Leaders Of The Free World?
Americast
BBC
4.3 • 3.1K Ratings
🗓️ 19 October 2023
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
President Biden wanted to show America’s global strength during his flying visit to Israel this week, but does the United States still call the shots internationally? The Americast team reviews Biden’s high-stakes 30 hours in the region, talks about the misinformation swirling around the internet, and weighs in on America’s place in the world.
Back in DC, House Republicans are still struggling to elect a Speaker after two rounds of voting. Anthony gavels the gang in for a crash course on the latest congressional chaos.
HOSTS: • Justin Webb, Radio 4 presenter • Sarah Smith, North America editor • Marianna Spring, disinformation and social media correspondent • Anthony Zurcher, North America correspondent GET IN TOUCH: • Join our online community: https://discord.gg/qSrxqNcmRB • Send us a message or voice note via WhatsApp to +44 330 123 9480 • Email Americast@bbc.co.uk • Or use #Americast
Find out more about our award-winning “undercover voters” here: bbc.in/3lFddSF.
This episode was made by Rufus Gray, with Catherine Fusillo and Claire Betzer. The technical producer was Mike Regaard. The series producer is Daniel Wittenberg and the editor is Jonathan Aspinwall.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. |
| 0:05.0 | Are the wars in Israel and Ukraine more than the United States can take on at the same time? |
| 0:10.6 | We're the United States of America, for's sake the most powerful nation in the history |
| 0:16.2 | not in the world and the history of the world we can take care of both of these and |
| 0:20.8 | still maintain our overall international defense. |
| 0:24.3 | We have the capacity to do this and we have an obligation to. |
| 0:27.3 | We are the essential nation to Paris Paris the former Secretary of State. |
| 0:31.9 | And as we don't who does. That's Joe Biden on 60 |
| 0:36.0 | minutes on CBS News earlier in the week talking about a question that is hugely, hugely important for not only what's going on at the moment in the |
| 0:46.4 | Middle East but also for the wider future of the world. How powerful is America? How powerful is it at the moment in the Middle East? How powerful is it |
| 0:55.7 | likely to be in the years ahead? Indeed, has that power waned in a way that makes the world not the place that Joe Biden thinks it is anymore. |
| 1:07.0 | Just in last week we were talking about attitudes within America towards the country getting |
| 1:12.1 | involved in overseas conflicts in general and also the... America towards |
| 1:13.6 | in general and also the attitudes within America towards Israel and how that plays |
| 1:17.9 | politically. |
| 1:18.9 | Since then of course Joe Biden made this I mean really dramatic decision to go to Israel. He's the first |
| 1:24.7 | US president to turn up in a war zone like that. He of course has been going to Israel |
| 1:29.3 | himself for 50 years actually. And just as he was setting off from the White House we got news of the |
| 1:36.1 | explosion at the Al-Aghli hospital and that made the trip just infinitely more complicated and that's one of the things we'll need to |
| 1:43.0 | unpack during this episode and allows us to look at what role it is the United |
| 1:48.1 | States plays in an international crisis like this. |
| 1:50.8 | Yeah and of course by the time people hear this the president |
... |
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