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Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American power, politics and society.

On each episode, I will talk to an American expert or an expert on America

about something that's going on in America in 2023. I'm delighted to be joined today by two

moderately admired spectator contributors. Charles Lipson, who is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago,

and a frequent contributor to Spectator World and Spectator UK.

And Jacob Harbrun, who is the editor of the national interest.

A fellow at the Atlantic Council, is that right, Jacob, or is that...

You've kept that going, well done.

And also writes for The spectator in America and the United Kingdom.

And we're going to be talking about the Hunter Biden story and its relationship to President Joe Biden.

Charles, you wrote an interesting piece this week about the walls closing in, possibly, on

President Joe Biden in relation to the Hunter Biden story.

And this is something I'm pretty interested in because it seems to me that there has always

been a suspicion ever since the Hunter Biden story broke and the laptop and so on and this email 10% of the big guy

there's been a suspicion that not only was Hunter Biden influence peddling making a lot of money

from the fact that his father was vice president but that also possibly his father knew about

and was potentially allegedly allegedly, potentially, whatever

you want to say, also making money out of these very, very lucrative deals.

Joe Biden calls this malarkey still, but the evidence keeps coming in, and it doesn't seem

to be going very well for Joe Biden, and yet it's

not a major scandal. Where are we with this with this story? Charles? The first thing I would say

...