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Hi everyone, I'm Lucy White, a reporter in Glasgow for the BBC

and I'm joined by Annie McGuire and Phil Sim.

Say hi, guys.

Hi!

And we've gathered together to do a special episodes of Podlitical, where we're going to be speaking to NPR's White House Correspondent and the host of the NPR Politics Podcast, Tamara Keith.

We thought now was a good time to check in with her because

it's just before they have their midterm elections over there in the US. We know it's not

strictly Scottish politics. We know it's not strictly UK politics. But it's a special. We

thought you'd be interested in hearing what she had to say. So here we go. Our Congress,

so like the lower house, has an election every two years. So all 435 House

members are up for election every two years. And a third of senators, which is the upper house,

a third of them are up every two years. So our presidential elections are every four years,

which means two years after a presidential election, you get a congressional election.

Also, a lot of state governors are up at the same time.

And often that first midterm is what it's called after the presidential election, you end up with something of a backlash,

or the electorate taking another bite at the apple, or the electorate sort of weighing in

on those first two years of the presidency.

So that's kind of what I want to ask about.

I mean, are these elections kind of like a referendum on the Trump presidency, or are there

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