Were our 2025 predictions right?

Summary

Americast — “Were Our 2025 Predictions Right?”

BBC News | December 24, 2025
Hosts: Sarah Smith, Justin Webb, Marianna Spring, Anthony Zurcher

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Episode Overview

The Americast team looks back at the predictions they made for 2025, opening their annual “time capsule” of forecasts. The episode revisits their calls on politics, social media trends, legal milestones, and cultural currents in America, scrutinizing which predictions came true and reflecting on major “under the radar” stories they spotlighted. With humor and candor, the presenters debate how well they understood the trajectory of Trump’s return to the White House, shifts in media power, key legal battles, and unfolding social and cultural flashpoints.

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Key Segments & Insights

1. Opening: Listener Challenge & The Purpose of the Time Capsule

[00:57–03:55]

• Listener Question: Paul from London wonders if the team reviews past predictions for accuracy and impact.
• Justin: “We don't really measure our performance and effectiveness, Paul, because that might have an impact that we don't want to have. But... yes.” [00:57]
• The “Americast time capsule” is an annual feature where the team revisits and evaluates their previous year’s predictions about US affairs.

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2. Prediction Spotlights & Analysis

A. Anthony’s Prediction: Congressional Gridlock & Government Shutdown

[03:59–06:46]

• Prediction: Congress would fail to pass a funding bill, triggering a government shutdown—even with Republican control (House, Senate, Presidency).
  • Anthony: “...we will have a shutdown for more than one day at the very least. So get ready to see all those stories again...” [03:59]
• Result: 100% correct. The US saw the longest shutdown in American history.
• Anthony: Surprised that Democrats’ resistance, not GOP infighting, prolonged the shutdown. Unclear if either party paid a substantial political price.
• Sarah: “Interestingly, it was the longest government shutdown in history. It had some pretty big impacts across the country, but I don't think either party paid a huge political price.” [05:30]

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B. Sarah’s Prediction: Trump Wins the Nobel Peace Prize?

[06:53–09:18]

• Prediction: Trump would win the Nobel Peace Prize, potentially for brokering Middle East deals or ending the Ukraine conflict.
  • Sarah: “If he was to put together the kind of deal he wants, normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, for instance, and significant movement on some of the other issues...” [06:53]
• Result: Did not happen—yet. Trump’s self-promotion and claims about global peacemaking became a talking point but no prize.
• Justin: “He could get it next year. So, you know, we don't have to get it right in the year in which we're predicting it.” [08:27]
• Anthony: Jokes about Trump winning the “FIFA Peace Prize” instead.
• Sarah: Notes unresolved Ukraine-Russia conflict—Trump’s “peace” more rhetoric than reality.

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C. Marianna’s Prediction: Social Media Power Struggles—Zuckerberg “Survivor”

[09:18–13:15]

• Prediction: Mark Zuckerberg would outmaneuver Elon Musk and Trump, consolidating his power as the “shrewdest tactician,” especially amid TikTok uncertainty.
• Mariana: “Mark Zuckerberg is the shrewdest tactician of all of them, he's the one who won't fall out with Donald Trump because he only did that when it was actually kind of beneficial to him...” [09:26]
• Outcome: Largely accurate about Zuckerberg’s adaptability—Meta shifted policies closer to Trump’s positions; TikTok avoided a ban via a US consortium.
• Analysis: The conversation pivots to the rising dominance of AI industry leaders (Sam Altman, Jensen Huang of Nvidia), perhaps even more powerful than social executives today.
• Marianna: “Maybe it's wrong to single out any one of these bosses... It's actually just the whole of that industry that are learning to thrive under Donald Trump.” [12:55]

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D. Justin’s Prediction: Supreme Court & Puberty Blockers

[13:24–15:42]

• Prediction: The US Supreme Court would uphold Tennessee’s ban on puberty blockers for minors, causing a nationwide ripple effect on trans healthcare.
  • Justin: “My prediction is that the Supreme Court will find in favor of the state... And I think this court case... will be a very big, potentially long term political issue.” [13:24]
• Result: Upheld. Tennessee’s law stood, and similar bans spread across GOP-controlled states.
• Assessment: Impact more about Trump’s cultural agenda than this court case alone; Democrats have deprioritized trans issues after their election defeat.
• Sarah: “They've stopped defending this. So it's now become a one sided argument which ends up not being an argument at all.” [15:42]
• Anthony: Notes that cultural issues like trans rights faded from Democratic campaign focus; Trump weaponized prior statements against Harris.

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3. “Under the Radar” — Predictions & Story Follow-ups

A. Marianna: RFK Jr., Vaccine Policy, and Public Health Fallout

[17:56–22:16]

• Prediction: RFK Jr.’s appointment and committee shakeups would sideline pro-vaccine experts, stoke misinformation, and yield public health risks.
  • Mariana: "...some of the people who he has been putting into these positions are people who have grown their following on social media spreading stuff that is actually not true about vaccinations..." [18:36]
• Outcome: Measles and whooping cough cases rose; a public health shift away from vaccine mandates is observed, especially in states like Florida.
• Political cost: Unclear—many Americans don’t directly connect health declines with RFK Jr.'s policies until outbreaks hit their communities.

B. Anthony: Grassroots Protests — “No Kings” & the Online Left

[22:39–26:46]

• Prediction: Anti-Trump street protests and resistance would regain momentum, especially around immigration enforcement.
• Result: Some growth in protest activity (e.g., “No Kings” rallies), including viral “inflatable dinosaur” protests.
• Marianna: Describes how the left updated its social media playbook—copying Trump’s “trolling” tactics, embracing personality-driven campaigns, and leveraging TikTok trends.
  • Memorable Quote: “...being normal basically and seeming normal and likable and charismatic and genuine, but in a way that wasn't cringe and trying too hard, he, he got that.” [25:53] (on Zora Mamdani’s viral mayoral win)

C. Justin: Obamacare Subsidy Cuts & Republican Divisions

[26:46–31:15]

• Prediction: Loss of COVID-era health insurance subsidies would go “under the radar” but cause significant pain and intra-GOP conflict.
  • Justin: “...tens of millions... will be looking for someone to blame.” [27:10]
• Result: Cuts haven’t hit yet (set for January), but tension is boiling over. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s public break with Trump illustrates grassroots/MAGA discontent.

D. Sarah: Deportations & Immigration Enforcement — The Human Cost

[31:15–33:20]

• Case Study: The wrongful deportation and criminal prosecution of Kilmar Abrego Garcia highlights the draconian and sometimes vindictive enforcement tactics of the Trump administration.
• Sarah: “...he was finally released from detention and a judge ruled that he couldn't be re detained either... and has become rather emblematic of all of the deportation that were going on.” [31:29–33:20]
• Ongoing fight: The administration continues seeking ways to deport high-profile immigrants despite legal setbacks.

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4. Bonus Segment: Anthony’s Sports Predictions

[34:09–35:15]

• Super Bowl: Eagles (correct)
• March Madness: Predicted Duke (wrong, Final Four finish)
• Stanley Cup: Picked Capitals (wrong, Panthers win)
• World Series: Dodgers (correct)
• Anthony: “If you'd gone to Vegas with that, you probably could have made a little bit of money.” [35:15]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Sarah, on self-correction: “Yeah, we do sometimes get it wrong. But this is our annual feature where we specifically do that.” [01:36]
• Anthony, on the shutdown: “...the first shutdown since the beginning of 2019. So it had been a while.” [04:50]
• Marianna, on social media tactics: “Musk goes along to a load of the stuff that, that Trump organizes... they're kind of in this sort of like, I don't know if uncomfortable is the right word, maybe fairly comfortable friendship.” [11:58]
• Justin, on the Supreme Court’s impact: “I think you could make a case that the biggest changes have been cultural.” [14:38]
• Sarah, on Democratic strategy: “...liberals in general have realized after their crushing election defeat that concentrating on these kind of social issues... costs them in middle America...” [15:42]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Listener Challenge & Time Capsule Intro — 00:57–03:55
• Anthony on Government Shutdown — 03:59–06:46
• Sarah on Trump and Peace Prize — 06:53–09:18
• Marianna on Social Media Bosses — 09:26–13:15
• Justin on Supreme Court & Puberty Blockers — 13:24–15:42
• RFK Jr. Vaccine Policy Fallout — 17:56–22:16
• Anthony on “No Kings” Protests — 22:39–26:46
• Justin on Healthcare Subsidy Cuts — 26:46–31:15
• Sarah on Deportations — 31:15–33:20
• Anthony's Sports Predictions — 34:09–35:15

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Tone & Style Reflections

The episode captures Americast’s signature mix of rigorous reporting, dry wit, and conversational candor. The panel are self-deprecating about their misses and cheerfully competitive about their prophetic hits, offering a model of transparent, evidence-based journalism. The dynamic reflects an ongoing commitment to follow stories from headline to aftermath—and to admit, with humility and humor, the limits of even the best predictions.

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For further discussion or feedback, listeners are encouraged to email or contact the team via WhatsApp or the Americast Discord.

Transcript

[Justin]

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[Justin]

Toyota Thon ends January 5th. See your participating dealer for details. Toyota, let's go places. We've had some correspondence. It comes from Paul in London. Hello, all. I've been replaying your old episode of AmericasT in the background as I work. My playback start date was the Joe Biden debate. What is interesting is how much you got right and how much otherwise. Do you ever review your old broadcasts to measure your performance and effectiveness? Sounds a bit brutal. We don't really measure our performance and effectiveness, Paul, because that might have an impact that we don't want to have. But I mean, the answer there is yes.

[Sarah]

Yes, we do. Whether we were right or otherwise. That was very diplomatic of Paul way of saying that. Yeah, we do sometimes get it wrong. But this is our annual feature where we specifically do that. We're going to revisit the predictions we made at the beginning of this year to find out what came true, what didn't and who was right more often.

[Justin]

So, welcome to the AmericasT time capsule opening of 2025.

[Advertisement Voice]

AmericasT, AmericasT, from BBC News, when Donald.

[Anthony]

Trump calls, they say, yes, sir.

[Advertisement Voice]

Right away, sir. Happy to lick your boot, sir.

[Sarah]

We are the sickest country in the world.

[Advertisement Voice]

Oh, dear. Are you worried that billionaires are going to go hungry? Of course the President supports peaceful protests.

[Mariana]

What a stupid question.

[Anthony]

Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?

[Justin]

Hello, it's Justin in the worldwide headquarters of AmericasT in London, England.

[Mariana]

And it is Mariana, also in the worldwide headquarters of AmericasT, sitting opposite Justin.

[Anthony]

And it's Anthony here in the American headquarters of AmericasT in Washington, DC.

[Sarah]

And it's Sarah on a rare annual visit to the worldwide headquarters. So I'm in London with Mariana and Justin.

[Justin]

Okay, let's talk a bit about what the time capsule is, because we're going to talk about the time capsule that we buried last time round about 2025. The things we got right, the things we got wrong. Sarah, explain where we buried it. I actually can't remember.

[Sarah]

We all made our predictions for what the big stories were going to be in America over the intervening 12 months. And of course, by that time we knew that Donald Trump had won the election, he hadn't yet been sworn in as President of the United States, and we were looking ahead to what the first year of the Trump administration was going to look like. So, yeah, we laid down our predictions and the producers took them away and hid them somewhere with the result that I'm not sure we can all remember exactly what we said and whether we were right or wrong. But in the course of this episode going to find out. And we're also going to look at another feature that we discussed in 2025, under the radar, where we sometimes told listeners about stories that weren't making the front pages, weren't making headlines, but we thought were going to be significant over the course of the year. And we'll see if we, if we pick the right ones.

[Justin]

Okay, let's kick off with Anthony. Here we go.

[Anthony]

Since we don't have a whole lot of big elections this year, my prediction is going to be one involving Congress, and that is Congress is going to struggle to pass a government funding bill this summer and that we will have a shutdown despite the fact that Republicans control the House, the Senate and the presidency will have a shutdown for more than one day at the very least. So get ready to get see all those stories again about national parks putting up their clothes, signs and museums in Washington D.C. closing and all the various hubbub around shutdowns, because it is going to be back with a vengeance.

[Sarah]

10 out of 10.

[Anthony]

Hey, I got that right.

[Mariana]

I think you might have a crystal ball, Anthony.

[Sarah]

And I love the understated way in which you said there was going to be a shutdown for more than one day when in fact we had the longest shutdown in American history.

[Anthony]

Right. And the first shutdown since the beginning of 2019. So it had been a while. And I guess my prediction wasn't that hard to make because the the Democrats wanted to dig in, the Republicans have difficulty negotiating with the Democrats, and you got to a loggerhead. Although really it was interesting. I don't think I expected it to be the Democrats being the ones that would trigger that extended shutdown and drawn on so long, I thought maybe there'd be divisions within the Republican caucus that would lead to the shutdown as well. And for the most part, the Republicans actually were pretty united.

[Sarah]

And interestingly, it was the longest government shutdown in history. It had some pretty big impacts across the country, but I don't think either party paid a huge political price to you, Anthony.

[Anthony]

You know, it looked like during, over the course of the shutdown, it looked like Republicans were getting the lion's share of the blame, which is not surprising because, as I mentioned in that prediction, they were the ones who were in power for all three branches of government. So Donald Trump's approval ratings had started to decline. Republicans were declining. In the end, it was the Democrats, and some centrist Democrats in particular, who threw in the towel. And now, yeah, I think it's kind of yesterday's news. And while the Republicans did take a hit, I don't know if their current popularity is a reflection of the shutdown. It's probably more a reflection of the current economic conditions. And while Democrats are still upset at their leadership and some of these centrists for, for folding and not getting anything concrete in exchange for this extended shutdown, I think Democrats are also going to be focused more on next year and trying to win some of these midterm elections. We'll see how it plays out during the primary contest next year among the Democrats because they may try to take it out on some of these people who were, who were ones who were trying to end the shutdown.

[Justin]

Okay, next one.

[Sarah]

This is going to sound crazy, but I think actually it could happen. I predict Donald Trump will win the Nobel Peace Prize. We're still discussing his outlandish. Might be a generous term planned for Gaza, but, you know, it may well move the needle a bit in the Middle east and produce some kind of result, even if it's not, you know, total lasting peace. If he was to put together the kind of deal he wants, normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, for instance, and significant movement on some of the other issues, we've yet to see what it is that he's going to try and achieve between Ukraine and Russia, but regardless of who that favors, it may well bring an end to the conflict there as well.

[Mariana]

I don't think that's half bad. I mean, isn't it half good? Also interesting, because it's reminded me of when we recorded the time capsule last year, which was not long after that Gaza Riviera AI generated video had been released by Donald Trump's team, which was suggesting they were going to kind of, obviously it was not real, but suggesting they were going to make it into a Riviera. Which explains your outlandish comment there about his plans for the Middle east at that time.

[Sarah]

And then we spent so much of the second half of this year talking about his craving for the Nobel Peace Prize and his boasting about having ended eight wars around the world. Even if that's not entirely true, it sounds now like an incredibly obvious thing to say. But nobody was talking about him and the Nobel Peace Prize when we recorded this back in December last year.

[Justin]

You actually introduced it into the quiz, the World Equation.

[Mariana]

He was listening to America and of.

[Justin]

Course he could get it next year. So, you know, we don't have to come, we don't have to get it right in the year in which we're predicting it. Let's, let's expand the boundaries a little bit.

[Anthony]

What do you reckon now, Sarah? If you had said Donald Trump will win the, the first annual FIFA Peace Prize, then you would have been spot on. So you just kind of missed that.

[Mariana]

That would been incredibly niche, I guess. Isn't the question though, in the end? Obviously, quite some of the fighting that's been going on has been dealt with to a certain extent, but it's. It wouldn't be fair to say at the end of this year that it's all incredibly peaceful.

[Sarah]

No. And he hasn't sorted out Ukraine, Russia, even though he's been saying recently he thinks they're closer than ever. He hasn't explained why they're closer than ever. And it's not abundantly clear that they are. To be honest, I would imagine in the course of next year that will probably get sorted one way or the other. But whether in a manner that would lead somebody to be awarded a prize for it remains to be seen.

[Justin]

Here's Marianna.

[Mariana]

Mine is about the social media bosses, the broligarchy, as they're now called. And my prediction is that Mark Zuckerberg will be the ultimate winner here. Elon Musk and Trump will fall out because Musk has taken a much more ideological approach and is also much more emotional in the arguments he's making and more volatile. From what we've seen, TikTok have kind of already lost or in already a kind of difficult negotiating position because they sort of need Trump to help them out so that they don't get banned in the United States. And Mark Zuckerberg is the shrewdest tactician of all of them, he's the one who won't fall out with Donald Trump because he only did that when it was actually kind of beneficial to him in the, in the forum of public opinion. Elon Musk will fall out with Trump. And I think that Mark Zuckerberg is like the great survivor.

[Justin]

I know you've got me sounding skeptical in there as well. And you are dead right. 100 right.

[Mariana]

You love a bit of skepticism, I would say.

[Justin]

I mean, misplaced.

[Mariana]

It feels like the. The most sort of vanilla prediction to say that Elon Musk and Donald Trump were going to fall out, because they quite obviously were. And they also, people might remember that they. So they had this really big falling out that was to do with the tariffs and various kind of discussions about the economy. But then it very quickly snowballed into this sort of tit for tat on X, which Elon Musk owns about the episod Epstein files and Epstein and. And allegations about Donald Trump in relation to Jeffrey Epstein, which he very strongly denies. And it kind of all exploded. And you thought, whoa, okay, is that the end of that then? And Doge, the Department of Government Efficiency sort of like kind of quietly came to its end, although that was apparently always going to happen. But they're kind of in this sort of like, I don't know if uncomfortable is the right word, maybe fairly comfortable friendship. Again, like they're not that, you know, they. Musk goes along to a load of the stuff that, that Trump organizes. He's present when he greets world leaders and other people, often he's invited to dinners, etc, so it's not like they, like they kind of are friends. Again. I would say that my point about Zuckerberg, I mean, Zuckerberg is a great survivor in so much as matter has evolved a lot of its policies to be much more in line with Donald Trump's opinions about issues like freedom of expression, for example. And that's kind of worked for them. They're still at odds with TikTok. And it was interesting because when I was making that prediction was when there was this risk that TikTok was going to be banned. And now that's, you know, that's, that's all completely changed in so much as it now looks like there's going to be this kind of US consortium who own a bit of TikTok. And therefore it gets around this issue of TikTok being owned by a Chinese company called ByteDance and concerns about data, even though ByteDance have always said you don't need to worry about that. So, I mean, TikTok, actually Donald Trump has been fairly sort of favorable to, in the way he's handled it. Like they haven't been shut down in the way that they at one point were going to. So maybe, maybe in the end Musk is still the winner even for being volatile.

[Sarah]

Interesting.

[Anthony]

Well, I mean, if not Musk and not Zuckerberg, who else? I mean, it doesn't seem like Musk has that, that much influence now, but, but Zuckerberg, you know, doesn't seem like he came out on top. Is there someone else?

[Mariana]

Well, it would be the AI. It would actually be the AI companies. People like Sam.

[Anthony]

Like Sam Altman or something?

[Mariana]

Yeah, exactly.

[Justin]

Or Jensen Huang. Is that his name? The guy who runs Nvidia. Because Nvidia, as we were saying episode or two ago, this massive 5 trillion dollar company, now incredibly powerful in world. Those are the people who are really running stuff.

[Mariana]

Yeah. And actually, I mean, maybe it's wrong to single out any one of these bosses. To your point, Anthony, it's actually just the whole of that industry that are learning to thrive under Donald Trump. And Donald Trump benefits from them thriving, whether it's social media companies or AI companies. And they will continue to, I imagine, over the course of the next year.

[Sarah]

Right. It's time for our final prediction.

[Justin]

My prediction is that a very important Supreme Court case called Scremetti will have an enormous impact on America's attitude towards the giving of puberty blockers to people who want to change gender when they are young. This is a specific case about whether a state can ban puberty blockers, so the beginning of gender alteration medicine for children. So my prediction is that the Supreme Court will find in favor of the state, which is Tennessee, which wants to block all puberty blocking medicine being given to young people. And I think this court case, if it does go the way of Tennessee, they will be banned across all Republican states and it will be a very big, potentially long term political issue.

[Sarah]

So you are absolutely right that the Supreme Court did uphold that case, the Tennessee law banning gender transition care for young people. So you were right in the Supreme Court outcome, 100% for that. Do you think you were right, Justin, on that case having an enormous impact on America's attitude to giving puberty blockers to young people?

[Justin]

No, I would say, though, there is a wider change. And I think, you know, when you look at the things that have changed in the United States in the first year of Trump, I think you could make a case that the biggest changes have been cultural. So you think of immigration, illegal immigration, across the southern border as a cultural issue, which it fundamentally is. But you think also the whole business of trans versus women's rights is a cultural issue. There have been really big changes. Not necessarily. I don't think I was right to say as a result of this law. I think it's a result of the vigor of the Trump administration in this area. So you have individual universities now handing medals to women who couldn't get the medals because biological males who identified as trans women were winning those medals. That kind of argument, which I thought would be much more of an argument because I thought there'd be more of a fight back. And frankly, I don't think there's been. It's an 8020 issue. Most Americans are pretty are on Trump's side in this, and for that he has, I think, prospered in this area in a way that I didn't really fully predict.

[Sarah]

I don't know if I agree with you that it's because most Americans are on Trump's side on this. I think what's happened is the Democrats and liberals in general have realized after their crushing election defeat that concentrating on these kind of social issues and on trans rights in particular, costs them in middle America, even with people maybe who were sympathetic to their arguments. But they were thinking, just worry about the economy and the big issues that people are going to vote on. Stop distracting yourselves with these woke arguments around trans. And so they've stopped defending this. So it's now become a one sided argument which ends up not being an argument at all.

[Justin]

No, it's a fair point to make, Anthony.

[Mariana]

Right.

[Anthony]

I mean, it wasn't like Kamala Harris or any of the Democrats campaigned that in 2024. I mean, I remember being at the Democratic convention and trans transitions was brought up zero times from any speaker. In fact, they got some flack from.

[Justin]

Quite a few times from Donald Trump, eh?

[Anthony]

Yeah, quite a few times from Donald Trump. And also what happened was the Trump campaign focused on 2020 and 2019 when it was a big issue in the Democratic Party and they were talking about it. And what Kamala Harris got hammered on wasn't on things she said on the campaign trail in 2024. It was stuff she said on the campaign trail when everyone was running to the left in the Democratic Party in 2019, trying to keep up with Bernie Sanders and some of the interest groups that were kind of driving the conversation on things like health care and immigration and other social issues. Because that was a very left leaning presidential campaign. So maybe now that is more distant history. And when the Democrats decide who their nominee is going to be in 2028, they'll pick someone who wasn't as engaged in those kind of big cultural issues from the Black Lives Matter movement, from the 2020 campaign as someone who can't get hit quite as hard as Harris was during the 2024 campaign.

[Sarah]

So those were our predictions. Most of us quite right, if not wholly and entirely right. The other thing that we did talk about during the year were under the radar stories, as we described them, ones that maybe weren't making big headlines yet, but that we thought were going to have a big impact. And now we're going to revisit some of them to see where they've got to now.

[Mariana]

Okay, so one of the under the radar stories that I chose this year was about something that happened in June. It was about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The Secretary of State for Health, and how he sacked all 17 members of this independent committee. And that committee's job was essentially to, or is essentially to issue recommendations about vaccines and to assess risk to the public and all that kind of stuff. And the point I was making was that what RFK was doing was changing the makeup of that committee so that it was full of people with a much more skeptical view of vaccines. And that's not to say that skepticism about vaccines is a bad thing. In fact, it's a very good thing to scrutinize and hold, for example, the big pharmaceutical companies to account. But the problem is, is that some of the people who he has been putting into these positions are people who have grown their following on social media spreading stuff that is actually not true about vaccinations, and that obviously does pose a risk to public health. That felt like this moment. There was this moment over the summer with RFK in particular, where he'd, during those Senate hearings earlier in the year, said, you know, I'm not anti vaccine. I'm just worried about people who've been injured or harmed by vaccines. But actually, he then made a series of decisions, this one in particular, but then also around discontinuing research into MRNA vaccines. Obviously, those comments not about vaccines, but about Tylenol and pregnant women that sh. That. That seem to show what. What he actually thinks about some of these issues and be a little bit against what he said during those hearings and ultimately do kind of have an impact on public health. Right? I mean, certainly in like the research and investment in these areas or decisions that are made about vaccinations I think.

[Anthony]

That if you look at rising measles cases, if you look at concerns about other cases like whooping cough going up, I think that has had an impact. I think that RFK Jr. Has definitely changed the debate, opened the debate on vaccines in this country. So you see places like Florida with conservative health officials there taking away vaccine mandates for schools, which it would have been astounding to think about just a decade ago. He has made it easier for people to express concerns about vaccines. But I think we are seeing the public health consequences of that. And I think that, you know, your prediction. A lot of the fears that people had coming into this and putting RFK Jr in a position of power in America's government, health services are being realized because the United States is moving away from a bunch of different recommendations on vaccines. And we're starting to see the results of that now.

[Justin]

Is there a political cost to it? Because we talked much earlier and I think maybe the time that Marianna brought it up, we sort of said, well, if you can see measles cases going up and God forbid children are dying and they are, and all sorts of other aspects of vaccines not being properly administered and not being mandated and all the rest of it, if you could see the health of the nation, particularly among children, worsening. We were asking at the time, is there a political price to pay? And I don't know the answer whether.

[Mariana]

Isn'T the problem or not. I think one of the really difficult things, and actually I've been, I've spent quite a lot of time over the past few months in particular looking into kind of the impact of quite extreme anti vaccination views that go beyond genuine concerns and questions. The issue is, and what lots of medics, nurses, people here in the UK as well as in the US have said to me, I think often there's not a connection drawn by members of the public between decisions RFK Jr is making about vaccines. And then for example, your community being, I mean, if your actual community is affected by an outbreak and you, you know, a child, you know, loses their life, then you might, that, you know, that could be a really pivotal moment where you think, oh, hang on a second, vaccinations are important. What's hard is that quite a lot of these diseases that we're talking about are ones that kind of had essentially been eradicated and are now coming back. And one of the reasons why they're almost, you know, there's this hesitancy around vaccination is because unlike say all of, you know, I don't know, our grandparents, your grandparents, they. People could see the consequences of these diseases and didn't want to get them. Whereas obviously now you don't see that in quite the same way. So I think there's probably still that disconnect that would change, I guess, if there are significantly more outbreaks or more communities are affected.

[Justin]

I mean, to exactly that point. Is there is a senator, isn't there, Anthony, who got involved in all. There was a Republican senator who, who had had polio when he was young. I can't remember who it was, but. But I mean, for that generation, it was Mitch McConnell.

[Mariana]

Yeah, of course.

[Justin]

Yeah, it was Mitch McConnell. And for that generation, exactly as Marianna says, they see these things very differently, even if they're Republicans.

[Sarah]

Anthony, you brought up a story in April about the beginnings of protests against Donald Trump when people started taking to the streets.

[Anthony]

Yeah, I mean, it was at the beginning of the kind of protests against immigration and immigration enforcement in the United States. We had seen the first no Kings rally, I believe, dotting up around the country. And it felt to me at the time like there was starting to see more protests. I mean, one of the big questions was why people weren't protesting in the streets when Donald Trump was implementing all these policies kind of in the way they did in his first term, where there was a mass protest just the day after Donald Trump's inauguration. But it seemed like there was a growing kind of a movement, growing resistance among the left here in the country. And I suspected that maybe we were seeing a trend. And I think there's still evidence of that. The no Kings protests, I think it was in October. Right. I mean, that was even bigger than the one earlier in the year. You still don't see mass regular street demonstrations, but what we're seeing in places like Chicago and Portland, in protest to ICE enforcement as well as National Guard being put on the streets of these cities. I think that's real. And part of it is because now the left has something, as I said at the time, to unite around Donald Trump. It kind of papers over the divisions in the movement in the left side of American politics that had grown during the Biden years.

[Sarah]

We did not foresee that these protesters would largely be wearing inflatable dinosaur costumes, though, did we?

[Mariana]

And going viral for it.

[Justin]

Have they got, I mean, to go viral, have they got their act together online as well? The left, I mean, is that. I'm thinking of memes. You know, we've been talking memes, memes, you know, the whole kind of.

[Mariana]

I love how you said memes so casually then you were quite pleased with your thoughts.

[Justin]

Yeah, I was until the moment that you pricked my bubble. But is, is, have they, have they found ways of teasing Trump, of upsetting his, his supporters in a way that, that can work just as he has done to them in the past?

[Mariana]

Yeah, it's interesting. I mean the left social media strategy has definitely evolved over the course of the past year, not least because it was kind of dead in the water really at the start of the year and all the kind of brat summer, Kamala Harris stuff had very much, very much gone. I think there's two interesting points about what's done well on social media for the left. One is the kind of Gavin Newsom approach. So California governor who's done this kind of trolling of Donald Trump, like almost being like Donald Trump posting on Twitter and then a lot of that content they'll then, you know, mock up on, on TikTok or it'll be in other places. And the Democrats official social media accounts have actually been using quite a similar strategy. So really playing into like specific trends and memes and focusing on things like the Epstein files or particularly contentious issues that relate to Donald Trump, even though again, he denies any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein. What I what so you've got that, and that's I think probably been fairly effective at that, galvanizing a base who are already supportive of the Democrats and don't like Donald Trump very much, but it does at least give them a little bit of energy. The most interesting social media strategy though for me has been Zora Mamdani's one in New York where he won mayor. And it was actually really unexpected because he really, really got the being authentic and genuine in the way that Donald Trump does on social media and reaching the right spaces, the alternative sort of media spaces, the other places he needed to get to and activating. Of course, it's New York. It doesn't represent all of the US Fin, but the strategy that he used, like being normal basically and seeming normal and likable and charismatic and genuine, but in a way that wasn't cringe and trying too hard, he, he got that. And I think that that probably is something for the Democrats to build on in other places. But the lesson learned is that you do have to have a very likable or hateable, but certainly carries a bit like Donald Trump at the center. That is how social media works now is so personality driven.

[Sarah]

Was back in June, Justin, you were talking about cuts to Medicaid and Medicare that went through as part of Donald Trump's big beautiful bill. One provision was going to be that they were going to cut subsidies that had been going to people who bought their health insurance through Obamacare health exchanges. And as a result of cutting these subsidies, their subscriptions were going to go up by 50, 100, 200% in some cases. Yeah.

[Justin]

And this I felt that we weren't covering enough. I mean, it wasn't our fault exactly. There was so much else going on that one of these, one of the fissures that was likely to damage the Republican Party was over health. And that I think I can honestly claim has unquestionably turned out to be true. Hasn't actually happened yet, has it? Because it's not until what, January when these subsidies go. But Anthony, we're talking about potentially millions of people, many of them Republicans supporters, who are suddenly going to have much worse health care if they have health care at all than they get at the moment. And they'll be looking for someone to blame.

[Anthony]

Right. This is tens of millions, actually, I think 20 million, over 20 million Americans get some sort of subsidies on these health insurance exchanges that help people who don't have medical insurance through their employers, which is a lion's share of the American public, but or through Medicare, which is the government run health insurance program for the elderly, and Medicaid, which is the health insurance program for the poor. The people kind of caught in the middle who have to get insurance for themselves. There's been these subsidies that were started at the beginning of COVID in order to help them pay for their health insurance. And those subsidies are expiring at the end of the year. So you're going to see Americans who are buying their health insurance on these exchanges, their premiums could go up by 100%, 200%, 300%. They could be spending thousands of dollars a month in health insurance when they were only spending hundreds of dollars before. And that is very real pain. And it's very real pain that is hitting a lot of Americans who are the ones who are struggling the most right now, the people who aren't on the full social service Medicaid health insurance program, the ones who are working, but not working jobs where they get health insurance. And, and that's why you're seeing these divisions as you mentioned, within the Republican Party over how to help these people. Cuz a lot of these people are Republican constituents and they're ones who voted for Donald Trump. And here they are now being left out in the cold and that's the.

[Sarah]

Point Marjorie Taylor Greene, the congresswoman from Georgia, who had been Donald Trump's one of his very, very biggest supporters. It's the point she was making when she was criticizing these cuts to the healthcare subsidies, which then blew up into a pretty big fight between her and Donald Trump, encompassed other issues has led to her pretty much break with Donald Trump and then saying she's not even going to run for Congress again next year. So it was a sign of a MAGA on MAGA fight over this as well, who was representing the grassroots MAGA supporters versus Donald Trump, who up until then had pretty much thought he could define what MAGA was and how he was going to run things. But this Marjorie Taylor Greene wasn't alone, was she, Anthony, in expressing some fear about what this was going to do to Republicans votes?

[Anthony]

No. I think there is kind of broad concern, particularly among Republicans in key battleground congressional districts in key swing states about how they're going to be able to go to the public next November during the midterm elections and address these concerns when they're the ones who have been pinned with blocking these subsidies from being extended. So I think there's very real concern among Republicans that this is going to be an electoral issue that costs them. And while Donald Trump didn't touch Social Security, he didn't touch Medicare, which is the health insurance program for the elderly I mentioned, there are some very real cuts to Medicaid as well, the health insurance program, for cuts that would increase work requirements for people, that would limit the kind of benefits they would get. And those also have been criticized by particularly rural Republicans because it could lead to closing of hospitals that serve poor people, people in rural areas, their only source of health care, those hospitals could close because they're not getting enough funding. So it isn't even just the subsidy issue. It's the entire health insurance program, the system for poor people and for people who live outside of the big cities.

[Justin]

Sarah, you brought to our attention as well another thing that could have just gone under the radar. And that's not the issue, just of illegal immigration and what to do about it, which we talked about plenty, but actually of individual deportations and the impact that they have.

[Sarah]

Yeah. One of the early cases that caught my eye was this man who had been living in Maryland, who was from El Salvador, Kilmar Abrego Garcia. He had been detained and deported back to El Salvador to a notorious prison there, where the conditions are absolutely awful. Now, earlier, years before, a judge had ruled that even if he was to be deported from the United States. He could never be sent back to El Salvador because of the treatment he would receive there. So it was just an error, frankly, on the behalf of the Trump administration, an error that they admitted that they sent him to the wrong country. But it became a great cause celebrate. Eventually he was returned from El Salvador to the United States, whereupon he was promptly charged with human trafficking because the administration by then seemed determined that he would be detained for something, and they couldn't allow him just to walk free because that would highlight the error that they had made. But just last week, in fact, he was finally released from detention and a judge ruled that he couldn't be re detained either. So, oh, six months after we started talking about this, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a free man living in Maryland at the moment, and has become rather emblematic of all of the deportation that were going on, of the way that ICE are grabbing people off the streets, going into people's workplaces, rounding up immigrants, rounding up people who have got a perfectly legal status to be allowed to stay in the United States with others who are there illegally, separating them from their families in order to deport them. The manner in which the administration has gone about enforcing its illegal immigration policies, which a lot of people think are very draconian and certainly very dramatic. And Kilmar Abrego Garcia was kind of the first intimation of how they were going to do that.

[Anthony]

I think, as you mentioned, the way they targeted him because of this, bringing criminal charges against him, human trafficking charges, which the judge in the case seems somewhat skeptical of, that also kind of shows the way this administration will occasionally be somewhat vindictive. Even they see this as more than just one case. They see this as symbolic of what they're trying to do. And if Kilmore Abrego Garcia is still in the United States and still a free man, I think they view that as an affront and undermining the effort, which is why I think this story is not going away. And I think in the coming weeks, we're going to see another effort by this administration to find a way to deport him once they resolve the legal block that's keeping them from doing it.

[Justin]

Okay, we should finish with Anthony because it's a subject about which only Anthony can properly predict. Predict. Yeah. So, Anthony, you predicted the results of all the main US Sports competitions last year. Let us see how you did, or indeed, tell us how you did.

[Sarah]

Anthony, for the super bowl, you said the Philadelphia Eagles would win. Who did?

[Anthony]

They won The Eagles won. So 1 1, right? Ding, ding, ding.

[Sarah]

March Madness. You said the Duke Blue Devils would win that.

[Anthony]

Okay? They didn't. They made the Final Four, the semifinals, which I'm not bad. But Florida ended up winning that, so that's an X.

[Sarah]

Not too bad. The Stanley cup, you said would be won by the Washington Capitals.

[Anthony]

I know I picked that one with my heart, not my head. The Florida Panthers beat the Edmonton Oilers, so that was not, not one I.

[Mariana]

Got too close on.

[Sarah]

And then the World Series. You predicted the Los Angeles Dodgers.

[Anthony]

Hey, and I got that right. The Dodgers won. I mean, it was close. The Toronto Blue Jays were just a few outs away from winning the World Series, but the Dodgers pulled it off. So two out of four. You know, if you'd gone to Vegas with that, you probably could have made a little bit of money.

[Justin]

That's it for now.

[Sarah]

Bye bye Bye bye bye bye.

[Justin]

Thank you for listening to another episode. It is you, the ameracaster that makes americast, the community that it now is. If you like what you've heard, please do subscribe to this podcast on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts. We always want to hear your feedback as well. We look at every single bit of correspondence that we get so you can send us an email americastbc.co.uk the WhatsApp is 443-30123, 9480 and you can get involved in the AmericasT Discord server. The link to that is in the description Till next time, Bye bye.

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