The Americast Awards 2025… on 5 Live!

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0:30No bouncing between tabs. And best of all, no spreadsheets. Stop managing software and start managing your business with one unified system. Try for free today at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com. With the new Schwab Teen Investor Account, teens can gain hands-on investing experience and build positive money habits. It's an account co-owned by you and your teen, so you can monitor and engage with the account while your teen learns how to invest and manage money. Learn more at schwab.com. Hello, it's Justin here with a question for you. What do you want us to talk about when we're predicting what's going to happen in 2026?

1:08In other words, do you want to hear more about the Democrats and what's likely to go on with them? Do you want to hear whether Mamdani is likely to be successful or not successful in New York? Do you want to hear about Trump's state of mind? Give us as well your suggestions about what you think is going to happen, because what the heck, they might be as good as ours. Indeed, they might be an awful lot better. So let's mix them all up together and we look forward to hearing from you. OK, so to get in touch with us, it is the WhatsApp 44 330 123 9480 or email americast at bbc.co.uk. The hashtag is americast.

1:43And for Discord, the link is in the description. OK, let's get on with the episode.

1:53Hello, it's Sarah here. I'm very happy to say I'm in the studio in real life with Justin and Marianna, not in the worldwide headquarters, but in our Westminster studio because it's Monday. And that's the day we join Matt Charlie on Five Live to answer your questions on AmeriCanswers. Well, this episode's a little bit different. Instead of answers, we're handing out awards. It's the Meric Awards, which is very, very difficult to say, but hopefully it's going to be fun. AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News. When Donald Trump calls, they say, yes, sir. Right away, sir. Happy to lick your boot, sir.

2:29We 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?

2:47OK, so this is how the America Awards are going to work. We've got categories. Each of the AmeriCasters are going to pitch a nominee. We'll have a chat. And then I'm going to pick the winner on the strength of the pitch. So it's basically whoever gives the best pitch wins. So we begin with biggest disruptor of the year. Marianna.

3:07Marianna Spring:This is a very predictable answer from me, but it's going to have to be. Elon. Of course it is. You were going to click a button there and you didn't know which one. I've got so many. It's Christmas. I've got all of the Christmas things. Elon Musk, because remember him and Donald Trump started off as BFFs start of the year. Then they had this big kind of spat that was provoked by kind of combination of stuff around taxes and everything around the tariffs and blah, blah, blah, blah. And then Epstein and everything around Jeffrey Epstein triggered this real kind of mighty falling out on X. You might remember Elon Musk tweeting some stuff that Donald Trump really didn't like about him and that Donald Trump said wasn't true.

3:46He knew every aspect of this bill. He knew it better than almost anybody. And he never had a problem until right after he left. And if you saw the statements he made about me, which I'm sure you can get very easily, it's very fresh on tape. He said the most beautiful things about me. And he hasn't said bad about me personally, but I'm sure that'll be next. But I'm very disappointed in Elon. I've helped Elon a lot.

4:09Marianna Spring:And then they've sort of like patched it up. But Elon Musk's ability to kind of stay within Donald Trump's orbit somehow and then also dictate opinion on matters, particularly on X and on social media and within the alternative media sphere, has continued to be very effective. So I think he's definitely disruptor in chief. In fact, I was thinking about this the other day when in the UK the government announced the name of the person who's going to chair the grooming gangs inquiry. And that was how the year began with Elon Musk piling into the grooming gangs thing. And then Nigel Farage followed and then the Tories did.

4:39and Keir Starmer said no and then eventually you... It was sort of a weird footnote to the end when I thought, actually in the UK we go for quite a long time without thinking about Elon Musk, where at the beginning of the year he was sort of forcing government policy.

4:50Marianna Spring:Yeah, and he's come back around again. I mean, he was very obsessed with the UK for a period of time at the start of the year and he's now again very obsessed with the UK. There's this quite viral clip of him on a podcast talking about how we're sort of like weird little hobbit village people. I don't know if you've seen that one. Have you seen that? Which sparked quite a lot of conversation. And yeah, he's still kind of into those issues and he's kind of come back to what he was like. He's almost come a bit full circle, really. Very good. So your nominee for biggest disruptor of the year is Elon Musk.

5:16Sarah, who are you picking? Well, this isn't terribly imaginative, but I tried to think of somebody who'd be a little bit more left field, but I've just got to say Donald Trump, not because he's the President of the United States, but because... I have to say the two of you have absolutely stuffed Justin. I want to argue that he is the most disruptive President of the United States ever. I mean, this is influence that is spectacular. So there's all the stuff we talk about all the time. These immigration raids, dragging people out of workplaces and homes to have them deported, all of the domestic policy agenda.

5:49But you've had universities cowed, having to do exactly what he wants and paying him huge checks just to be allowed to survive. Boardrooms across the country, across the world, rewriting all of their policies to make it up to what Donald Trump wants to do. He's taking more power into the White House and into the executive office than any president has ever seen before. And he is normalising a really, really radical agenda in a way that the Democrats don't know how to respond to. It makes it seem as though this is how government policy works these days when it's not using the criminal justice system to go after his enemies and his adversaries across the board.

6:23He's doing things no president's ever done before. Any one of these would be a major disruption, but he's doing it all at once. and actually that is a reminder when you talk about the amount of power he's taken and what he's done it's not just disruptor in the sense of he makes a lot of noise, it is backed up by action yeah go on then Justin, who have you got? well following on from that actually my choice was Gavin Newsom and my choice is Gavin Newsom because so Gavin Newsom is the super smooth governor of California who has been around for ages and everyone in America who thinks about these things thinks that they know him or thought that they knew him until the beginning of this year and thought that they either liked him or they didn't like him.

7:06But one thing was clear about him. He was too super smooth and too kind of politician-y ever really to make it in the modern political world. And what he has done, it seems to me, on two counts, is make it in the modern political world and really disrupt it. Number one, he had this amazing podcast, which is actually still going on, But it started with an incredible bang with Charlie Kirk, the right wing guy who was murdered, with Michael Savage, another very prominent right wing, a whole list of people who absolutely are hate figures on the left. And he talked to them in an amiable way. And it shocked people and disrupted, I think, within the Democratic Party, the way that they think of how to do politics in the modern era, at least made them think, goodness me, this is a new way of doing stuff.

7:55We ought to work it out. And then just a final thought on him. He had this incredible victory against Donald Trump, which I think really in a way is the only victory there's been against Donald Trump. And that is that he got the law changed temporarily in California so that they could effectively gerrymander some districts and get some extra congressmen and women in in the midterms next year to make up for what Trump has done or Trump allies have done in Texas. and he had to go, he had to raise money, he had to go to the people of California, he had to convince them, he had to win the election and he did all of those things and it was a one in the eye for Donald Trump.

8:32And we will punch back. Here's the good thing about California, folks. We're the size of 21 state populations combined. We're the fourth largest economy in the world. We're not a small, isolated state. I know they say don't mess with Texas. Well, don't mess with the great golden state. So I think he is a big disruptor on the left. Big disruptor. So now I've got to decide based on the pitches. I mean, it's hard to argue against Donald Trump, isn't it? So Sarah, that's one for Sarah. Right, let's do biggest surprise of the year. Almost unexpected moment. You can go first this time, Justin. Carl, I really struggle with this because there are quite a few things within the Trump orbit, obviously, that were surprising in as much as he has this incredible ability to shoot himself in the foot.

9:22But the kind of moment that I thought was just kind of epitomized everything actually happened right at the start. So it was on the night of the inauguration. And we were all looking at Donald Trump and he was having this kind of basically a press conference that lasted all evening in various venues. He came from place to place, chucking Sharpies out at people. People will remember those weird scenes. And then he gets to the Oval Office and a guy called Pete Doocy works for Fox News. Pete shouts out at him, is there a letter there from Joe Biden? President Trump, did President Biden leave you a letter?

10:01He may have. Wait. Don't they leave it in a desk? And Trump, he says, oh, Pete, that's a good thought. Where do they normally keep them? let's have a look and he opens the drawer and and there's a letter in there and he gets it out and he says he says words to the effect of her pete thanks a lot for that because otherwise we probably never would have found it peter thank you very much i may not have seen this for months happy to help with the passing of the torch and it just had to me that kind of epitomizes the whole of the trump administration now i'm not so naive to think that that wasn't set up actually i'm not i'm not convinced either way, actually.

10:43But it was one of those moments that's just sort of made for the Trump era. It kind of had this weird, random, as the kids would say, aspect to it. It also, in a sense, it doesn't mean anything, but it told you a lot, actually, about Trump, about his relationship with the press, about the fact that Biden had still left the letter. About how often Donald Trump goes in his drawers. How often Donald Trump goes in his drawers. I mean, he literally said, well, I don't think we would have found it if you hadn't asked me. Very good. I like that. Marianna, what's your unexpected moment of the year.

11:12Marianna Spring:I wasn't sure if this was going to be like categories where we just keep going back and forth along the line and then someone takes your category and you're like, that's right. Mine is going to be also Oval Office, but much more recent, which was when Mamdami, who won New York Mayor, was with Donald Trump in that office and all of a sudden, having been this kind of war of words constantly between Donald Trump and Mamdami, it was like Donald Trump suddenly decided he loved him. And we do know that he loves successful winners regardless perhaps of their differing political opinions. But particularly that moment where essentially a reporter asks, you know, you basically said Donald Trump is a fascist.

11:50Marianna Spring:Like, how do you feel about that? And Donald Trump's like, just go ahead. We know that you think it. Are you affirming that you think President Trump is a fascist? I've spoken about... That's OK. You can just say yes. OK. It's easier. It's easier than explaining it. I don't mind. And then also from my bossing the internet point of view, It was one of those moments that just spawned a whole range of very excellent memes, including the next day when Donald Trump was wearing this burgundy roll neck and a jacket that looked really similar to what Mandami was wearing. And everyone was like, is he trying to be here?

12:24Marianna Spring:What is going on here? So, yeah, that's my favourite. Mainly because it kind of tells you quite a lot about Donald Trump. But it was surprising because you thought, hang on, these people are going to be sort of arch-nemeses and suddenly they're kind of BFFs. And who does that benefit? Probably Donald Trump. This has reminded me that I think the most significant moment this year was that you chastised me for using the phrase bossing the internet, threatened to have me sanctioned if I used it, and you've been using it ever since. You've just turned it into your own thing. Yeah, because you have to own these sorts of things.

12:50Marianna Spring:Just own it, just lean it around. Do you see? Like Donald Trump. Sarah, what is your unexpected moment of the year? I'll take you outside of the Oval Office all the way to Utah, to the other side of the country, but this one's a bit of a downer, I'm afraid, for the assassination of Charlie Kirk, who was shot on a university campus there. The right-wing influencer, I suppose, political organiser. He had turned out millions of votes for Donald Trump. Donald Trump credits him in large part for his victory, certainly getting younger voters to support him and he was very, very active and he was shocked whilst he was speaking to students on this campus.

13:21It was an enormous shock. You could see in the White House what a shock it was to everybody there. I happened to be around in the West Wing the day that the news crept out. In fact, it was Donald Trump who sort of rather accidentally let everybody know that he had been killed, not just injured. And you could see red-eyed staff around the place because he was a friend of a huge number of people in the White House. But it was absolutely shocking, that level of political violence, that somebody well-known like that could be killed so suddenly. But it had a huge effect as well, I think. Everything from late-night TV hosts being taken off the air because they didn't treat it seriously enough.

13:53I think it's caused a reaction on the right, who can now say it's the left that drive political violence in America after the assassination attempt against Donald Trump and then the killing of Charlie Kirk. it's really galvanised a lot of people on the right, I think, to be much more hardline about not trying to meet anybody in the middle politically. And so I think it was shocking in the moment and will have a lasting effect. I think, I don't think I, if it had registered, I hadn't clocked the letter at the desk. So in that sense, it's been a surprise for me today. So I'm going to give the point to Justin on that one.

14:27Sorry, I suspect it might be a draw at the end. We move on to Employee of the Year. So this is basically trying to have a conversation not about Donald Trump, but recognising that he's the boss of everyone. So why don't you go first? Well, so he's not technically the boss of my employee of the year, but the person I think has done their job superbly is Melania Trump. She has been absolutely immaculate in every appearance she's made. I love the way that when she walks into the room, Donald Trump looks subservient. He is the only person in America, in the world, that you can see him slightly nervously glancing at.

15:02Is he doing the right thing? And is she pleased with him in any way? And I just want to introduce a person who's very outstanding. She is a great person, a highly respected woman. Every time I make a speech, I see signs. We love our first lady. We love our first lady. They love our first lady. What can I do? I don't like it because I think they like her more than they like me. And I am not happy about it. I am not happy. We're going to have to have a discussion about this. And in terms of representing our country, it's a traditional first lady. just looking fantastic, being incredibly poised. I thought she did the state visit here brilliantly.

15:38Great hat. Oh, and the hat at the inauguration as well. Those hats that keep Donald Trump at six feet away.

15:47Marianna Spring:Have you seen the clips of her even over the past few days of her reading the stories about Santa? Because she always becomes so viral at Christmas because she just has such an interesting approach to Christmas, mainly because she's reading out this book and it's about, she kind of is reading out whether Santa has night vision, but it sounds like she's almost conducting a kind of inquisition of Father. She's like, hmm, does he have night vision? Anyway, it's always, there are so many good clips of her doing that. Can Santa see in the dark? Does he wear night vision goggles that make everyone green, everything green?

16:21I bet he'd like that because Santa likes green. And she's in charge of about 300 trees throughout the White House as well. So I think she has done her job well this year. Very good. Just good hats. Marianna, your employee of the year.

16:35Marianna Spring:I nearly went for Baron Trump just because I feel like he's the kind of secret employee of the year, Donald Trump's son, who I think orchestrates a lot of the very savvy social media strategy behind the scenes. But I've actually decided to go for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. because I feel like of all of the people, he's the person who is actually, it depends on the parameters by which we're measuring employee of the year, But he's the person who has essentially done all of the things that he kind of said he would do, has not fallen out with Donald Trump. Lots of very controversial things. For example, the comments that were made about Tylenol and pregnancy and the impact that could have on women, which lots of doctors and scientists were very critical of.

17:10Marianna Spring:And then also various decisions he's made around vaccines, like the decision to basically get rid of a load of people who are on this board to kind of oversight board around vaccinations and the decision to not invest in mRNA technology and vaccines and things like that, which have sparked a lot of concern from people within the scientific community, as well as some people who kind of respect his approach. I think that he's the person who it feels like Donald Trump, if he was going to give someone a gold star, it might be Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Also from a kind of loyalty perspective around everything Epstein.

17:39But it's been interesting how he's been very high profile. And like you said, controversial, just around a lot. And normally that's the sort of thing that makes it quite hard to sustain that relationship with Donald Trump to have to have been very noisy and high profile.

17:51Marianna Spring:Yeah. And not to threaten him. And not to threaten him. Yeah. I think that there's something about it's almost like he's in a slightly different niche to Donald Trump, if that's the right way of thinking about it. And I think that he's a very effective person for Donald Trump in terms of kind of courting the social media world in a way that Musk was. But Musk was and is much more of a loose cannon. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is much more predictable in what he's going to say or do. And then I also think that there's something about, I don't know, there's something about actually in a weird way, those hearings right at the start of the year when he basically kind of came out to say, oh, actually, I'm not anti-vaccination.

18:21Marianna Spring:I just am worried about vaccine injuries and big pharmaceutical companies not being held accountable. And there was that picture of him having the McDonald's on the plane, you might remember. It feels like that was almost like a bit of a humiliation ritual. And now he's kind of been allowed to do all the things he wanted to do, contrary to what he said he would do. So I think that he's who Donald Trump would pick as Employee of the Year. Very good. And Justin? I'm going to pick a guy called Elbridge Colby. And he is, I need to get his title right, he's Under Secretary of Defence Policy under Pete Hegseth at the Department of War, as it is now called.

18:54And he is the guy who is the kind of intellectual underpinning of the whole Trump idea that is not entirely isolationist, but is also not entirely getting everyone's face, everyone tell them how to behave around the world, ist, either. And he is the person who's in charge of that policy. And there are those inside the administration who pull in all sorts of other directions, including being much more pro-China than he is, because Eldridge Culp's big thing is China is the number one enemy. And we've got to do everything to make sure that they don't invade Taiwan. And he is, you know, in that, he is pulling against Donald Trump, who probably doesn't care too much.

19:33He's pulling against all sorts of other administration figures who want to go in other directions. He pulls against allies as well. There was a famous meeting back in, I think it was the summer of the year, where the Brits were involved. And they were saying, we're sending an aircraft carrier to the South China Sea. And Colby said, was the effect of, can you not just call it back? Because you're a nuisance. You just get in the way. He's kind of really blunt in that way that is publicly. They're publicly blunt with the Europeans. They've had it with them. and they're kind of slightly more polite about the Brits, but under their breath.

20:05And Eldridge Colby, if you're looking for an employee in the Trump administration who is a serious thinker about the world and is trying to plot a course through the world, then I'd go for him. Oh, this is tough because they're all good. I am very taken by Melania just because of her hat. Does Eldridge Colby ever wear a hat without swinging? In private, possibly. But then it's good because I feel like I've learned something. Not that I don't normally, but Eldridge, go on then. You can have it, Jessica, because that means I think you've got one each, haven't you? No, you've got two. You've given me none.