Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American politics, power and prejudices.

It is 2025 and Donald Trump is president once again of the United States.

We will, of course, be following the moves of the Donald

and his second administration very closely.

However, it won't just be politics for us this year.

We'll also talk a lot and cover American culture, life and the arts.

I should also remind you, because my producer, Natasha,

will not let me hear the end of it, that we are on Spectator TV. So head to our YouTube channel

to watch that. Today we are going to be talking about Trump's foreign policy because yesterday

marked 100 days of Trump's second term and there's been

a lot of talk about what his foreign policy so far has meant. We're going to focus in particular

on the Middle East, which is as ever in the news at the moment. And to do so, I am delighted to be joined by Professor John

Meersheimer of the University of Chicago, who is a frequent guest now on this show and someone

we love talking to about all things foreign policy. John, thank you very much for coming on.

I think I may have got you under false pretenses,

but only slightly, because we are going to talk about Iran in a moment. But I thought I would

start, since we are just marking this centenary of days of the second Trump administration,

by asking you to mark out of grades A, B, C, D, and E, Donald Trump's

performance on the world stage in his first 100 days in 2025. I think Freddie, I give him a D.

I think there are four big issues that he should be graded on. One is obviously

Ukraine and relations with Russia more generally. Two would be Iran. Three would be the Israel-Palestine

issue. And four would be the tariffs. I think with regard to both

...