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

This year, 2024, is an election year in America,

a presidential election year. And so we will be doing two podcasts a week, rather than our usual one, because we want to and because we know you can't get enough Americano in your life.

I'm delighted to be joined today by the philosopher Slavar Zizek,

and we're going to be talking about Julian Assange,

because Julian Assange is in court today,

appealing against his extradition to the United States.

The United States has for a long time wanted Julian Assange because he leaked

tens of thousands of highly sensitive national security documents and made them public through

WikiLeaks, which was his media enterprise. Slavos, let me start by asking you, because this story's

been rumbling on for a long time, and this appears to

be Assange's last hope against extradition, he's not very well. Do you think he will win?

Will he, will the United Kingdom actually hand over Assange to the United States any day soon?

I am always a pessimist.

I think the decision will be against him.

But that's for me in this horrible times the only way to survive.

If you are pessimists, you are sometimes nicely surprised.

If you are an optimist, you are always disappointed usually.

So unfortunately, I think the forces are too strong against him, because, A, finally, after long years, the Australian government is now doing things to get him at least to Australia.

And even the relatively liberal elements in American government, like Anthony Blinken, reject this.

I don't think she has a sense,

...