Hello and welcome to the Spectator's Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American

politics and the Trump presidency in 2017. I'm Freddie Gray and I'm Deputy Editor of the

Spectator. Today's Americano is going to be a little bit different. We're listening to a version of

the interview you

heard on the main spectator podcast. Next up, it feels like forever since the first rumblings of

inappropriate contact between the Trump camp and Russia. But this week, we've heard perhaps

the most substantive noise so far. Donald Trump Jr., the president's big game hunting eldest

son, has been caught up in a leaked email thread that could

tie him to the Putin administration. But is the evidence actually rather thin? Paul Wood considers

this in the magazine this week and he joins me now along with Freddie Gray. So Paul, who is Rob Goldstone?

And how has he come to find himself embroiled in a scandal that once again apparently threatens the presidency

of Donald Trump?

Yes, wouldn't it be ironic if the President of the United States was brought down by two Brits?

One, of course, being Christopher Steele, the former MI6 spy and Russia expert, who published his now famous dossier,

on allegations that Trump was being blackmailed by the Kremlin.

And now we have Rob Goldstone, who is, as I write in the piece this week, one of those eccentric minor characters which sometimes

pop up in political scandals or crises. And if you look at his Facebook and his Twitter,

it's just fantastic. This is a man who clearly, let's say, is at home in Trump world with the

glitz, the glamour,

the brashness, the vulgarity. And as such, was chosen, according to his own emails,

as the rather unlikely go-between between the Russians, perhaps Russians connected to the Kremlin

and the Trump campaign. Freddie, what is Goldstone's relationship with Russia? How has he ended

...