Politics Weekly America

With less than three months to go until the midterms, voters are thinking about grocery prices, the Iran war – and datacentres. This week, Jonathan Freedland speaks to the historian Jill Lepore about how this latest AI backlash could influence those all-important elections in November. Are we seeing the beginning of the end of the ‘artificial state’?

When Air Force One took off from Turkey after July’s Nato summit, almost everyone believed Donald Trump was on board … but he wasn’t. Jonathan Freedland talks with Tara Setmayer of the Seneca Project about why the White House felt the need to come up with such an elaborate lie to protect the president

Donald Trump’s second term is unlike his first. The politicians who challenged him are gone. The lawyers who once pushed back now choose their battles. What remains is an imperial president with almost no internal checks, using executive power to reshape everything from the economy, immigration and even the presidency itself. Few journalists have covered Trump as closely as the New York Times journalist Jonathan Swan. Jonathan Freedland speaks to him about how the president has consolidated such power – and what it could mean for the US and the world

Leftwing Democrats are having their moment in the sun, with Zohran Mamdani in New York, Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan and endless calls for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to run for president in 2028. Has Democratic socialism shifted from the political fringe to the mainstream? And can this group lure back the all-important swing voters? Jonathan Freedland speaks to Bhaskar Sunkara, president of the Nation magazine, founding editor of Jacobin and author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequalities

Donald Trump has announced a landmark nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia while pressing ahead with efforts to stop Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon. What’s driving Trump’s new agreement with Riyadh? And how is it likely to be received at home and across the Gulf? Jonathan Freedland speaks to Robert Jimison, who covers Congress for the New York Times with a focus on defence and foreign policy, about what the agreement contains, why it matters and the political challenges it could face.