Hello and welcome to the Spike podcast. I'm Fraser Myers. With me as ever we have Spike's editor

Tom Slater. Hello. And we're delighted to welcome a very, very special guest. Lionel Shriver,

brilliant author of mania and so many other books. Welcome to the show. Thank you. I was hoping

for an extra very. Extra, extra, extra. I mean, I want to lay it on as much as possible.

I've been listening to the Trump speech to Congress this morning,

and therefore I think in superlatives.

Tremendous.

Well, that's one of the things we're definitely going to talk about today.

So we'll talk a bit about Trump and his sort of new world disorder.

We'll discuss Britain's two-tier justice system,

Britain's mad asylum policies, and finally we'll finish with the sort of memory-holing of

lockdown five years on from the pandemic.

So, Lionel, to kick us off, you watched Donald Trump's speech to Congress, a joint session of Congress.

I believe it was the longest speech in many decades.

What was Donald Trump trying to tell us about his regime?

Let's not forget, it's only about six weeks old at this point.

It feels like we've been here forever.

Well, you know, there's been a lot of emphasis on how his approach is one of dominance.

What David Brooks was hitting in this morning's New York Times. And I think that was the overarching message.

There's a new sheriff in town, and he's going to keep you in your chairs for as long as he cares to.

It reminds me a little bit of Hugo Chavez's really, really long television speeches that were notorious torture in Venezuela. It's a great illustration of the process

is the punishment. The roaring, I mean, and cheering and and clapping, USA, USA, you know, that jingoistic, really embarrassing for Europeans and honorary Europeans.

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