Hello, my name is David Ronsman and this is Talking Politics.

I'm nearly screwed up by switching my alarm off in my sleep.

In a few moments we're going to be talking to the Guardian journalist Gary Young about his

experiences covering the election from the middle of America.

But most of you did wake up in sufficient time to do the usual things I do after that

before the podcast.

You're being silly.

I'll be talking to him about race, about violence, about what Donald Trump has to do to deliver to his supporters.

He threw red means to his base.

I mean so much red means they must have terrible clogged arteries by now and they're going to bust a vein if he doesn't deliver.

And what he thinks is the real crisis facing the United States?

What American working class need is a Marshall Plan.

I mean they're devastated.

Black male life expectancy in DC is lower than male life expectancy in regards to strip.

I'm also joined by Helen Thompson and Chris Brook because we need to talk about Europe as well.

Things have been happening here.

At the weekend, Francois Fule won the nomination to be the Republican candidate for the French presidency.

And this coming weekend, there are two votes taking place, one in Austria to select a new president between a candidate of the far right and a candidate of the left, a green candidate, a kind of microcosm of contemporary politics.

And the really big event, which is the referendum in Italy called by Matteo Renzi on constitutional reform, but it's become much more than that.

And we'll talk about that a bit later.

But I just wanted to ask Helen and Chris one question before we turn to Gary Young, which is about France and Fule.

And I ask it because I genuinely don't know the answer and I'd like to hear what they think.

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