Have Republicans been given a major midterms boost by the Supreme Court?

Justin

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Hello, it's Anthony and you're about to hear AmericasT and we're delighted to have you with us. And if you enjoy what you hear, please do consider subscribing to the podcast. That way you'll never miss an episode. Now on with today, a big week

Justin

of Supreme Court rulings just got bigger. The court ruling on Tuesday that political parties in the United States can spend as much as they want on campaign. So the ruling removes limits on coordinated spending between candidates and political parties. They're fundamentally going to change how money is spent, particularly in congressional elections. And there are, as you know, some congressional elections not funding far away. So Donald Trump says it's a big win for Republicans. He said that in capital letters. And more importantly, the First Amendment that guarantees freedom of speech. So are we about to see an influx of money into the midterm elections? Could it actually swing the pendulum back towards the Republican party? Welcome to AmericasT.

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Justin

You hear that sound? Oh, I think when I hear that

Anthony

sound, it reminds me of money.

Justin

We didn't start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it.

Guest Commentator

This is a big cover up and this administration is engaged in it. This guy has Trump derangement syndrome.

Anthony

I have four words for you.

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Turn the volume up.

Justin

Hello, it's Justin in the worldwide headquarters of AmericasT in London, England.

Anthony

And it's Anthony in the American headquarters of AmericasT in Washington D.C. and let

Justin

us start by talking money, Anthony. So this is an important ruling. It's a ruling that changes again, the law when it comes to campaign finance. Basically loosens it, doesn't it? We're used to it being loosened. I think. I thought that it couldn't be loosened anymore, actually. I think a lot of ameritasters will think, well, hang on a second. Pretty much everyone spends what they can get their Hands on in campaigns. So what does this actually do?

Interviewer

Yeah.

Anthony

Oh, my gosh. There's going to be money spent on American political campaigns. It's going to be awash.

Guest Commentator

Yeah.

Anthony

I mean, this is kind of the last vestiges of the big campaign finance reform that passed in 2002. And you were around here, Justin, back when that happened. McCain Feingold was the name of the law. John McCain, a Republican, and Russ Feingold, a Democrat, were able to overcome establishment opposition from the Republican party and Mitch McConnell to put through this massive reform of how campaigns are funded and who can spend money on political advertising. All that. And step by step, the Supreme Court has torn it all down. Citizens United was that big case about 10 years ago that said that independent groups can spend as much money as they want on advocacy and advocating for candidates. This was one of the last pieces left. And this was a ban on coordination between political parties and campaign. So you couldn't give money to a political party and have them essentially give it to a candidate. That was kind of a backdoor in the view of the people who supported this law that they tried to close. But now the Supreme Court has said, no, that violates the free speech rights of political parties. And so that ban, that lack of coordination that they had to abide by, it is now gone. And I'll say Justin's probably going to give more people power to political parties at a time when maybe their influence has waned a little bit.

Justin

Yeah. And could you say that that in one sense is a good thing. And as much as these political action committees, and particularly the super PACs, were pretty opaque, weren't they? So, as you say, you could give money. So say I'm a billionaire. I give a load of money to a super pac. Yes, it can't coordinate with a candidate, but it can pretty much lay the groundwork for that guy or gal to win, can't it? So does this. Is there a case to be made that says this is just a kind of more transparent way of doing it?

Anthony

Yeah, Money finds a way. Right. It flows downhill. And super PACs, these political action committees that are independent of political parties and individual candidates, or at least supposedly independent. I mean, every major candidate has a super PAC that with a wink and a nod, is supposedly independent. But let's be honest, it's the same people who, who work on campaigns, who go back and forth between the super PACs and the campaigns. They raise money with the understanding, implicit understanding, that this money is going to be spent to support a candidate, and they're not those super PACs are also not supposed to coordinate. That part of the law is still there. But to be honest, they know what they're doing, and maybe they have a conversation off the record over dinner, but they kind of coordinate. And. And so this could. Justin, this could give political parties a little more sway now because they can directly work with a campaign. They can work hand in hand, they can coordinate advertising and on the ground campaigning, all of that in a way that super PACs still are supposedly not allowed to do.

Justin

Yeah. So if you're a very wealthy, well connected candidate, is it fair to say that you are slightly more in hock to your party now and needing to follow the party line than you were in the past? Potentially, that's.

Anthony

Potentially, yeah. If you're a candidate who has not raised a lot of money, maybe you're having problems getting people to donate to your campaign because there are other flashier candidates elsewhere in the country. This gives you another source of funding, the political party, which makes the judgment about whether you deserve support or not and whether you have a chance of winning or not. They can step in. So, like you talk about maybe Whatley, he's a Republican candidate in North Carolina running against Roy Cooper, the Democrat who is a former governor. He was lagging way behind in fundraising. Now he might get a little boost from the Republican Party, extra money that will make him more competitive in a seat that probably should be more competitive than it is right now. And the other thing, Justin, to keep in mind, and one of the reasons why Republicans were the ones who brought this lawsuit and Republicans are the ones who are celebrating this decision, is that the Republican National Committee in their bank accounts right now has $125 million. The Democratic National Committee in their bank accounts are pocket lint and spare change. In fact, they're $4 million in debt. So the Republicans have a lot more resources to be able to funnel to these candidates now that this decision has come down.

Justin

I'm amazed by that. I mean, given everything that we say on every single episode of this podcast and have said for months about the enormous enthusiasm there is on the Democratic side and the enormous disaffection there is, not to say outright kind of collapse on the Republican side. What the heck's going on?

Anthony

There is enormous enthusiasm on the Democratic side, and the Democratic rank and file are donating tons of money to political entities. They're just not doing it to the Democratic Party. They're sending it to individual candidates who are raising money hand over, over fist. So that tells you a little Something, right? I mean, something we're seeing in these primary results in New York last week and in Colorado last night we saw a 29 year old barista and PhD student beat a 30 year incumbent Democratic congresswoman in Denver. And she was able to do it because I think a lot of liberal voters are dissatisfied with how the Democratic Party has handled things, how they have fought or not fought in their view, Donald Trump. And they're looking for outsiders, people outside the establishment to support. So this is all kind of part and parcel of that, Right?

Justin

So then the disadvantage that the Democrats face as a result of this decision, it's not just simply that there is a load of money that's now going to come to Republican candidates. It's that the Republican Party is able to fund these candidates, but the Democratic Party is not able to. So they're going to have to go around, get the money elsewhere. And I wonder then the question, Anthony, is whether when push comes to shove, whether actually the amounts of money being raised and spent will pretty much equal out or not.

Anthony

The Republicans are the incumbents, they hold the presidency, they hold both chambers of Congress. And incumbents tend to raise more money than the out of power party by the simple fact that if you're a corporation or a wealthy individual or someone who is looking to influence government, you give money, you make campaign donations to people who are in a position to change government policy. And an out of power Democrat challenger is not going to raise the same kind of money as a Republican who sits on an Appropriations Committee or some other key committee that can decide your companies or your personal fate. So that's part of it. And if you look at some of these other committees, not the major, not the national political parties, but say the Senate campaign committees and the House campaign committees, which both Republicans and Democrats have, it's a little closer there. Those Democratic committees do have tens of millions of dollars. Republicans have more. But it's not quite as unbalanced as those numbers I cited for the national party. And money's not everything, right? I mean, we saw Graham Platner defeat the establishment backed Janet Mills, the establishment backed Democratic governor in Maine for that Senate primary. We've seen these insurgent candidates win even on the Republican side. We've seen in Texas, John Cornyn go down to Paxton, Ken Paxton, who was outspent by an order of 10 to 1 in that Republican Senate primary campaign. So money buys you a lot, but when the mood is anti establishment, it doesn't get you everything.

Justin

I also, we've talked about this before. Anthony, I find it fascinating. What, what the heck do they spend all this money on? And the obvious answer is tv. But then the obvious repost to that is, well, you know, the only people watching tv, particularly terrestrial TV in the modern era, are people who are not the coming people. Let's just put it kindly like that when it comes to voting or anything else. And that increasingly small audience is not where the future is. And if you think about the people, well, I mentioned Mamdani, but also you think of Jon Ossoff in Georgia. These people have a really good social media game and social media being cheap. That actually, isn't that another reason why the whole situation, the whole context of this money in politics thing is changing?

Anthony

Yeah. Television is still the most expensive way of campaigning and one of the easiest for a candidate. You cut your 32nd television spot, you buy the time on local networks, you get the ads up. I mean, it's familiar. It's familiar for a lot of people who have been in the business of campaigning now for their entire adult lives. But, but you're right, online, one online is a way to reach different voters, the younger voters, people who, as you say, do not watch terrestrial down the line television anymore. And it's taking up a bigger and bigger chunk of these campaign spending. And it's becoming more expensive to, to do videos on YouTube and ads on Facebook and all of these other means of reaching an audience, to have a social media team that can come up with a social media strategy. Maybe you're not paying for the airtime, but you're paying people to do that, people who know how to do it, people who can produce things that are compelling and authentic as the catchphrase that we use a lot. And then there's money spent on, on the ground campaigning, on voter outreach, on people who can go door to door and give pamphlets and brochures and things like that candidate travel, putting on these big events at various places, renting out the space for it, all of those, that all takes money too. But I think you are going to see, Justin, and I think you're right, you're going to see spending on television advertising, which used to be the big thing, the one big thing that could really determine whether a candidate can win or lose. That taking a smaller and smaller chunk of campaign budgets as we go forward.

Justin

And as a sidebar issue, the TV station, that was pay dirt, wasn't it? So you think now in Texas, where a ton of money's gonna be spent in the general election with a genuinely competitive Senate fight, if you own. Well, maybe you do own shares in Texas TV stations. You come from there. Anthony, you're laughing, aren't you? Because traditionally an absolute ton of money, wall of money then comes to sometimes quite rural, quite local places where not used to having tons of money thrown at them. And it's called part of American politics, isn't it? When we talk money being spent, sometimes we talk about it being spent as if it's being spent in Washington, D.C. it's not, is it? It's been spent around the country and that has been traditionally quite important.

Anthony

Yeah. There's a reason why states like Iowa and New Hampshire fought tooth and nail to keep their position as early primary and caucus states for the presidential race. Because it was a windfall. Every four years, candidates would come there, they would buy up every single bit of television advertising those two states had to offer. They would rent hotels, they would rent out coffee houses and restaurants for their campaign, campaign events. They would spend money left and right on people on the ground doing campaign activities. In a state like Texas, which is a huge state and has multiple media markets, two of the biggest media markets in the United States in Houston and Dallas, it's super expensive to one, put up television advertising on the air, but also to travel around the state and run a campaign. I mean, campaigning in a place like Texas is comparable to the cost of a campaign in England or in, in Germany. It's just a massive, a massive place, a big territory, and it's expensive and has a lot of people.

Justin

Okay. Another court decision, this one not so favorable to Donald Trump. In fact, not favorable at all. Birthright citizenship, I think we've been saying, haven't we, for the last year or so. It is unlikely, it seemed unlikely that the court would overturn birthright citizenship. And we were right, they didn't. Although Donald Trump had invested in this pretty personally, hadn't he? Didn't he go to the first hearing? I seem to remember he did that live on AmericasT, didn't he? Although he might not have known he was live on AmericasT, but we covered it when it happened.

Anthony

Yeah, he went and sat there in the Supreme Court chambers while they did their oral arguments. The first sitting President to attend an oral argument for the Supreme Court in American history, as far as I recall. He talked about it a lot. He posted on social media a lot about how this was essential, how the United States wouldn't have a country if we didn't, weren't able to guarantee that only children of citizens would become American citizens upon birth. On this Soil and how it was different than a lot of countries. He said all countries, but it wasn't. There are other countries that do have birthright citizenship. But he was up against the text of the 14th Amendment, which pretty extremely

Justin

Trump against the Constitution, eh?

Interviewer

Yeah.

Anthony

Everyone born on US soil and subject to the jurisdiction thereof is a citizen. And the debate was whether subject to the jurisdiction meant that undocumented migrants and temporary visitors, whether they were or were not subject to American jurisdiction. There was also a Supreme Court precedent that goes back about 130 years where the court looked at the child of Chinese immigrants and determined that that child born on US Soil was an American citizen. There was a, a federal law passed in the 1930s that also explicitly said anyone born on US soil, with the exception of a few distinct categories of invading armies or people on ships passing through or the children of diplomats, they automatically become citizens. So all of this was weighing against him, which is one of the reasons why we said that it wasn't likely he was going to win. And he didn't win. Although, Justin, I will say it was a little closer, I think, than maybe some of us thought. It was a, a 6 to 3 decision. But one of those six, Brett Kavanaugh, said there was nothing in the Constitution that prevented the federal government from changing the rules for birthright citizenship. He pointed at that federal law and said, you'd have to change that federal law in order to do it. The other five justices, the three liberal justices, Amy Coney Barrett and John Roberts, they pointed to the text of the Constitution, the text of the 14th Amendment and said, no, it explicitly says born on U.S. soil. That includes undocumented migrants, that includes people here on green cards, people temporarily in the United States. All of that is guaranteed by the Constitution. So in a way, that was a pretty definitive ruling. You're going to have to change the Constitution in order to change that particular policy.

Justin

And super definitive, given that he has convinced, or the arguments convinced conservative justices that Trump was wrong. And that is going to weigh. It weighs heavily with him, obviously, as it weighed heavily with him when they found against him one or two of them, didn't they, over the whole tariffs business as well. He doesn't like that happening. But it does send out a signal, doesn't it? An interesting signal. We probably haven't got time to go into this now, Anthony, but we ought to in a few weeks time about where the court actually is, because it is plainly not a Trump rubber stamp court. This ruling says that, doesn't it? So let's listen to What JD Vance. So the vice president is asked then about the ruling. He's talking to Laura Ingraham on Fox News back on Tuesday. Let's listen to what he says.

JD Vance

You know, one of the things that might invite Laura is people to come here quite literally on a vacation, give birth, and then all of a sudden the child and their family have the full benefits of American citizenship. It's just a preposterous ruling. And the absurdity of that outcome suggests why the Supreme Court should have went the other way. Now, I know a lot of conservatives, Laura, certainly the people that I'm talking to, that you're talking to are extremely disappointed in this. I do actually think there's a really big silver lining here. And that's the simple fact that a lot of legal experts expected this case to go the wrong direction by 7 to 2 or even 8 to 1. The fact that this case was a 5 to 4 decision effectively means that the concept of birthright citizenship, which is an absurdity to the 14th amendment, that concept is hanging by a thread.

Justin

Is that true, do you think, Anthony?

Anthony

Well, you know, interesting. Neil Gorsuch, one of the Trump appointees who dissented. He dissented, but he said that he thought there probably was a constitutional right to birthright citizenship for undocumented migrants, the children of undocumented migrants who were living here permanently. Essentially, his issue was these temporary visitors, the birth tourism, as it's been termed. And he didn't think that they, the children of those people deserve to have automatic citizenship. And that seems to be what you're hearing from Donald Trump and from Vance and from others. They aren't complaining about undocumented migrants and their children per se. At least that's not what they're playing up to the media right now. They're talking about these people fly in and have kids and fly out. Trump, in kind of a facetious truth social post, congratulated the Chinese and President Xi Jinping for the victory in the Supreme Court. The reality, however, is that that is a very, very small segment of people. There are not a ton of folks flying in having kids here and then like, ooh, we got our citizen, we got our anchor baby or whatever you want to call it. Part of the reason is just because you have a child who's a US Citizen, that doesn't give you, despite what Vance says, that doesn't give you all of these benefits as parents. They don't automatically become citizens. They don't automatically have access to all of this. The kid can stay, but you could, you could, as a parent, you could still get kicked out. In fact, that's happened now, and the Trump administration has been doing that for undocumented parents of U.S. citizens. But it's written in the Constitution right now. Donald Trump, after this decision, came out and did a Truth Social post that said, well, it's disappointing he wasn't happy about it, but that it can easily be changed by Congress. We don't have to amend the Constitution. It's not going to be that big a deal. He kind of shrugged almost. He wasn't raging. He didn't hold a press conference where he showed up like he did after tariffs and called the Republicans lap dogs and say that he was angry at the court and go on and on about how. How frustrated he was. He posted a couple on Truth Social. He said, oh, we'll take care of it in Congress, and then moved on. But the reality is that it's gonna be really hard for Congress to do anything because this is grounded in the Constitution. And you've seen some members of Congress, some Republicans, like Andy Ogles, suggest that maybe the United States shouldn't allow any pregnant woman into the country in case they might have a child here, do some sort of means of banning that, which seems incredibly intrusive and unwieldy. But that just demonstrates exactly how difficult it's going to be to get around this court decision because it's, as you say, grounded in the actual text of the Constitution.

Justin

Yeah. Okay. One other decision, which I think is actually more important possibly than it's being given credit for and politically more important, and it's not being given a lot of credit for it because, frankly, it was expected, wasn't it? So the court says a state is allowed to ban transgender women from competing in the female part of sports in both schools and colleges. So they're not banned from competing, but they are banned from competing in the female section. And it was a six to three decision, wasn't it, Anthony? And nobody expected, I think, that it would go any other way.

Anthony

They said that nothing in federal law in the education log precluded these bans. What they did say was that they would have preferred that there were more lower court proceedings to look and see whether these bans violated the Constitution, at least when they were applied to, say, this one girl who was competing in track and field in a West Virginia high school. And so they wanted to go a little farther, but it was actually a unanimous decision in upholding these laws, which I think underlines. Justin. This case's decision was, I think, Pretty clear that they were gonna go this way. And that is tricky for some liberals to be able to figure out where to come down on this issue.

Justin

Yeah. And it's really important point that, isn't it? So this thing, title nine, that guarantees, I mean, since the early 70s, wasn't it. So just the context of this sport for girls and women was abysmally badly supported, wasn't it? Badly financially supported just didn't really exist. There were so many more male athletes than female athletes, and that was challenged in the 70s. And this thing, Title 9, that says you must have as many sports for females as you have for males. And then the question, of course, never arose for many, many years what that actually meant. Now it has arisen what that actually meant. And as you say, all the justices agreed what it actually means. It actually does mean biological sex. But it interested me then that the three liberals couldn't find a way of just saying, okay, we're going to go along with it. Had to find other kind of slightly more technical things to disagree with. And I think exactly as you suggest, Anthony, I think for Democrats, this issue, that. And we all remember how it blew up during the Kamala Harris campaign in 24, this issue just won't sit down. And it's not an issue that most Americans think about on most days, let's be blunt. But it just won't die for them. And they've got to find a way of getting through it. And I'm not sure they've found it yet.

Anthony

Yeah, it's an issue that got more attention maybe than it merited, given that there are a handful of transgender girls trying to compete in girls sports across the country. There are not very many transgender students. Few hundred thousand across the country. It's a small amount. Bjp. The one girl in West Virginia was the only person trying to compete in girls, a transgender girl trying to compete in girls sports. But it did, as we remarked on, dominate the presidential campaign down the stretch. And Donald Trump hit Kamala Harris over and over again on that. And Donald Trump still talks about it to this very day, bringing it up, even when it's not directly the topic, whether it's election reform, he throws in that we should ban men competing in women's sports.

Justin

But it's a wedge issue, isn't it? So, in other words, it's an issue where probably 90%, maybe more than 90% of Republicans, certainly Trump supporters would say we absolutely agree with the Supreme Court. But for the Democrats, there'll be plenty of Democrats who, who actually don't agree and want trans women to still be able to compete. But there'll also be plenty of Democrats who say actually it's quite a good thing if women's sport is kept for biological females alone. And that, that. So it's a wedge issue that divides Democrats and unites Republicans. And that's why they're going to use it, isn't it? Not only in this election cycle, but in 28 as well.

Guest Commentator

Yeah.

Anthony

And with this decision, as you say, this issue is not going away. And actually some of the advocates, the people who are pushing for defending the West Virginia law, the Idaho law, said that states like Colorado, like Connecticut, that have laws that allow transgender girls and women to compete in women's sports, that they're next, they're going to be the target of lawsuits now. So on one hand, the court has said, okay, these bans can stay in effect. I think the next big legal battle will be whether the laws that do the opposite, that guarantee access, whether those violate the equal protection clause of the Constitution, whether Those violate Title 9 of civil rights laws. Because right now you have 27 states with bans, but you have other states that do things differently. And that is going to be, you know, that could be a very real electoral issue, a political issue in 2028. I'll say Kavanaugh, the justice who wrote the majority opinion here, he coached girls basketball. He has a particular interest in sports, in collegiate and scholastic sports. And he had a line in that opinion saying that everyone should be respected, that he didn't want this decision to alienate or ostracize transgender athletes, that he understands that sport should be accessible to everyone. But he then grounded this decision in saying that there needed to be girls, sports needed to be supported, and in this case, these bans are policy debate and that states should be allowed to do them.

Justin

Yeah, it's such an interesting point that, isn't it? That it's become, because of the political side of it, it's become such a poisonous and actually hate filled thing. And for girls and women who don't get onto a podium or indeed don't get into a team, it's going to feel brutally unfair to them. But on the other hand, you know, the opposite is also the case for a trans woman, a biological male who feels themselves to be essentially female and wants to be in that team, then they're going to feel unfair and that the issue is, you know, where do you go? Who do you, who do you, who do you support? And who do you say, I'm sorry but you're not going to be able to do that. And the mood has been very much that it's the girls and the women who have to stand down and not talk about it and deal with it. And that it seems to me that balance is now changing. And I think it is fair to say, isn't it, Anthony, Changing in a direction that most Americans would support.

Anthony

If you look at public opinion polling, they tend to, yes, have large majorities that want some kind of limits. And you can pick around the nuances about whether people have gone through puberty. Male puberty should be the ones who are limited, or people who have never gone through puberty might still be allowed, whether it's a team that is open, open to everyone, or one that is much more selective and much more competitive to be on. Unfortunately, it is a difficult kind of thing to grapple with because these are, you know, people are affected on both sides of it. And there's such a long history of discrimination against transgender individuals here that this feels for many of them like just another example of trying to strip away their humanity, their rights. And it's going to. Maybe it starts here because this is an obvious slam dunk 1 in the views of much of the American public. But it doesn't stop there. It goes on to taking away rights and access in other parts of American society.

Justin

Okay, that's our conversation about the Supreme Court important cases, and we're going to come back to them and the ramifications of them. No question at all about that. Now, though, we've had a very important email from Eric, and Eric says this. Do you know that the sound you're playing at the closing of ameracast of a bald eagle is probably a red tailed falcon. Sounds cooler, don't get me wrong, but the whole family of eagles kind of squeak. Sounds less cool.

Guest Commentator

Hmm.

Justin

Let's address Eric, first of all, with the sound of our United States of America, where we're building our very own map of Americases and their experiences in all 50 states. So here it is.

Pledge Voice

I pledge allegiance to the United States of America.

Justin

Right there. It was Anthony. I. I used to think it was a. Used to think it was some kind of firework going off, but it's. It's. It's definitely not that. But the question is, is it an eagle? And that person you can hear laughing in the background, Anthony. Because we take these things very seriously. We've actually got him listening in is Mario Benassi, who is the head avian curator at the American Bald Eagle Foundation. Maria, Hello. To you.

Mario Benassi

Hi. Hi. How are y'?

Anthony

All?

Justin

I'm very good. Thanks so much for, for indulging us with this. I mean, I suppose the basic question is this. Have we got it right or wrong?

Mario Benassi

Oh, oh, definitely wrong. That is definitely not a bald eagle. Actually the red tailed hawk, not the red tailed falcon. And of course that call is ubiquitous in North America.

Justin

Anthony, this is distressing.

Anthony

Yeah, it is. I mean, I grew up in Texas where red tailed hawks are everywhere and, and so I'm familiar with them. It didn't have a whole lot of bald eagles there, though. Some never heard any of them cry. But when I heard that originally, I was a little suspicious that we may have gotten it wrong. So it is interesting to get confirmation from a true expert.

Justin

Okay.

Anthony

What does a bald eagle sound like, by the way?

Justin

That's right. I think we're going to hear one in just a second. But I mean, also, I mean, I suppose the other question is, why is the bald eagle the symbol of America? Mario, how, how did bald eagles become. We've got it very wrong. But it matters a lot. But it matters a lot because it is important, isn't it, as a bird for the United States?

Mario Benassi

Well, you know, the eagle, I mean, historically has always been chosen as the symbol of power. Nothing is built like an eagle. In fact, if there was a 60 pound eagle, I tell people all the time, there wouldn't be any mammals alive on this planet. They are just incredibly powerful for their size. And so it's no wonder that the Romans chose the golden eagle to be the standard of the Roman Empire. And of course, the golden eagle is probably the most chosen of the eagles to be the symbol of a country. And I think that's one of the reasons the bald eagle was chosen. We wanted the eagle powerful, majestic. And of course the bald eagle is incredibly beautiful. I mean, and just the image of power.

Justin

Ah, the image of power. Yeah. And you, Mario, have provided us with the sound of the image of power, the proper sound. So we've done another version of our United States of Americast with this time provided by Mario, the official American bald eagle. Here it is.

Pledge Voice

I pledge allegiance to the United States of America.

Justin

Mario. I've got to say, I think I prefer the first one.

Mario Benassi

No, I do too.

Anthony

I have to say, my heart fills with patriotic pride.

Justin

It's made. Anthony. I can see Anthony down the line is physically affected by the reduction of the sound of the eagle. Mario, so good to talk. Thank you so much for indulging us in this. Mario Benassi, head Avian curator at the American Bald Eagle Foundation, I imagine. I mean, it'd be lovely to talk to you again about bald eagles. I suspect that we won't be doing it for some time, but if you've, if you've got something else to talk to us about, do come back on the podcast. Thanks for watching. Talking to us.

Mario Benassi

Yes, of course. All right. Thank you so much.

Justin

That's it.

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Anthony

Bye, bye.

Justin

If you've liked what you've heard today, please do consider subscribing to AmericasT. That way, of course, you'll never miss an episode and you can do this wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to get in touch, we read every single message that we get. You can send us an email americastbc.co.uk the WhatsApp is 443-301-239480 and you can get involved as well in the AmericasT Discord server. The link to that is in the description. Until next time, bye.

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The United States is about to mark its 250th anniversary.

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Justin

We have this ability to export our story and a lot of people have bought it.

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I feel like the American dream is alive, but not well.

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From the BBC, it's the United States at 250.

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Podcast Host

How did a ballerina build one of the most controversial companies in finance?

Interviewer

This week on Good Bad Billionaire Luana Lopez Lara, the youngest self made female billionaire on the planet.

Podcast Host

Her company Kalshee lets you trade on anything from elections to the weather to war.

Interviewer

Supporters say it predicts the future.

Podcast Host

Critics say it could undermine democracy. So is she a visionary or has

Interviewer

she turned the whole world into a casino?

Podcast Host

Good Bad Billionaire Listen wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Guest Commentator

The United States is about to mark its 250th anniversary.

Ad Voice

And so on the Global Story podcast from the BBC, we're telling surprising tales of American influence on the world stage and in ordinary people's lives all across the globe.

Justin

We have this ability to export our story and a lot of people I bought it.

Pledge Voice

I feel like the American dream is alive, but not well.

Anthony

From the BBC, it's the United States at 250.

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Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

Podcast Host

How did a ballerina build one of the most controversial companies in finance?

Interviewer

This week on Good Bad Billionaire Luana Lopez Lara, the youngest self made female billionaire on the planet.

Podcast Host

Her company Kalshi lets you trade on anything from electricity to the weather to war.

Interviewer

Supporters say it predicts the future.

Podcast Host

Critics say it could undermine democracy. So is she a visionary or has

Interviewer

she turned the whole world into a casino?

Podcast Host

Good Bad Billionaire Listen wherever you get your BBC podcasts.