Trailer: Checks and Balance

Economist Podcasts

The Economist

News & Politics, News

4.3 • 5K Ratings

🗓️ 6 May 2026

⏱️ 1 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Unlock American politics with The Economist’s John Prideaux, Charlotte Howard and James Bennet. Taking one big theme every week, they dig into the data, the ideas and the history behind it. Politicians, pollsters and political scientists join them to discuss where the great experiment of American democracy is headed. Published every Friday.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm John Priddo, the U.S. editor of The Economist, and I also host our podcast, Checks and Balance.
0:08.1	Each week, I'm joined by our New York bureau chief, Charlotte Howard, and our Washington
0:12.6	bureau chief, James Bennett. We take one issue in American politics and explore it in depth.
0:18.7	We try to understand the why behind the news.
0:21.6	Americans have a BSOM meter that Democrats haven't really passed, or at least the people who've
0:27.5	been leading the party, haven't passed. We look at the data and the trends to put the current
0:31.9	moment in context. There is no more potentially dangerous power that any president has than the one that Donald
0:41.1	Trump is now exerting so freely.
0:44.6	And we're not afraid to offer some unconventional perspectives.
0:48.3	I think the problem with the court partly is that it should be more political than it is,
0:53.1	not more partisan, but more political.
0:55.3	So join me and my expert colleagues in the US and around the world
0:59.0	as we discuss the great experiment that is American democracy.
1:03.7	Checks and balance from The Economist is available to subscribe us.
1:07.2	For the best offer, follow the link in the show notes or search for Economist Podcasts Plus.

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