Before we begin, we will be hosting Nigel Farage at the Emanuel Centre in London, in Westminster,

for an evening discussion on Thursday, the 24th of October. Tickets are beginning to run out,

so if you haven't got your ticket, book it now. You can do that by going to spectator.com.

UK forward slash book your tickets. It is at the Emanuel Center, as I said, and there is a drinks reception

before the event starting at 7.30. So be prompt. Hello, everyone. Can you hear me? Okay. Oh, that's a bit loud.

I think I should start with a confession. First of all, thank you very much to the battle of ideas. It's wonderful to do an Americano here at this brilliant event.

And I want to start with a confession, which is that I'm completely exhausted by the presidential election of 2024.

Donald Trump has been campaigning to be president effectively for nine years now, and following

it has been the best journalistic experience of my life. It's also been the worst journalistic

experience of my life because it is non-stop. And this year in particular, we've had four

criminal indictments of Donald Trump, got almost 100 charges within them.

We've had an obviously, am I allowed to say the word demented,

an obviously demented president, failing so dramatically there was an incredible debate

and being replaced in a sort of coup that is really the story of the

year that we don't quite know the details of yet, but that was incredibly dramatic.

And then I never thought as a journalist I would hear the news that there had been an

assassination attempt on a major party nominee and I'd think, oh God, not again.

We are almost desensitized to American news, there's been so much of it.

Nevertheless, it is fascinating.

Once you get past all the sort of superficial drama, there are very big things going on.

And I think two of the best people to talk about it with are Richard Johnson, who is a senior

lecturer in US politics at Queen Mary's University, and the spectator's very own Kate Andrews,

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