Hello and welcome to The Spectator's Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American politics and the Trump presidency in 2017.

I'm Freddie Gray and I'm deputy editor of The Spectator.

I'm joined today by Paul Wood of the BBC, who was Middle East correspondent but is now based in Washington, and we're going to be talking about Trump and Islam.

Paul, we've had the impression from Trump and his views on foreign policy that he has moved away from nation building and, if you like, the neo-conservative internationalist view of the world.

However, his attitude towards Muslims and the Islamic world seems extremely aggressive, in fact, perhaps more aggressive than the Republican Party was under George W. Bush.

Is that a fair summary of where Trump stands on Islam? Yes, Donald Trump has

made a break with the past in many things, but in the isolationist foreign policy he wants to

pursue and in his attitude to Muslims. And as with many other things, his attitude to Muslims is

designed, or maybe it's sincere, to plow into what is base thinks and believes.

I was having dinner last night with a lady telling me about her brother down in Florida

who'd built his house around a special gun room, and the gun room was ready for whoever was coming.

And who is coming, Trump supporters think, is radical Islamic terrorists, ISIS.

I remember back in primary season interviewing

a lady in New Hampshire who told me she had a 38 special given to her by a former policeman,

had hollow point bullets, and she'd bought a 45 for her 82-year-old mother because they thought

literally that ISIS was coming to take over New Hampshire

and she had a 10-year supply of canned goods in her basement for when everything fell apart.

And the early sign of trouble to come she felt was an Arab-owned store in the local town,

a town called Littleton.

I went to check out the store.

It was a family of Lebanese Christians who lived there for 45 years.

So if Donald Trump sounds paranoid, that's nothing to what does supporters feel and say.

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