4.2 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 24 September 2025
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Donald Trump’s appearance at the United Nations was a clear - and at times stark - outline of his global vision, often involving sharp attacks against his opponents.
His speech - the longest by any US president in history - took aim at countries who have recently recognised a Palestinian state, including a number of European countries. It was Europe itself where the president reserved some of his strongest criticism, arguing it was being “destroyed” by immigration and policies to tackle climate change, which he described as a “con job”. We answer your questions on Trump’s speech and his damning judgement on the U.N itself.
One of the biggest stories of the week came after the president’s speech when he wrote on Truth Social that he believed Ukraine could regain the territory it has lost to Russia in the war. How has the president’s position shifted so dramatically?
And, Jimmy Kimmel is back on late-night television after a brief suspension following his comments on the killing of Charlie Kirk. He gave an emotional monologue at the start of his show and called out ‘anti-American’ threats to free speech. Are Donald Trump’s critics being silenced?
HOSTS: • Justin Webb, Radio 4 presenter • Sarah Smith, North America Editor • Marianna Spring, Social Media Investigations correspondent • Anthony Zurcher, North America correspondent
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This episode was made by George Dabby with Alix Pickles and Kris Jalowiecki. The technical producer was Mike Regaard. The series producer is Purvee Pattni. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.
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Americast is part of the BBC News Podcasts family of podcasts. The team that makes Americast also makes lots of other podcasts, including Newscast and Ukrainecast. If you enjoy Americast (and if you're reading this then you hopefully do), then we think that you will enjoy some of our other pods too. See links below.
Newscast: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/p05299nl Ukrainecast: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p0bqztzm Radical: BBC Sounds - Radical with Amol Rajan - Available Episodes The Global Story: BBC Sounds - The Global Story - Available Episodes
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | On Newscast, we are not in the business of telling you how to think. |
| 0:11.5 | We get the brightest minds from across the BBC to chat through the biggest stories. |
| 0:16.1 | You should leave feeling smarter about all the bonkers things in the news. |
| 0:19.7 | Listen to Newscast every day on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:22.9 | We've just come off the air with Matt Chorley, |
| 0:24.9 | doing our live Q&A episode on Five Live. |
| 0:27.5 | We were all there, unusual and very pleasant for us. |
| 0:31.3 | We answered a load of questions, by the way, |
| 0:32.9 | on this incredible range of subjects |
| 0:35.8 | that just naturally comes up when you're looking at modern America. |
| 0:39.0 | So among them, Tylenol, cetamenephine, paracetamol, as we call it in Britain. |
| 0:44.8 | Should it or should it not be used by pregnant women? |
| 0:47.0 | Donald Trump, of course, saying this week that it shouldn't. |
| 0:49.8 | Lots of doctors saying he's absolutely wrong. |
| 0:52.5 | Why did he say that? What was his motivation was one of our |
| 0:56.7 | questions? We also talked about the UN and the things he had said about the UN. We had quite a long |
| 1:00.9 | discussion about the escalators and whether they had or had not been deliberately fixed to |
| 1:06.3 | annoy him. Plus, of course, what he thinks of Vladimir Putin. And we also had a lengthy discussion |
| 1:12.5 | about freedom of speech because that almost always comes up, doesn't it, when you're discussing |
| 1:16.6 | modern America. So all of those things covered in America. But arguably, the biggest news of the |
| 1:22.8 | day when Donald Trump addressed the United Nations was when he posted online that Ukraine could win back all the territory it has lost to Russia since the start of the war. |
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