A history of US political violence
Americast
BBC
4.3 • 3.1K Ratings
🗓️ 3 November 2022
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
President Biden says there is no place for "political violence in America". His warning follows an attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, last week. Within hours of that attack a series of unsubstantiated claims began circulating on social media contradicting official accounts of what had happened. Those misleading claims then went viral after being amplified by new Twitter chief Elon Musk.
The Americast team look at how the attack has led to the sharing of disinformation on social media and Justin and Sarah speak to author Josh Zeitz about the history of political violence in the US.
Donald Trump Jr. tweets about our 'undercover voters' and Marianna Spring, the BBC's Social Media and Disinformation correspondent responds. And Anthony returns from Virginia to look at Biden’s record ahead of the midterms. Americast is presented by North America editor Sarah Smith, Today presenter Justin Webb, North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher and Marianna Spring.
Find out more about our ‘undercover voters’ here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-62742687
Email Americast@bbc.co.uk with your questions and comments. You can also send us a message or voice note via WhatsApp, to +443301239480
This episode is made by Phil Marzouk and Alix Pickles. The studio director is Michael Regaard. The assistant editor is Louisa Lewis. The senior news editor is Jonathan Aspinwall.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:04.8 | So this is our last edition of America's before the midterm elections, Justin. |
| 0:09.0 | It is. |
| 0:10.0 | I'm going to be coming out later in the week. |
| 0:11.6 | Mariana and Anthony as well. |
| 0:13.2 | Of course, we're also going to be there. |
| 0:14.3 | We'll all be together. |
| 0:15.3 | Here's the thing. |
| 0:16.3 | It's the final moment of the campaign, but one person I thought really kind of dominating |
| 0:22.6 | it all. |
| 0:23.6 | And it's a person who, in a sense, shouldn't be dominating it all because he'll have his |
| 0:26.6 | feet up and doing other things, but they've brought him back. |
| 0:30.0 | It was this guy. |
| 0:31.0 | And if Ron Johnson does not understand that, if he understands given tax breaks for private |
| 0:38.0 | planes, more than he understands, making sure that seniors who've worked all their lives |
| 0:44.0 | are able to retire with dignity and respect, he's not the person who's thinking about you |
| 0:49.6 | and knows you and sees you, and he should not be your senator from Wisconsin. |
| 0:54.6 | Barack Obama has been in Wisconsin. |
| 0:58.4 | We've seen him in Nevada. |
| 0:59.5 | He's been in Arizona all the states, which are really, really close. |
| 1:03.3 | And the Democrats think one final push might just seal it for them. |
| 1:06.8 | And it's fascinating to see it again. |
... |
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