Trump explains why he called FIFA to reverse US player’s red card ban

Justin Webb

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Donald Trump

Let's go.

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Donald Trump

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Donald Trump

Do you think the word of the United States will be trusted in years to come?

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Anthony Zurcher

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, you are about

Justin Webb

to hear Donald Trump live on AmericasT, defending himself against suggestions that he has acted improperly in the World Cup. Donald Trump, of course, has acted behind the scenes to make sure that a red card that was given to an American player was, well, magically taken away from him. At least he's free to play in the next match, which is a very important match for the United States against Belgium. So lots of people around the world saying that is an outrage. Donald Trump himself reacting in this edition of America, in which we also go to the question of Donald Trump's extraordinary personal wealth. So without further ado, welcome to America. Answers

Tristan Redman

AmericasT.

Asma Khalid

AmericasT from BBC News.

Donald Trump

You hear that sound? Oh, I think when I hear that sound, it reminds me of money.

Justin Webb

We didn't start this war, but under

Donald Trump

President Trump, we are finishing it.

Asma Khalid

This is a big cover up and this administration is engaged in it.

Anthony Zurcher

This guy has Trump derangement syndrome.

Donald Trump

I have four words for you. Turn the volume up.

Justin Webb

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

Anthony Zurcher

And it's Anthony here at home in Arlington, Virginia.

Justin Webb

And we are not joined by Matt Chorley because we're not doing this live on 5Live as we normally do on a Monday, because 5Live is more interested in the tennis than they are In US And I don't know where Matt is possibly at the tennis because they have lots of celebs there. But anyway, Anthony, you and I are together and that's a good thing because there are loads of questions that we've got to an and we should begin with the World cup just because it is so much in the news at the moment. These questions about Donald Trump's role in it and particularly his role in the reversal of a red card for a USA player. And we've had tons of comments about it and questions about it. For instance, old B1 saying the card should have been rescinded if it's deemed to be a mistake post match suspending it has just created a feeling of mistrust how FIFA is running this World cup. And someone called burns123 who are you kidding? FIFA rules football Infantino. That's the FIFA boss rules FIFA and Trump rules Infantino. I'm surprised more changes haven't been made to suit US tastes apart from just the hydration break and the halftime show. So Anthony, we should start, shouldn't we? What actually happened? What has Donald Trump done?

Anthony Zurcher

Well, what happened? As you mentioned, there was a red card for Folarin Balagun, who is the United States lead scorer. He's the striker. He's the guy that really has turned this team into a challenging, talented squad. Someone we haven't had in past World Cups, a guy who can finish and score goals. He was sent off on a video review in our last match against Bosnia Herzegovina for coming in spikes high and landing on a Bosnian player's ankle because of that red card. He was supposed to be suspended for this match Monday night against Belgium. From reports the White House got wind of this, they formed a group of people and then contacted Infantino. Infantino said that they were going to review it in a committee and then lo and behold, yesterday, Sunday, the day before this match, they said that this red card had been suspended, that he didn't have to sit out the game. This is key, pivotal match against Belgium. He's been given a warning and if he had another offense, then the red card would be reinstated and the suspension would be put back into effect. But obviously, Justin, this plays into all of the feelings and we heard that from some of the comments there, feelings that the United States is exerting undue political influence on these matches. The Belgian team has issued expressed their astonishment at this reversal. The European Soccer Federation has said that this calls into question the fairness of the World Cup. But you know, I mean, I don't know, FIFA doesn't exactly have a sterling reputation for upholding fairness.

Justin Webb

That is a scandalous assertion, Anthony, but I want to double down on it in just a second. But before that, actually, as we speak, Donald Trump is also speaking about this, so let's just hear a bit of what he's saying.

Donald Trump

Little crazy idea, but all I did, all I did, I asked for a review because I didn't think it was a foul. And, you know, again, I'm good at this stuff. I didn't think it was a foul. I thought it was two great athletes that crashed into each other and got entangled. That was not a. That was not a guy punching somebody in the face or anything that, you know, would be different. And I think it's. I think it's a terrible. If they wouldn't allow, you know, a top player, maybe the best, maybe among the best players on the team to play, I think it would have had a big stain. And I related just that feel I didn't tell him what to do. I can't tell him what to do. But. And I don't believe he made the decision. I think it was a committee that made the decision, and they made the right decision because, number one, it wasn't a foul. And you want to see a game with your best players, you don't want to say, how would you feel if I took, you know, we take Messi out? Look, you know, he ran into somebody, or we took Ronaldo. Ronaldo, you bunked into somebody. We're going to take you out of a game. He's great. Or Harry Kane. Harry Kane. We're going to take you out of the game, Harry, because you happen to hit somebody a little bit harder than you can't. You can't do that. If you would have taken him out, I think. I think it would have really stained this incredible champion. We got to have our best players, and they've got. Belgium's got a great team, by the way. We have our best players and they have to have their best. And if we win or we lose, it's fair. Otherwise, let's say we lost him and we lose the game, it would be a terrible thing. So I think they made a really brilliant decision. I think the referee's call was horrible. And nobody talks about that. They talk about the red card like it's fine. Nobody talks. The referee's decision to red card. I didn't know what the hell a red card was. When I found out, I said, you got to be kidding.

Justin Webb

This guy just there we go, Anthony, I don't think we've ever done that before. We faded up the president talking live into an edition of AmericasT. It's a first, but it was worth doing, wasn't it? Because you got the full blast of the man there. Donald Trump assuming the role of what, the savior of the World Cup.

Anthony Zurcher

Yeah. Donald Trump noted soccer football expert. Right. I mean, he said he's good at these things. You can tell I'm good at these things. That that was not a card. And, and honestly, I mean, there are a lot of people who disagreed with that red card there. But there's a process. Right. I think that's what a lot of the people are objecting to here, is that Donald Trump weighing and one taking credit for this and celebrating their reversal on social media yesterday, saying that it was an atrocity and it was good that this got reversed. The White House has posted a New York Post front page that says Trump card and talking all about Trump, how he's changed this. I mean, that is going to rankle a lot of people who obviously want to follow the rules. I mean, I remember reading right after that because I was pretty ticked off that our best player wasn't going to play in the Belgium match. Reading the rules and everyone's pretty definitive. That's like, oh, a red card, automatic suspension. There's nothing you can do about it. And I kind of shrugged. But, you know, the one thing that the United States is good at, Justin, is lawyering. The thing about Donald Trump is he loves being at the center of attention. He loves making it about himself. I think if he hadn't posted on Truth Social on Sunday talking about the grave injustice that had been reversed, if he just kind of let the process go and downplayed his involvement, this might not have been as big a deal. But that's not how Trump operates. So this is, this is now. He now is keenly aware of the World cup and is following it. I mean, he posted about Harry Kane and the British victory last night saying what a great soccer player he is. And I think we're going to see now, especially if the United States wins tonight, Donald Trump really injecting himself into this. Boy, you know, if the United States maybe was the plucky underdog in soccer at one point, now we are going to be the heels, now we're going to be the villains, at least when it to some of these matches coming up.

Justin Webb

Yeah, and that's an interesting, that's a really interesting point because that is how Donald Trump sees sport. When you think of the kind of sports that he really likes, the cage fighting and wrestling and all of this stuff. There are heels, there are villains, and it's all a bit performative. But Donald Trump is kind of taking part. He's taking soccer, it seems to me, slash football to a new place and a place that possibly the world authorities might regret it going to, but they've got no choice because he's just able to do this stuff isn't.

Anthony Zurcher

And Belgium, the Royal Belgium Football association is formally protesting challenging for the upcoming match. Justin, this feels like Belgium is the new Denmark and it's the soccer not taking over Greenland. This is the United States throwing its weight around as the big bully on the world stage. And maybe we're not going to get Greenland, but by God, we are going to get our striker back into the game against Belgium.

Justin Webb

I just think it plays into everything, doesn't it? It plays into Donald Trump's strengths because as you've been saying, it makes it all about him. And it is this attention economy that everyone is now fighting for. And he wins again and again and again. And changing the subject slightly to his wealth, we've had this from Martin from Whitney in Oxfordshire, who has emailed hi Amerikast. Is there any competition to the enrichment, trying not to say corruption of the Trump family from the presidency, from previous presidents in presidential history? In other words, have previous presidents made themselves as rich, Anthony, as he seems to have done while in office? I think probably the answer to that is no, isn't it?

Anthony Zurcher

Not even close. Certainly not in modern times. We had Jimmy Carter put his peanut farm in a blind trust back in the 1970s. We had George W. Bush. He sold his stake at the Texas Rangers baseball club in the late 90s before he ran for president. I mean, just look at the size of the financial disclosure reports, for instance, where we're getting all this information about Trump's finances. Joe Biden's, when he was president, his financial disclosure form was 11 pages. Donald Trump's is 927 pages. We're talking about billions of dollars in money that Trump has bought in and, and billions of dollars this year while he is in the office of the presidency. I mean, if you go back to what he was doing even just the year before, he made 622 million in 2024, and now he's making 2.2 billion in 2025. That is a remarkable increase in his revenue coming from cryptocurrency, coming from his various involvements in these largely unregulated financial areas compared to what he was making from his golf courses and from Mar a Lago, that's a drop in the bucket compared to what new investments have been.

Justin Webb

Let's hear what the man himself says about it. So this is him responding. It was actually last week he was boarding his new Air Force One, this Boeing 747 that was a gift from Qatar. And he was asked about his finances. And this is what he had to say.

Donald Trump

I don't get involved in my personal we have funds that run my money. Well, I've made a lot of money before I became president and they invest my money and I don't talk to them. I never, I don't even speak to them. So I have many people, I don't know what they call closed accounts or something. You put your money in and that's it. I don't talk to them. They're big institutions and they run it. But yeah, I've had a great career in business. I've had a great career concerns about conflict of interest. I don't know if I've had a better career in politics of business, but I had a great career in business. And, you know, you saw the cash and you report the different things. And what they do is we gave it I think it's called the blind account, but they basically, they take it. And I purposely, I never speak to any of the people that run the money, but they're at big institutions and they invest in whatever they invest.

Jody

But to critics, to critics who say

Anthony Zurcher

you're profiting off the presidency.

Donald Trump

Mr. Well, you know why I'm profiting? Because the stock market's going up. Everybody's profiting. If you have a, you have a 401k, how's your 401k done? It's about up 85%. Thank you, President Trump. So we're all profiting. I'm profiting because I have a lot of money and a lot of cash and I give it to institutions. I don't know if they know what they're doing or not, but they buy a vast array of things, just to

Justin Webb

be clear about that, Anthony. So the convention is that a president sticks it in a blind trust, as you were saying about previous presidents. He has not done that, has he?

Anthony Zurcher

No, he hasn't done that. And also, it's not like these are being invested in a stock portfolio that matches the S&P 500 or Dow Jones. These are new business ventures being created while Donald Trump is president. This crypto company, World Liberty Financial, that Donald Trump started the one that made $799 million in 2025 compared to 57 million in 2024. There's questions about whether there's a conflict of interest in some of the things that's doing. For instance, the United Arab Emirates invested, bought nearly half of this crypto company, which generated a considerable amount of income for Donald Trump. And Donald Trump visited the uae. He has diplomatic ties with the uae, obviously close relations with leaders there. So it looks like when uae, their wealth fund, turns around and invests in Donald Trump's company, even if it's blind, the reports are out there. Donald Trump knows what's happening here. And it's hard to say that there isn't some kind of air of problems with this.

Justin Webb

Yeah, I mean, if you took it away from presidencies, that question to us was about presidencies. And I think we sort of answered it that there has been nothing like this ever. There has been massive corruption in American public life, hasn't there, Anthony? I've just been rereading that wonderful biography of Lyndon Johnson that Robert Caro has written, spent his entire lifetime writing,

Donald Trump

and

Justin Webb

the one that focuses on the Senate. The fact that Lyndon Johnson, I mean, just stole votes, made votes up. Senators in those days would be paid by lobbyists in dollar bills. And then you think back even beyond that, that's the 1940s and 50s. You think even back beyond that, back to the Gilded Age again, senators in particular. But a lot of people in American public life were very corrupt, weren't they? There's no question about it.

Anthony Zurcher

Yeah. I mean, you can go back to the Teapot Dome scandal in the 1920s that didn't directly involve Warren Harding, but certainly people around him, they were taking bribes in order to give oil leases. If you go back to the late 19th century and the robber barons, there was so much money sloshing around and it got its way into politics. They were profiting from gold sales and customs collections. I mean, that's one of the reasons why this populist movement came into being in the late 19th, early 20th century, because they needed some kind of reform on all of this. And Teddy Roosevelt was actually one of the people championing new regulations on corporations, new anti monopoly laws, new regulations on how ethics and civil service appointments, all of that because of this level of corruption. And maybe there will be a movement now in the coming years to try to institute new laws and new kind of limits on what presidents can do with their personal businesses.

Justin Webb

Yeah, let's turn to the Supreme Court because we've had of course, a flurry of rulings, really interesting ones, and we've covered them on ameracast and we have quite a lot of correspondence from people about the Supreme Court. Let's hear from Liz in Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, who sent us this voice note.

Jody

Can you explain why the Supreme Court is so susceptible to making judgments on partisan lines?

Justin Webb

And we've also had Wooter, who is emailed. Irrespective of a judge's political philosophy, surely the basis of any decision has to be the law or the relevant statute. How then can there be such fundamentally different interpretations of the same law? I'm sure I must be missing something. Anthony, your thoughts?

Anthony Zurcher

I covered the court and have for decades. And when you read the briefs that are written on both sides of these high profile cases, these are professional lawyers, they make very compelling arguments. You can read one brief and say, okay, I see how this could be the way you would interpret the law. And you read the opposite brief and you say, okay, well maybe they have a point. So there's a gray area, very seldom is open and shut in these kind of high profile cases. Justin, you were around, I think, when John Roberts was confirmed to be the Chief justice of the U.S. supreme Court. And he very famous that my job is to call balls and strikes, not to inject my opinion into it. But the reality is that in a lot of these cases, what is a ball, what is a strike? What is the legal grounds for this? And it is that in that gray area on these big high profile cases, it does allow people from different political perspectives to maybe come down one way or the other. And I think we're seeing that more and more these days because the stakes are so high.

Justin Webb

Is part of it though, Anthony, that there is a disagreement, not necessarily a political disagreement, but a disagreement about what the Court is actually doing. So there are some, aren't there, who say all we are doing is trying to look into the minds of the Founding Fathers and think what would they do about this particular thing? And we need to go no further than that. We just need to, we need to see what the original meaning of the words were and how that should be interpreted in modern life. Or is there also a division between that and a kind of more capacious view that says, yeah, we've got to keep in mind the Constitution, but we've also got to think about a changing place, a place that is subject to progress. And there's always been a clash, hasn't there, between those two things?

Anthony Zurcher

Yeah, that's a fundamental legal debate about how to interpret The Constitution. The strict constructionists who, as you say, want to look purely at the text of the Constitution and do not view it as a living, breathing document that can change over time to reflect modern society and changes in America we see with guns laws in particular. That's one of these things where people who on one side would say, the founding Fathers never envisioned automatic rifles and semiautomatic rifles and how easy it is to get these firearms that can be used in mass shootings, and then on the other side they say, no, the text of the second Amendment is very clear. The right to bear arms cannot be infringed. And that's just one of the examples. I think when you get down into it sometimes though, it seems like these constructions, these legal constructions are putting the cart before the horse, that they're used in order to justify preexisting ideological views on this case and these cases. And sometimes you can see a certain amount of hypocrisy from some of these decisions where what seemed like very clear legal framework would be pointing in one direction. And then because it's a high stakes for political case, it goes the opposite way.

Justin Webb

And there's also the added side of this, which is society changes, doesn't it? Attitudes change.

Anthony Zurcher

Yeah, absolutely. And Supreme Court interpretations change based on the kind of people who are on the Supreme Court. One of the things we have seen over the past five years with this conservative dominated court is that a lot of the more liberal decisions from the 60s and 70s are being steadily reversed. Roe v. Wade, the right to a constitutional right to abortion being one of the most high profile ones. I will say, Justin, one of the things we talk about when we say, well, these are partisan judges that are only going the way their party who appoints them goes. There was a long stretch there where Republican appointed justices were coming down and becoming more liberal over time. And now in recent years, the justices appointed by Republicans are starting to vote and stick with their conservative guns.

Justin Webb

But not always. And that's the interesting thing, isn't it? Not always. And you think of that tariff decision there was relatively recently and we discussed it on the pod where Donald Trump is incandescent with rage because the people, I can't remember how many of his appointed justices actually did him down as he would see it in that. But there were a couple at least, weren't there? And this kind of sense that you never quite know, you stick someone on the court and you think as a president, ah, they're going to be solidly along these lines or solidly along Those lines. And actually it does sometimes, exactly as you say, Anthony, it does sometimes result in them being much more independent than the politicians would like.

Anthony Zurcher

That was one of those cases that I talk about how you have these frameworks and judicial kind of ideals. It all kind of pointed towards striking down what Trump was trying to do because it was a stretch of interpreting federal law. And a lot of conservatives talked about how if a administration was going to do something big, it has to have explicit permission from Congress to do it. And this seemed like one of those classic cases. The same grounds they struck down. Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness could be applied to Donald Trump's tariffs. And at least a handful of conservative justices were consistent there. But there were a few, Brett Kavanaugh appointed by Trump and Clarence Thomason and Samuel Alito who were willing to put that kind of a framework aside in order to find for Donald Trump. So again, it wasn't even though there was a majority who broke against Trump, there were some conservatives who seemed to be willing to overlook that principle that they had in the past supported in order to back Trump's tariff powers.

Justin Webb

Yeah, very interesting. Okay, let's go on to the Democrats and the recent successes that have been particularly on the progressive left of the Democratic Party. So Total Landscaping, our friend Total Landscaping on Discord is interested in the new Democratic candidates who've been elected in New York state who are going to be standing in this November's elections to Congress. And the mayor, Zoran Mandani backed in particular Darieliza Avila Chevalier. And to be honest, I was quite surprised he made this endorsement. Total Landscaping says this one, I think really shows his growing influence and power and the increasing popularity of the Democratic socialist left. And the Democratic socialist, we should explain who they are, Anthony, because you can be a Democratic Socialist. So a member of that organization, but also inside the Democratic Party.

Anthony Zurcher

Right. And I think when you talk about Democratic socialists, obviously the most famous member of that party in that wing of the Democratic Party is Bernie Sanders, who ran and identifies as a Democratic Socialist. They talk about having an activist big government with broad social safety net support, government programs like health care, government funded health care for everyone, free college education, free pre K funded by tax on the wealthy, addressing housing, addressing income inequality. That's kind of the core. They're willing to use the powers of government to address what they see as fundamental injustices in American society.

Justin Webb

If we focus for a second on Darryliza Avila Chevalier, so she is being called by some the most left wing candidate ever. And it's not so much that a lot of her positions on things like the economy are particularly outside the mainstream of the progressive left because they're things like universal health care and affordability and all the rest of it that we know very well that plenty of Democrats want to concentrate on. And let's be frank, it's been electorally quite successful for them. And you think of Zoram Hamdani himself and his campaign in New York. It's a sort of range of other things, isn't it? Particularly social things. So it's the abolition of the police, which she has called for on a now deleted account that she used to have, but not just the police, prisons and even borders as well. And Anthony, there was this interview she gave to the New York editorial board pretty recently in which she was asked, for instance, about abolishing prisons. And this. It just seems to me, Anthony, this is an opportunity for her to say, yeah, in an ideal world, I would abolish jails, but obviously we can't. At the moment. She specifically asked, what do you do about a murderer? And what she doesn't say is, yeah, I stick the murderer behind bars. She finds all sorts of kind of ways of saying that. This question of harm, for instance, we have to think not only about interrupting that cycle of harm, but preventing it in the onset. Part of what you have to do is other systems that actually reduce that harm from happening. What are those systems in the third place? And then the guy is saying, but did we answer what happens to the murderer? Do you or do you not incarcerate the murderer? She says, you know, again, I'm talking about this question between the distance between the world we want to see and the world we're at. The criticism of her is that when you're in the world of hard politics, you do need to have a firm answer to that question. And at the moment, she doesn't seem to have one.

Anthony Zurcher

Right, right. She said it's what's going to happen. Speaking of incarceration. But she could have said that right off the top. It's like, yes, we have an ideal, we want to move towards that ideal. But obviously right now, practicality. I don't think she's used to talking in practicalities. And she didn't really campaign on it. She campaigned on generational change. She campaigned on corruption, on money in politics. And that was obviously enough, especially with Mamdani's endorsement. But getting to Congress, she's going to be confronted by real choices with real effects. So we'll see if she modulates at all. And she has tried to distance herself from some of the more exclamatory things she's posted online in the past.

Justin Webb

It's interesting, isn't it, because it brings up again this business of Israel and the Palestinians. And we've been mentioning in the past that there is now a real divide between those Democrats who would stick with Israel and those Democrats. And she's certainly one of them who very much don't want to stick with Israel, not just Netanyahu. And she's been repeatedly asked about October 7th and she can't bring herself to condemn what actually happened on that day. It just feels, I think, to a lot of Democrats like a line has been crossed that takes them into a place that they don't want their candidates to be in.

Anthony Zurcher

Yeah, it's tricky for these people running and it's been several years now, and they are focused more on what they view as the atrocities that Israel has committed in response. And so I think their feeling is they don't want to get trapped into saying sympathetic things about Israel because it would seem like an endorsement of the way Israel has responded to that.

Justin Webb

Yeah. Let's listen to what James Carville has to say. So the veteran strategist, I don't think he would say he's on the right of the party, but I suppose he is really on the right of the party. He's very much a Clinton era guy, but still someone who has a constituency within the party. And he, I think it is fair to say, is outraged by this kind of candidate.

James Carville

Lady, I ain't in the same party as you. I'm sorry, I just not. And I actually do think it's time for Democrats to talk the S word schism. I really do. And everybody has always said, no, no, we're coalition, we're big tent and there's just some that I can't be in the same tent with. I'm done. I'm not in that political party. I am totally comfortable in a political party that spends time questioning the policies of the government of Israel. In fact, I'm enthusiastic about that. I don't want to be in a political party that denies the right of the state of Israel to exist. That's just not. I just can't do that. I'm sorry, it's just not doable.

Anthony Zurcher

If you put that to people like Mamdani, they would say they don't deny Israel's right to exist full stop. Just the policies of Israel. The way Israel as a state is constructed right now and its discriminatory Kind of built in system that that is what they object to. But I mean, I think Carville, yes, he does represent a certain view in the Democratic Party. But I will also add, Justin, that I think it is a declining view for a lot of Democrats and certainly a lot of Democratic voters in primaries right now.

Justin Webb

Okay, let's turn to the politics of it then, the wider politics of it. So does the election. And we assume Chevalier is going to be elected because it's a pretty safe Democratic seat, isn't it? And the others as well, the other progressive left candidates who've recently been adopted in primaries. Is this A, a good thing for the Democratic Party? Because it's horses for courses and we've talked about this in the past. You get the people who suit particular places to represent them, or B, is it absolute disaster for them because these people will be used as a sort of poster children for the party by the Republicans. And all around the country you'll hear nothing but Ms. Chevalier's views on the borders and, and the police and all the rest of it. And it will harm the party everywhere. And before I get you to answer that question, Anthony, let us just hear Donald Trump's view.

Donald Trump

There is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success. These are not mere political disagreements like differences over taxes or regulations. Communism is a mortal threat to American liberty. You can be loyal to Karl Marx or you can be loyal to America. You can be a communist or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both.

Justin Webb

And he was talking there, Anthony, at the Mount Rushmore celebrations, the 250th celebration. So he went to South Dakota and he made that speech. And that's only an excerpt from it, but it's interesting, isn't it, Anthony? Because that does set up where he thinks his party can hit the Democrats now, right?

Anthony Zurcher

He's trying to draw a line and put him on and the Republicans on the side of the majority of the American public. And there's going to be a challenge, I think, a debate about defining what democratic socialism means. And for a lot of Americans, particularly older Americans, maybe even immigrants from South America, socialism equates with communism. It brings back all the memories of the struggle with the Soviet Union. And that's for Trump, a winning argument. And I think what the Democratic socialists have to do is talk about the economic issues that are popular, independent of the label, whether it is free higher education, whether it is health care that is affordable for people, whether it is a tax on the wealthy to address income inequality. These sorts of things, if you label them communism and try to push them in a box, might be winners for Republicans. But if Democrats can take that and explain it to the American public, maybe they'll be able to turn that into the kind of winning message that Donald Trump was able to do with a conservative populism that I think if we had Talked about it 15 years ago, I don't think a lot of people would have been, would have believed would be the way to win presidential elections and form a governing coalition.

Justin Webb

Ready ho it is time for this.

Anthony Zurcher

I pledge allegiance to the United States of America.

Justin Webb

In case you've missed it, the how can you We've had to change the sound of our United States of Americast because now we have got an actual bald eagle, not a red tailed hawk. And we have had plenty of messages from you about it. One ameracaster saying, finally you've corrected the bald eagle sound. It was painful listening to the hawk disguised as an eagle. I hear eagles every day. By the way. We've had another one as well, actually. Another message from Scott in Ohio, who says living alongside Lake Erie in northern Ohio, we have an abundance of bald eagles. One thing we have to live with is falling fish. The eagles often drop half eaten fish in our yards and much to the chagrin of unsuspecting motorists who had their windshields shattered by falling fish as they leisurely drove along. So yeah, the the tales of eagles are not going to stop, are they, with our misuse of one or its sound.

Anthony Zurcher

Justin Benjamin Franklin originally wanted the turkey to be the national bird, so maybe it would be more in keeping with the spirit of the Founding Fathers to have a turkey gobbling at the end of our promo. Not even a chirping eagle.

Justin Webb

Okay, back to the states and we've had this one. This is a special fourth of July message.

Jody

Hi americast. My name is Jody. I'm calling in from West Oxfordshire and I would like to nominate my family to go on the AMERICAST map for Pennsylvania. My mom hi there everybody, is from a small town just north of Philadelphia called Brynathan, and when she was a teenager she went to a British summer camp and met my dad.

Donald Trump

Hi there everybody.

Jody

And they fell in love. And over the course of the late 60s and 70s they conducted a transatlantic romance with letters and intermittent scratchy phone calls and eventually got married and made their home in Oxfordshire. My two sisters have subsequently married Americans. One of them is still in Colorado, making her home there and we are having a fourth of July party to celebrate everything that we still hold dear and celebrate about what is great about America. So we're having a 4th of July party to wish America happy birthday. We're gonna go start the barbecue, play horseshoes and drink some beers. Happy Birthday, America.

Donald Trump

That's fantastic.

Justin Webb

And that's the most ambitious voice note I think we've ever had.

Anthony Zurcher

That is great. It's not a comical ending to AmericasT, it's a heartwarming one.

James Carville

Yeah.

Justin Webb

And Pennsylvania, wonderful state, named of course after William Penn, who was the great English Quaker. I went to a Quaker school. I used to know all sorts of things about William Penn and about the setting up of Pennsylvania, but I fear I've forgotten them all. But anyway, that was a wonderful voice note.

Anthony Zurcher

As always, we want you to reach out and get in touch with us. Voice notes, email messages, whatever you can email@americastbc.co.uk or you can send us a message at 443-301-239480. Thanks so much.

James Carville

Bye bye.

Anthony Zurcher

Bye all.

Justin Webb

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.

Asma Khalid

The CIA has been carrying out covert operations around the world for decades. How has it shaped how people feel about the U.S. i'm Asma Khalid.

Tristan Redman

And I'm Tristan Redman and together we host the Global Story podcast from the BBC. As part of our series to mark the United States 250th birthday, we're exploring the CIA's hidden history.

Donald Trump

Do you think the word of the United States will be trusted in years to come?

Asma Khalid

For more, check out the global story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.