Is Trump taking advice from his wife Melania on Ukraine?
Americast
BBC
4.2 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 18 July 2025
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
There has been a significant change in how Donald Trump has been speaking about Vladimir Putin and today on Americast, we look at what that could mean for Ukraine and Trump’s relationship with the Russian president. Justin, Sarah and Anthony also discuss Melania Trump and what influence she may be having over his change in position. They also look at the likelihood of sanctions against Russia, and how serious Trump’s threat is. After announcing a 50 day window for Russia to come to the table for serious peace talks, Donald Trump said Putin has “fooled Clinton, Bush, Obama and Biden”…but he said he couldn’t fool him. We discuss whether Republicans are also shifting their position the same way as Trump.
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HOSTS: • Justin Webb, Radio 4 presenter • Sarah Smith, North America Editor • Anthony Zurcher, North America Correspondent
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This episode was made by Purvee Pattni, Alix Pickles and Grace Reeve. The technical producer was Michael Regaard. The series producer is Purvee Pattni. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We get it. |
| 0:02.6 | Life is busy. |
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| 0:05.2 | but there's just too much going on. |
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| 0:30.8 | Before we get going with this episode, Sarah, Anthony, I have a question for each of you. When do you usually listen to AmeriCast? Let me put that to Anthony. I usually listen to it in the morning |
| 0:36.7 | as I'm getting ready for a day's work. I'll go back and listen to the episode I did the day before. Maybe I don't always make it all the way through because I have a busy lifestyle, but that is my prime listening time. I listen to it on the bus on the way home from work normally. Oh, that's good. As long as we've had it published in time for when I'm leaving, which is about, I don't know, 11 p.m. UK time. Yeah, I'll just stick my headphones on on the bus. And Anthony, if you could change one thing, what would it be? I don't know, recording later in the day so I can have a more relaxed commute. I thought he was going to say, bring the worldwide headquarters to where it should be. But anyway, I mean, it already is here. Yeah, we know where the power really lies, Justin. Don't you worry about that? Look, let me draw a veil over that conversation there, because the reason I'm asking those questions is that we do want AmeriCasters, proper AmeriCasters, in other words, listeners, not people who gabble on, |
| 1:27.9 | to answer some of those questions. |
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| 1:33.7 | what you want to hear more of, what you want to hear less of. |
| 1:37.2 | So there is a link to the questions, a list of questions that's in the description of the podcast, |
| 1:43.7 | or you can just type it |
| 1:44.6 | into your browser. It is bitb-bit.ly forward-slash-Americast feedback. Bit.L-Y-forward-slash-A-A-A-Cast |
| 1:55.6 | feedback. Okay, let's get on with today's episode. Yeah, today we're going to talk about Donald Trump's apparent change of heart over Ukraine. |
| 2:03.9 | How far is he going to go when it comes to backing that country against Russia? |
| 2:08.5 | And is he going to be able to bring Republicans in Congress and in his MAGA base along with him? |
... |
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