Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a special series of discussions about US politics

and the Trump presidency, or as we journalists call it, the gift that keeps on giving.

I'm Freddie Gray, I'm deputy editor of the spectator. I'm joined today by Michael Brendan Doherty,

who is a senior writer at the National Review, and we're going to be talking about one year of Donald Trump as president.

Michael, we'll get on to talking about a year of President Trump in more general terms in a moment.

But first of all, I'd like to talk to you about a story that's troubling some Brits at moment, which seems to be that the special relationship between

America and Britain is looking a little bit damaged in recent weeks. There was some excitement

after Trump was elected about the possibilities of Trump and Brexit and a sort of alliance of

Britain and America. But that seems to have fallen apart a bit now. And the latest news we have from Trump is that he's not going to come to open an embassy because he's offended by the fact it's in an unfashional part of London and that he apparently is ignoring this is reported I'm not sure how true it is that he is ignoring requests from 10 Downing Street to meet May at the Davos World Economic Forum next week.

Do you think people are reading too much into it, or do you think there is a sort of cooling of relations?

I think that there is a tendency to read too much into it and not place enough faith in just the long-term harmony between the United States and Great Britain and their interests

that kind of endures.

But there's no doubt that, you know, Trump's election has kind of created this new environment

for leaders like Theresa May.

And Theresa May has had to in recent weeks correct Donald Trump and rebuke him. You know, from the middle of her, the toughest section

of her negotiations over Brexit, she had to kind of step out. You're talking about the Britain first

retweets with Theresa Maberson. Yeah.

And it's something other leaders have had to do recently with Trump's kind of vulgar remarks about Haiti and some African nations.

That's part of it.

But Britain is also unique in that there really is this culture of left-wing disapproval of African presidents of the United States.

You know, toward the end of his term, George Bush would have been met with massive protests if he'd come to London.

And, you know, so that is something that American presidents have to contend with in Great Britain that they don't have to do with France.

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