The Rest is Politics: US Edition

[CaveMum]

Just listened to today's TRIP episode where they announced that starting this Friday they will have a 3rd weekly edition of TRIP focused purely on the run up to the US election.

It will be presented by Katty Kay (BBC US Special Correspondent) and Anthony Scaramucci.

Not sure if it is too early to sound the WingNut claxon (aka the people like me that learned everything they know about US elections from watching The West Wing!), but we are getting close to breaking out the blue and red marker pens surely....

So excited about this. Love listening to scaramucci!

I saw the ads on Twitter! Did you listen to the interview with Scaramucci? He's quite a character. I can't decide whether to listen to it or not. The fact it will be Trump v Biden again makes me more sick and almost less interested that I am in the UK GE, which is pretty low.

I have listened to the Leading interview, it’s highly entertaining!

I can’t get over the fact that he’s 60! There’s a lot of Botox and hair dye going on there!

Very interesting. But, sorry, I don't know what TRIP is ...a weekly television program?

I recently saw Scaramucci interviewed briefly and was surprised that someone was treating him respectfully again.

I'm fascinated at the idea of non-Americans watching The West Wing, and wonder what they think. Actually, I wonder the same thing about programming like Law & Order.

@MsAmerica TRIP is shorthand for The Rest is Politics, a podcast that covers political news across the world, though with a UK focus. It’s presented by Alastair Campbell (head of communications under Tony Blair) and Rory Stewart (ex-Tory MP/Minister who ran against Boris Johnson for the Tory Party leadership).

The idea is that they come from opposite sides of the UK political spectrum so don’t agree on a lot of things, but discuss and debate respectfully rather than aggressively.

They do 2 episodes a week - 1 news and 1 Q&A - but also have a separate podcast feed called Leading, where they interview people from across the world in positions of power - mostly politicians but also CEOs, scientists, writers, etc.

Listened to the first episode this morning, pretty good I thought. We’ll see how it progresses.

@MsAmerica just in reference to my West Wing comments, I know it is an idealistic version of what politics was/should be like but it is certainly extremely educational in terms of understanding how the election process works in comparison to our own, plus understanding the terminology like Primaries and Super Tuesday, etc.

Thanks, @CaveMum, that sounds interesting. I watch a daily television program, the PBS News Hour, which on Friday has a brief segment with two people, one from each political party, Democrats and Republicans. It's nice because they're civil and sometimes humorous. However, the Republican, who seems like a genuinely good guy, is so disgusted with Trump and is moving so far away from the party that he's apparently being reviled.

Just bumping this, particularly now that things have got very interesting.

There was an emergency pod last night which you can listen to (or watch on YouTube).

Mooch is still adamant that Trump can be defeated - he thinks he will quickly tire of Vance as he (Trump) can’t stand not being the centre of attention and apparently he’s already irked that Vance got such a good reception for his speech at the Convention.

Interesting to hear their thoughts on possible VPs and also nice to hear them talk positively about Kamala.

The Newsagents is good on this too - they did a brief emergency podcast last night but they do a weekly Newsagents USA podcast which is always jnteresting.

Ah that's interesting, thank you. I've gone off TRIP after their comments about Rowling sitting with fence posts up their bottoms.

Also I really like the style of Electoral Disfunction podcast for UK politics.

But a good prompt for insights on the US - thanks.

It is worth listening to the Leading interview Alastair and Rory did with Mooch a while ago. I was unfamiliar with him, other than vaguely recalling him being fired by Trump after 11 days, and it’s a fascinating and very funny interview.

@WookeyHole I think Alistair Campbell has given up on common sense regarding gender issues because he wants to keep a good relationship with his daughter, who is very woke. A lot of parents are very scared of crossing their children on this as the consequences are so awful.

It’s also because he’s great pals with Stephen Kinnock and his wife Helle, who have a “gender fluid” daughter who underwent a double mastectomy aged 21 and now goes by the name “Milo”.

I listen to TRIP: US, Americast, News Agents USA and Pod Save America and I think TRIP:US is my favourite - I think the mix of Mooch’s insider-y knowledge and Katy Kay’s more outsider-y big picture perspective works really well - I find it much more insightful than News Agents USA, which now seems pretty weak by comparison (given Maitlis and Sopel used to be great on the original Americast - I think they’re both just a bit too distant from events these days for it to work).

TRIP US has grown on me - I found the Mooch irritating at first but I’ve got used to him now. I like Newsagents US a lot but I have a crush on Emily M.

I haven’t tried Pod save America so I’ll add that to the list.

Yes I wasn’t sure about Mooch at first - I feel like he might be unbearable in real life but his style has really grown on me and I like the way the two bounce off each other.

There’s just been a few times recently where I’ve listened to different podcasts’ perspectives on the same events and found News Agents USA a bit superficial.

Pod Save America is unashamedly anti-Trump, and intrinsically linked with pro-Democrat campaigning so it’s quite a different proposition.

Well, I thoroughly enjoyed Pod Save America so thank you for that recommendation @4fingerKitKat