all. And can I just as the resident conspiracy theorist here add to that? And Anthony and I discussed this on America last week. You don't have to be an out and out conspiracy theorist to think there's something really fishy going on here. And it's not necessarily about the way he died in prison. Was it suicide or not?

9:00It's not necessarily about the grand jury that would have led potentially to a conviction if the case had gone ahead and he wasn't dead. The real issue, it seems to me, and I think a lot of people who are kind of worried about Epstein, genuinely worried about what happened to him, is that originally, you remember, he is a convicted sex offender. The conviction was in Florida. He had the weirdest plea deal where he pled guilty to a very, very minor charge, although there were plenty of others that could have been brought to him. I remember talking to a Miami Herald journalist years ago who said that this was back in sort of 2007, 2008 or so, that he'd had a car pick him up every day from the jail and take him to do his business in Miami and then take him back to the jail at night.

9:46I mean, he got all sorts of weirdly special treatment. And that has led to this idea that maybe he was an intelligence asset. Maybe it was this. Maybe it was that. Maybe it was protected by powerful people. and that, you know, you can say it's a conspiracy theory but there are legitimate questions that have never been answered and frankly I don't think this business of kind of pulling out the jury records etc will answer them. So, you know, the answer to the question is they're not going to get anyway. Well, on the specifics of the jury transcripts, here is a question, a voice note from Trish in Cardiff.

10:18Dear AmeriCast, can you please explain why the jury transcripts in the Epstein trial were sealed? What was the reasoning and who or what institution made that decision? Many thanks and keep up the good work. AmeriCast is a top podcast. From Trish Walker in Cardiff. That could be a new jingle for you. Click that up. Anthony, there's lots going on here. There's the so-called client list, supposedly people who were caught up in what Geoffrey Epstein was doing, but there's also the details of what came out during his court hearing. So just take us in the world of what is and isn't being released, Anthony.

11:00Right. And what Tricia's asking about is the jury transcripts. These are testimony that either investigators or witnesses gave to the grand jury that was deciding whether to indict Epstein, whether to indict Jelaine Maxwell, his assistant former girlfriend. And the reason why they're trying to unseal this is because Donald Trump has put that request in. He did it the day after the Wall Street Journal had that big article on Thursday night that described a birthday letter that Donald Trump allegedly sent to Jeffrey Epstein that was not the kind of letter you want to be caught sending to someone who was later convicted of sex crimes.

11:38Let's put it that way. But the question about jury transcripts and unsealing them, the heart of what Trish is asking, is that usually this grand jury testimony is sealed. It's protected, is one of the most closely protected series of documents in any kind of a criminal investigation because it deals with witness testimony. It deals with possibly sensitive personal information about the target of an investigation, the target who may or may not ultimately be charged. It may have information about the jurors themselves. So usually these are they're automatically sealed and usually they aren't unsealed unless there is some sort of a compelling argument made that it's in the public interest.

12:19And that's what Trump is trying to do right now. He's trying to get some of these transcripts unsealed. But the bigger question is, is there anything in there that would actually shed new light on this situation? There's a debate about that, but there are some serious doubts because things like the client list, the rumored client list, other documents, maybe this book that contained all of these birthday greetings, including the one that Donald Trump allegedly wrote, that probably is not included in the transcripts. That would be evidence gathered by investigators, and Trump and the administration are not calling for that to be released right now.

12:53But that's a great question from Trish, but you explained that this happens routinely. It's not this one specifically. It's not special, right, exactly. That's the general way these things are handled. Right, let's move away from Jeffrey Epstein for a moment, which I'm sure is more than one person who's said in the Oval Office recently. We've got Jason in Waiter for the Line. Hi, Jason. Hello there. What is your question for the Mayor of Castus? My question is this. Donald Trump recently threatened 100 % tariffs on Russian goods if Putin does not negotiate a peace deal within 50 days. However, surely all trade between Russia and the USA was suspended by the previous administration when the invasion of Ukraine started.

13:36So I'm just trying to fathom out. Are there any goods that this tariff would affect? or is it just more hot air from Mr Trump? Well, you note there that, Jason, you didn't say AmeriCast is a top podcast like Trish did, but that's fine, we'll move on from that. Well, how could I follow Trish? Sarah, could you shed any light on that? Yes, I can. You're absolutely right that there is very little trade between the US and Russia. Lots and lots of restrictions were put on it after the invasion of Ukraine by the Biden administration. And anyway, there just isn't that much trade between the two. I mean, historically, going back to the Cold War, there's not that many goods that are traded between the two.

14:14So no level of tariff on Russian goods would make that much economic difference, especially when they're under so many sanctions. But the other thing he's threatening that could have a real impact is secondary sanctions. So that is putting sanctions on any country, places like India, China, Brazil, that buy a lot from Russia. So if they're buying Russian oil, which they are, he says there will then be 100 percent or he's even threatened 500 percent tariff on, say, Indian goods that are being imported into America as punishment for them buying Russia's oil. So he could get a whole lot of countries who haven't put sanctions on Russia theoretically to stop doing business with them and possibly have a bigger economic impact than the sanctions have had up to date.

14:56So that's that's where the threat comes in. And as you also correctly said, he says he'll bring this in in 50 days. That gives a serious amount of time, almost two months, for Russia to prosecute a summer offensive in Ukraine and try and grab a lot more land before they're possibly forced to the table to talk about this. So, yeah, it sounds serious until you look at the timescale. Another excellent question. Thank you for that, Jason. Are you happy? I'm very happy, thank you, and what a wonderful podcast. So we've now gone full Steve Wright. Everyone needs to say it's a wonderful podcast. Thank you for that, Jason.

15:32We've got Donald Trump is coming to Scotland this week, so there'll be lots of interest in his visit and in meeting Keir Starmer and what they might be talking about. Really interesting question here we've had on a voice note. Let's take a listen. Hello. I was wondering, is there a better relationship between the USA and UK now? Biden seems to be anti-British, whereas Trump seems more of a friend, if prickly. Thanks, Richard from Derby. Justin, what do you think? It's interesting, Because British public attitude was clearly more favourable to Joe Biden than Donald Trump. But in terms of actual special relationship.

16:06It's a weird one because behind the scenes, you've got J.D. Vance coming to have a hold in. The Cotswolds as well. Along with Ellen DeGeneres, weirdly already lived there. Just plumping into each other. You can't imagine it. Jeremy Clark. Not sure they're particularly good friends. Et cetera. So there are all sorts of oddnesses. Because at the same time you've got, as I think we've talked about this before, the American right, the kind of Trump-supporting right, very much the online right that Mariana monitors, don't like us very much, actually. They think we're decadent and they think we've suppressed freedom of speech and all the other kind of obvious things that they would think about a nation that they think has kind of given up the ghost when it comes to standing up for civilisation.

16:44And actually that's not putting it too extremely. There is that real sort of strand of thinking among some Trump supporters that we are not to be respected at all. And yet the man himself, exactly as that questioner was saying, seems to, in a prickly kind of way, really likes us. He seems to like Keir Starmer. I think it's probably fair to say it's lasted a lot longer than anyone thought it was going to last. So there's this weird thing with Trump. And then he's exactly right to say with Biden, actually, although he's sort of avuncular and grandfatherly and all the rest of it, actually, it was also quite prickly.

17:17There's a bit where I think it was one of our colleagues. It wasn't you, was it, Sarah? Said to Biden, hello, I'm from the BBC. And he says, I'm Irish. And walks off. Yes, and walked on without taking the question. It was Nick Bryant who did that. He did that all the time. I heard him often say, you know, I'm not British, I'm Irish.

17:38Well, it's a great question. We'll wait and see what happens when it comes at the end of the week. We've got another question. This is interesting. Obviously, in the UK last week, The Labour government announced they were going to lower the voting age to 16 for general elections in the UK. And we've had this question in from Steph. Hi, AmeriCast. This is Steph from Edinburgh. As England and Wales move to lower the voting age to 16, headlines are posing the question of whether the US, where the voting age is currently 18, will follow suit. I was wondering if that did happen and 16 and 17 year olds were able to vote in, say, the next presidential election in 2028.

18:16Which side of the aisle do you think would gain more support? And how much of Gen Z's political decisions are generational, i.e. they vote the way that their parents do? Thanks so much. Marianne, are you always on the TikToks? How did I know you might come to me to answer that question, which I think is a really interesting one. And we on America have spoken quite a lot about how effectively Donald Trump's campaign during the last election managed to reach younger voters using alternative media outlets, whether that's podcasts or streamers on social media and engaging the kinds of people in politics who maybe feel a bit sort of disenfranchised or maybe they're just not very plugged into it or it's not coming across their feeds or into their lives in quite the same way as traditional campaigning might.

19:02And I was reflecting on that idea of sort of hereditary political views, which I'm sure everyone else will have thoughts on, particularly because, you know, obviously that is influential. But I do think now that there's such a question about the algorithmic impact. And I think that so many young people will make decisions about politics based on what they're seeing. And a lot of what they're seeing is what's recommended to them on their social media feed. So ultimately, the politicians and the parties who are good at gaming the social media algorithms, they're good at putting stuff out that is emotive, that's engaging.

19:33It might be correct. It might be incorrect. It might be kind of positive. It might be negative. But regardless, it's the stuff that gets the eyeballs. That is ultimately what will be in front of these kinds of voters and therefore what they possibly could or can make their decision based on. And at the moment, certainly in the States, it's right leaning politicians like those kind of associated with Donald Trump, who have been particularly good at gaming the algorithms. It is worth saying that there are some political movements around, for example, people who are very, very concerned about the war in Gaza, who've been pretty good at lobbying and mobilising online and again, getting sort of eyeballs for that content.

20:08But how that translates into, right, I believe this thing and therefore I'm going to vote for this politician is sort of complicated again, because as we know, politicians don't tend to centre around one single issue, which social media does. So I think the answer to my question would be, at the moment, I think if that were to happen in the States, if you reran the last election, Donald Trump would probably have just won by even more. Really interesting that. We've had so many questions. I want to try and get through as many as possible. Just on the subject of J.D. Vance going to the Cotswolds, Anthony, this is probably a good question for you.

20:34Somebody's texting in saying, my AmeriCast question is, do you think if Angela Rayner went to Disneyland for a holiday, would it be big news on CNN, Fox News, etc.? Probably not. You know, I actually visited the Cotswolds when I was in the UK just a couple of weeks ago. I went to Castlecombe, a lovely little town that was overrun by tourists. But it is a beautiful country. OK, we've got John on the line. Hello, John. Hi, Matt. John, do you love the podcast? It's tremendous. us. It's becoming increasingly strange. You sounded like you had them actually. Do you want to try it again, John? Just give it a little sound bite about how much you love the podcast?

21:15Just Just Super. God, then what's your question for the Just Just Super 4? Well, I wondered why does Trump particularly want the Washington Commanders, who he now refers to as the Washington Whatevers, to revert back to their original name of the Washington Redskins. John, Anthony, sorry, you are John. Sarah, oh, Anthony, who wants to take that one? This name change and the Cleveland Indians that are now the Cleveland Guardians of baseball team, this happened during the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 and thereafter, where there was kind of a reappraisal of some of the built-in, what was perceived as institutional racism that these names represented.

21:58And so Donald Trump, in a variety of ways, has pushed back against that movement. He sees this as a good example of where he could make some progress because the commanders and the D.C. government want to build a new stadium here in town, but it would require, because it's federal territory, would require Trump to sign off on it. So in theory, he could block this. And so this is a way of him exerting some more pressure to get what he wants. And this would be, in his view, a win because there are still a lot of people here in Northern Virginia and D.C. and Maryland who like the old name, like that it represents the history of the team and view the name change commanders as just kind of a generic attempt to whitewash what was the history of this franchise.

22:42I noticed the England rugby team had just been playing in D.C., as Anthony and Sarah will well know, because I'm sure they were there. And George Ford was actually at the British Embassy. I mean, it was a kind of semi-political thing, wasn't it? And they wanted to make rugby popular, which I think is going to be quite a challenge. But a couple of the players there were and I was listening to the commentary, the Exeter Chiefs, which is because you will know well. And they've had their own controversy over getting rid of it and the chop and all the kind of chanting and all the rest of it. Because they were all sort of Native American, for some reason which would really, I was thinking at the time, really bemuse Americans if they knew that just as they got rid of the Redskins thing, they'd had these Chiefs coming from England.

23:21Anyway. Anyway, once again, we've covered a lot of grouse in not very much time on everyone's favourite podcast.

23:36OK, we're off air with Matt Chorley now, or Matt Chorley has gone, or we've gone, someone's gone anyway, but we have got time for one more question that we couldn't squeeze into the actual live episode, and it's a good one. It follows up on Elon Musk's announcement that he's setting up this new political organisation called the America Party. Let's listen to the question. Hi, guys. I'm a keen listener from Brisbane, Australia, and I enjoy your podcast during my evening dog walks. I was thinking about the America Party discussion in last week's episode. My understanding is that their strategy hinges on electing a small number of members around three to five in the House and three to five in the Senate who share, you know, some common goals, maybe five or so.