Freddy Gray is deputy editor of The Spectator
28 min listen
Vaccine passports seem all but inevitable in the UK and parts of the US. While some are relatively relaxed about the prospects of a de facto bio-security ID card, others are not. Spectator US contributor Bridget Phetasy is one of them, and on this episode tells Freddy Gray why she hates the ‘vaxport’.
37 min listen
On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that congressman Matt Gaetz is being investigated over whether he had sex with a 17-year-old and paid for her to travel with him. Freddy Gray speaks to Roger Stone, former adviser to Donald Trump and a friend of Gaetz, about the story.
18 min listen
Young people are now more likely to consume marijuana than smoke tobacco. Is weed just a benign stimulant, or is Big Dope pushing a drug that could lead to a schizophrenia epidemic? Freddy Gray speaks to Madeleine Kearns, staff writer at National Review and the author of the cover piece in the new US edition
20 min listen
A piece of digital art by the illustrator Beeple has sold for $69 million. Is it worth the cash, or just a picture on a screen? Freddy Gray talks to Nima Sagharchi, director of Middle Eastern, Islamic and South Asian art at Bonhams auctioneers.
22 min listen
In the wake of the Atlanta shootings, Freddy Gray talks to Andy Ngo, journalist and author of Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy about Ngo’s experiences of racism as an Asian-American and what’s behind the rise in violence against the group.
31 min listen
With historian Michael Auslin, the Payson J. Treat Distinguished Research Fellow in Contemporary Asia at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
19 min listen
Freddy Gray talks to historian Patrick Allitt, the Cahoon Family Professor of American History at Emory University, about how much the Harry and Meghan interview has really cut through to the American public.
36 min listen
Is it fair to blame Meghan for the Royal Family’s problems? (00:55) Why is China censoring a book of Dante’s poetry? (12:40) Would you go to moon? (24:50) With The Spectator‘s US editor Freddy Gray; The Spectator’s restaurant critic Tanya Gold; author Ian Thomson; Kerry Brown, professor of Chinese Studies at King’s College London; The
Remember the Heads Together campaign? It was back in 2017. Prince William, his wife Kate and his brother Prince Harry, who’d recently begun dating a conspicuously woke actress called Meghan Markle, launched a charitable endeavour to raise awareness about mental health. The princes gave interviews in which they ‘opened up’ about their struggles. Such public
12 min listen
Freddy Gray talks to National Review and Fox columnist John Fund about the Democrat HR 1 bill on voting practices. Will it pass, and could it be an existential threat to American democracy?
16 min listen
In the first public appearance since Biden’s inauguration, Donald Trump has spoken to CPAC, the annual conservative conference. Freddy Gray reviews his speech with Kate Andrews.
14 min listen
Freddy Gray, Amber Athey and Matt McDonald discuss 2021’s Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida, ahead of Donald Trump’s appearance tomorrow.
25 min listen
Freddy Gray talks to Republican political consultant Luke Thompson about the demise of the Lincoln Project, the political action committee set up to oppose Donald Trump’s re-election.
There is no point denying it — The Trump Show, the craziest comedy the God of TV has ever produced, has been fizzling out. Yes, the ‘Storming of the Capitol’ episode was a dramatic denouement. The absurd sight of ridiculously dressed QAnoners stumbling into an accidental attempt at a government coup was shockingly hilarious. But the
13 min listen
The House of Representatives has removed Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene from two committees for promoting incendiary conspiracy theories about paedophile rings and Jewish-controlled space lasers. Does she represent the future of the GOP, and are both parties losing their grip on reality? Freddy Gray speaks to Dominic Green, the Spectator‘s deputy US editor.
27 min listen
Freddy Gray talks to Joe Weisenthal, co-host of the Odd Lots podcast and presenter of What’d You Miss on Bloomberg TV, about the GameStop short squeeze. Where did wallstreetbets start, have they revolutionised the stock market, and do they know what they’re doing?
21 min listen
Has Joe Biden done as much in his first days as he said he would? Freddy Gray talks to Jacob Heilbrunn about the Trump policies that Biden is keeping, and the ones that he’s already swept away.
35 min listen
Can Joe Biden unite America? (01:05) Why is the UK’s vaccine rollout its most important economic policy? (12:10) And how can re-enactments bring history to life? (22:15) With The Spectator’s economics correspondent Kate Andrews; US editor Freddy Gray; political editor James Forsyth; Capital Economics chairman Roger Bootle; re-enactor Chris Brown and historical consultant Justin Pollard.
‘Folks, I can tell you, I’ve known eight presidents, three of them intimately.’ So said then vice-president Joe Biden in 2012. A month earlier, he had assured a crowd in New York that President Barack Obama could, in Teddy Roosevelt’s famous words, ‘speak softly but carry a big stick’ when it came to international relations.
So endeth the Trump presidency, not with a bang but a long and and predictably hilarious list of pardons and commutations. There’s 143 in total. It’s a last, parting gift for those of us who, in our sinfulness, have always regarded the rule of Trump as a sort of divine cosmic joke. The headline pardon is
