Jacob Heilbrunn is editor of The National Interest. He lives in Washington DC
39 min listen
This week Freddy is joined by Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of the National Interest, and Charles Lipson, professor of political science at the University of Chicago. They discuss Charles’s recent piece in The Spectator’s US edition where he argues that the walls are closing in on old Joe, in relation to the Hunter Biden story. Is the President’s involvement
Donald Trump has chalked up a lot of firsts. First president to be a chum of Russian president Vladimir Putin. First president to threaten withdrawal from Nato. Now add a new one: first former president to be indicted on seven federal counts, which is a polite way of saying that a serial prevaricator has been
47 min listen
This week: Having been found guilty of sexual assault, is Donald Trump still in the running for the White House? In his cover piece, Niall Ferguson says he could still defy gravity. He joins the podcast alongside Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of The National Interest. (01:00) Also this week: Journalist Andrew Watts interviews the Reverend Canon
29 min listen
Freddy Gray speaks to Jacob Heilbrunn about Trump’s indictment and whether this could galvanize voters or hurt his presidential campaign.
Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis declared as he was sworn in for a second time yesterday that, under his reign, Florida ‘will never surrender to the woke mob’. Meanwhile, woke or not, a different mob was disrupting the proceedings in Washington, D.C. at the nation’s Capitol. The same lawmakers who plotted to disrupt Joe Biden’s inauguration
With the January 6 Committee’s recommendation to the Justice Department last night to prosecute Donald Trump on four counts of insurrection, obstruction and conspiracy, he has gone from predator to prey. Like Jay Gatsby, who believed in the ‘orgastic future that recedes before us year by year’, he has never doubted in his abilities to
Poor Donald Trump. The 6 January committee has subpoenaed him. The New York attorney general is seeking to put the kibosh on his new Trump II organisation. The Supreme Court has rejected his bid to stymie the Mar-a-Lago investigation. What next? Will it turn out that Jared or even — gasp! — Ivanka has been
It almost seems worthy of the opening scene in a Bond film. Vital Russian gas pipelines running beneath the Baltic Sea close to Denmark and Sweden are the victims of sabotage. The two countries have warned of leaks from both Nord Stream 1 and 2 after seismologists suggested there had been underwater explosions. No one wants to
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Freddy Gray speaks with Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of The National Interest, ahead of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. They discuss if this is a turning point in US relations with Taiwan, whether we are heading for World War Three, or if Pelosi is calling China’s bluff.
30 min listen
Freddy Gray talks to journalists Jacob Heilbrunn, the editor of The National Interest, and John Daniel Davidson, senior editor of The Federalist, about the beginning of public hearings at the House Select Committee into the events of January 6th 2021.
In his novel The Loyal Subject, which appeared on the eve of the first world war, Heinrich Mann, the brother of Thomas, satirised Wilhelmine Germany as a hotbed of chauvinistic nationalism. The servile nationalism that Mann mocked could not be further from the ethos of the Federal Republic of Germany today. So pervasive is Germany’s
24 min listen
Freddy Gray talks to Jacob Heilbrunn, the editor of The National Interest, about Vladimir Putin’s military action.
The only thing more sombre than President Joe Biden’s tone at his press conference on Friday afternoon was his funereal ensemble of dark suit and even darker tie. Biden made news with his declaration that the Russian president isn’t havering about invading Ukraine, if he ever really was. Instead, he’s made the decision, we were
It’s springtime for liberal interventionism. Russian President Vladimir Putin may not have intended it, but he is doing a good job of revitalising Nato. The organisation was faltering only a few years ago. Now, by threatening Ukraine, Putin is probably extending its lifespan by several more decades, a feat that even the most ardent Atlanticists
11 min listen
Joe Biden’s approval rating has dropped to 39 per cent, as he suffers from the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, an ongoing crisis at the border with Mexico, and rising Covid cases. Is it a short term dip, could Biden’s pandemic response wipe out the Democrats in the midterms, and will the 78-year-old still be president
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.
He did it. Donald Trump made it through four years, not an accomplishment many of his detractors thought he would achieve, or even wanted him to. ‘See you soon,’ Trump said. A promise or a threat? The truth is that Trump has been badly diminished by his antics in the past few weeks, starting but
‘Send in the troops. The nation must restore order. The military stands ready.’ Aficionados of the New York Times may recall that these sentences appeared as the headline of Tom Cotton’s op-ed in June that led to the departure of the paper’s editorial page editor James Bennet. Bennet resurfaced as a guest author of Politico’s Playbook newsletter
Congratulations, President Trump! It took a while but you’ve finally achieved the American carnage that you purported to descry in your inaugural address four years ago. It would be hard to think of a more symbolically apt end to your presidency. Trump’s shameful, revolting and tawdry taped message late on Wednesday urging his supporters to disband
28 min listen
As the Electoral College confirms Joe Biden’s victory, Freddy Gray talks to Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of The National Interest, about whether or not the president-elect, with his centrist appeal, is really a ‘DINO’ – ‘Democrat In Name Only’.
