Art Gets Cancelled. Aid Gets Banned: Where are the Consequences?
The Trawl
Jemma Forte & Marina Purkiss
4.7 • 867 Ratings
🗓️ 9 January 2026
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Trump tries to slap his name on the Kennedy Center and the internet responds with satire, cancelled shows and an all-time zinger of a legal reply: “Confusion is a legal requirement, not a feeling.”Beautiful work 🫡
Then the mood shifts, hard. Marina and Jemma confront the unbearable disconnect of cosy Christmases in the West while Gaza freezes and floods. From Netanyahu’s Mar-a-Lago sleepover with Trump to the stripping of aid agencies from Gaza, Marina and Jemma ask the same question again and again: where are the consequences?
Also in this ep: Nicki Minaj torches her own reputation, the grotesque hypocrisy over the release of British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, Kemi Badenoch defending the indefensible (again), a sanctioned oligarch’s favourite lawyer, and the men of politics proving, once more, that it’s all just a game to them.
Satire, rage, hypocrisy klaxons and laughs. Enjoy!
This episode is sponsored by AG1 - the daily foundational nutrition support drink which helps you combat the winter season both mentally and physically. For a limited time, get a limited edition AG one Green Steel Tumblr plus five travel packs, and a welcome kit to get you started.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In your own time, in your own time, here we go, love it. |
| 0:05.0 | If we end up at a point where there's no village pub, what is a village? |
| 0:10.0 | Hello and welcome to the Trul, where you leave the two of us alone with the internet and, well, just look at what happens. |
| 0:28.4 | I'm Marina Perkis. |
| 0:29.5 | And I'm Gemma Forte and Jonathan Edward Durham posted, so it turns out dystopian nonfiction is for sure the least enjoyable genre. |
| 0:39.5 | Yes, yes, I'd agree to it. |
| 0:41.2 | Anyway, before we go into the latest batch of lunacy that's been going on, just a little bit of levity first, to remind us that we, the people hold the power overall. |
| 0:51.4 | We do. Let's still believe in that people. People power. Should I say people again? |
| 0:55.0 | We do, but so many of the people are asleep at the bloody wheel. Yes. Hopefully waking up soon. |
| 1:02.0 | So, in an episode just before Christmas, we spoke about how Trump had desecrated the US Performing Arts |
| 1:09.3 | Centre, the Kennedy Centre, by having his name engraved over |
| 1:13.3 | the top of it. Well, the people have spoken. So his name was added, but loads of artists just thought, |
| 1:20.4 | nah, and they cancelled in protest. So, for instance, the New Year's Eve show was actually cancelled. |
| 1:27.0 | And A-May.A-100 said jazz saxophonist |
| 1:31.5 | Billy Harper has cancelled his planned New Year's Eve performance at the Kennedy Centre, |
| 1:36.1 | saying, I would never even consider performing in a venue bearing a name that represents |
| 1:42.6 | overt racism. Yes, absolutely. Do-be. So several |
| 1:47.2 | 2026 performances were also cancelled, including shows like Hamilton. And just in case, |
| 1:53.0 | the Kennedy Centre and the Trump-picked board did try and go after those people, those performers |
| 1:58.8 | who cancelled legally, well, technically they have a legal |
| 2:02.8 | out because they were contracted to perform at the Kennedy Centre, not the Trump Kennedy Centre. |
| 2:10.3 | Oh, wonderful, so sweet. And it gets even better. One of the most delicious bits of digital |
... |
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