
Loading summary
A
Every day, the world presents you with hundreds of headlines. What do you believe? Who do you trust? The Financial Times cuts through complexity with clarity, accuracy and global perspective. Its journalism is guided by independence, not agendas. That's why leaders in business, policy and culture turn to one trusted source for facts, for insight, for what matters next. Source FT Read more and subscribe@ft.com.
B
This episode of the Monocle Daily was first broadcast on 17 November 2025 on Monocle Radio.
A
US President Donald Trump becomes a sudden and startling convert to transparency. Bangladesh passes a sentence of death upon a former prime minister. And why are people listening to music nobody performed? I'm Andrew Muller. The Monocle Daily starts now.
B
Foreign.
A
Hello and welcome to the Monocle Daily. Coming to you from our studios here at Midori House in London, I'm Andrew Muller. My guests Patricia Cohen and Alexander Gerlach will discuss the day's big stories and we'll reflect on the life and work of Todd Snyder, one of the great country songwriters of this or indeed any generation who has died aged 59. Stay tuned. All that and more coming up right here on the Monocle Daily. This is the Monocle Daily. I'm Andrew Muller and I am joined today by Patricia Cohen, global economics correspondent at the New York Times and Alexander Gerlach, professor of Political philosophy and Geopolitics at New York University. Hello to our very New York themed panel.
C
Hello.
A
Being New Yorkers of one sort or another, you will both be aware that Thanksgiving is looming about a week and a half away. Patricia, which branch of your family will you be arguing with?
B
Actually, I'm going to be inviting a bunch of Londoners to my Thanksgiving, but my real complaint is that it's very difficult to find turkey in November in London, and I just don't understand why.
A
It's because the option of roast beef is available and it's nicer. Is it really that difficult? I mean, I would have thought there would be a big enough market of expat Americans that would be worth catering to.
B
One would think so. And I can give you a rundown since I've, you know, thoroughly done an investigative reporting project on this, of where it can be found. But yes, it's not. It's not commonly stocked.
A
Is there a problem, as far as you can tell, with quality as well as quantity?
B
I don't think so, no.
A
You've got to think a turkey anywhere tastes much like a turkey.
B
Apparently there have been cooking tests and such that there supposedly isn't that much difference in flavor between frozen and fresh Turkey. So I'm perfectly fine with a frozen turkey.
A
Alex, have you got any similar woes? Is Thanksgiving a big deal round your way?
C
We have been living, my husband I, who is from New York, we have been living a decade together in the city. So it's been more like the friendsgiving than the family Thanksgiving, probably in order to forego all the quarrels you were alluding to. But however, it seems to be like a larger and larger crowd of New Yorkers taking refuge here in London, leaving Trump ridden usa. And so maybe, or probably in the upcoming years, there will be a larger variety of turkeys at hand for you.
A
Well, we will start in the United States and with the subject, I'm sure, of many Thanksgiving dinner table arguments. President Donald Trump appears to have changed his mind regarding the release of files pertaining to his late friend, the sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Trump has urged his fellow Republicans to vote for the release of the files on the basis that, quote, we have nothing to hide. Though it is hard to square this candor with Trump's recent behaviour, which has been fairly typical of someone who has plenty to hide. What is certain is that Trump is mentioned frequently in the Epstein correspondence, which has been released quite often in contexts which, to put it delicately, furnish more questions than answers. Patricia, why the apparent change of heart here? Is this Donald Trump merely trying not to look like he's fighting a losing battle?
B
I think that's probably mostly behind it. I mean, one thing Trump has is sometimes a very exquisite political sense. And clearly kind of up to the 11th hour, he was lobbying very vigorously House members to not vote to release the files. And I think when he saw that was a losing battle, rather than being seen as a loser, which is, you know, above all, the thing Trump hates the most. He decided to kind of get on board the train that had already left the station. Having said that, that doesn't mean they will be immediately produced, because there's also a vote that would have to take place in the Senate and the voting there is much less certain that they'll approval. They need 60 votes. There's 47 Democrats. Not clear they could get 13 Republicans to go along with that.
A
Just to pick up on that, though, do you not think at this point any senator would be aware that the reputational damage of being a person who voted to block the release would be considerable and would not leave them in a hurry?
B
I think it really depends on their constituencies and how, you know, vigorously they think their particular constituency cares about this. I mean, what is clear is that the Epstein The Epstein saga has been one of the few issues that's been able to kind of drive a wedge among the core MAGA supporters, Trump supporters. So that is not a majority of voters or even a majority of necessarily of Republicans, but it's very important. And so also Trump has to exert pressure on fewer number of people to get them to come around to his side. Right. If you need 60 votes. So, you know, what do you gotta convince fewer people than you would in the House?
A
Is it also possible, Alexander, that he has reminded himself that he is Donald Trump, the man who has famously just managed to get past or style out literally everything. The man who once said, probably not inaccurately, that he could shoot somebody in broad daylight and most of his supporters wouldn't be all that bothered?
C
Well, I feel part of his strategy usually is to announce something that has been criticized about him, which is the remedy on social media, on his own platform, to then not follow through with it. So today we have the announcement and there are like institutional hurdles, but it's also like not said and done that he's really coming through with it. So we have to wait. If that's something else on the way, it's going to be where the President says, oh, unfortunately now something came up and we cannot go along with what we originally planned.
A
Do we anticipate, though, that what we do eventually get will have a lot of big black blocks all over it? That's for security reasons?
C
No, that's that. And also it's like, I think, Was it not 20,000 emails that have been, like, released? So I feel like not many in the MAGA world will be reading all of them. And we remember, like the emails of Hillary Clinton how much that was like, up at the time. So I feel like for now in the MAGA field, in the MAGA arena, they might just be celebrating that the President is allegedly so open about it and ready to release the files.
A
I mean, on the subject of the. The fracturing of maga, Patricia, probably the most obvious and open expression of this so far is that he has fallen out with Marjorie Taylor Greene, the. The Georgia congresswoman who has been one of his most voluble supporters for nearly a decade. She is now trying to sort of make the pivot from Wicked Witch of the west to insert name a fictional character which is the opposite of that. Alice in Wonderland, possibly. But she is clearly, she has got off the Trump train. Is it possible that she has political antenna more exquisitely attuned than his and she has perceived that this is the moment to ditch him because this is just gonna get worse.
B
I would be very hesitate to try to get into the mind.
A
Oh, go on.
B
Of her. So, you know, it is hard to say. She has been supporting a whole range of what I would say are kind of crazy conspiracy theories before Trump got into office. She has obviously a constituency that supports her. To what degree she's in tune with broader political trends or sentiments, I am really hard pressed to say about that. And I mean, the other thing is. And this goes to a lot of perhaps more significant policy issues. I mean, a lot of times I think we're trying to kind of find the method in the madness sometimes. And I wonder if there is sometimes all that much of a very carefully plotted out rationale for taking some of the steps that have been taken. I think, you know, look, every government kind of, you know, tries to deal with what's coming up on the fly and trying to deal with whatever little fire has erupted. I don't know whether this is necessarily indicative of a changing wind at all within the MAGA group.
A
Oh, indeed not, Alexander. Not for the first time, one is reminded of that great line from all the President's Men to the effect that the truth is these are just not very bright people and the whole thing kind of got out of hand. But again, we have to look at the fact. And I know it's the thing we always end up saying about Trump, that if Trump, if it was anybody else's name as frequently and in the kind of context in the Epstein emails that we have already seen, they'd be finished. I mean, it would be absolutely career ending. And yet here he still is.
C
No, it's actually. Yeah, it's mesmerizing how he, how he survives all these turmoils. We've just seen, like, in this country, like a member of the royal family, just like being not a member of the royal family anymore because.
A
And the ambassador to the United States and that.
C
That as well. So I feel. But I think also, like, in America, this is like, it's a different. It' as you mentioned, Sophia, it's a different context. And going back to what you just said, there is of course, like a MAGA orthodoxy. Like, people say, like, oh, you said you do not want to go to foreign wars, and now you do. But I think within the whole movement, it's just like a tiny fraction. And the others do not get the news that we get. I mean, this divide is real. So we do not know how much is like, you know, permeating through from what the new York Times and other so called leftist media, whatever like he tries to call them. So I feel like there might be also like lots of like uncertainties or not knowing in the MAGA camp what's happening.
B
And just to add on that, so that, number one, is a very important point which should kind of be a baseline for anything we discuss, which is, you know, a lot of the population is not dealing with the same set of facts and certainly a lot of people get their news that's either incomplete or very slanted one way or the other. Secondly, I do think also, I mean, we talk about the MAGA movement and I think there is such a movement, but I also think there's an incredible cult of personality around Trump and that going back to the statement you had made about him shooting someone, I do think, and we've seen this in political leaders over time, that it doesn't literally matter what he does on any particular policy, that people have an incredible belief in him. Even if they believe some. It's, I think almost kind of religiously based, that even if he's a flawed individual, he is kind of a vehicle, whether through, you know, God or, or somebody else or fate. And I think that when it comes down to that, in some sense, you know, particular, particular, you know, flings of mud on him don't matter to them.
A
Well, to Bangladesh, where the descent into opprobrium of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina appears more or less complete. She has been sentenced to death tribunal after being convicted of crimes against humanity. The charges relate to her response to the 2024 demonstrations which eventually forced her from office after 15 years in charge. Over two stints, perhaps 1400 protesters were killed by Bangladeshi security forces. The chances of the sentence ever being enacted appear slender. Hasina currently languishes in exile in neighboring India, which does have an extradition treaty with Bangladesh. But said document includes a carve out for offenses of a political, political character, all of which Alexander, I'm sure was well known to the people who put her on trial. Was this always largely symbolic?
C
Well, I guess since she is not as she is in the foreign lands and she will not be extradited by India. I think this has a highly symbolic, It's a highly symbolic gesture. And I feel it feels also like within the. It is a broader picture in this region and beyond actually that youth is going to the streets and demands like a meritocratic system. They demand, like to have a role in the society of the future. And I think this, of course, if you are against the death penalty, like if you feel like that is kind of like a step too far. However, I guess it also shows you how severe people think the changes have to be in order to, like, restart the country.
A
I mean, symbolic events can nevertheless be important, and I guess that's what we want to get into here. Patricia, does this matter if you are. I mean, maybe even if we remove the scenario from its specific context in Bangladesh, if you're trying to move a country forward, it important to do something like this, show that and you know, that justice was done, seen to be done.
B
I mean, I think that we've seen historically, and you can go to all different kinds of political scenarios back to whether it was kind of truth and reconciliation commissions that came after, whether it was in a place like Rwanda or even a lot of what came out after the fall of the Soviet Union in terms of judicial processes. And so I'm hesitant to say it's only symbolic in the sense that I think what it does show, regardless of whether she's actually brought back to Bangladesh, is that the justice system is working or at least an indication that it's beginning to work in a way that it definitely did not during her reign. And it also follows through in a promise of Yunus, the prime minister who's been in charge, to say that he would follow through on kind of seeing that there was, you know, that there was a follow up to these terrible massacres. So I do think it's important.
C
And if I may build on that, like, if you look into other transitional processes, like Taiwan or Korea in the late 80s, where you had, like, a different approach, where you include the former autocratic parties in the new democratic system, which is called, like, transitional justice, then you have, like, other challenges that come with it. And Korea and Taiwan are still reeling with that sort of pasta, I think, regardless. But, like, whether or not this death penalty is executed, I think it's like a clear. It symbolizes more of a clear cut than like saying, like, we keep like the old guard on somehow and we continue with you and, you know, finagle things out. I think it's a more clear cut than what you could see in Taiwan or in the Korean transitions.
A
Is there an argument against it, though? And this may be, again, who knows what might have informed the thinking of the Justice Department in the United States during Joe Biden's presidency, where they were clearly very slow on proceeding against then former President Trump on a variety of charges that they just thought, let sleeping dogs lie. If we put this guy in the dock and accuse him of Insurrection, treason or whatever else. It will just massively wind up his base. It will give him, you know, an excuse to shriek his favorite phrase, witch hunt, as indeed Sheikh Hasina and her proxies are doing. You make a martyr of him.
C
Well, in the United States, there has been an inter party commission in Congress which found him at least not guilty. But just saw his role in the January 6 uprising or riots, if you want to kind of call it that. So I think. And he is a convicted felon. So I feel like there has been. The justice system has been doing what they were asked to. And now Trump on the other end is going to after anyone who was involved in that. So he's taking revenge. Whereas like before that it was just like the way the system, the justice system should be operating. But I'm sure, and clearly it's always a danger of making someone a martyr. And because you mentioned this already about the religious dimension, there have been lots of drawings and paintings about Trump being in the courtroom next to Jesus Christ. And I feel like there is a group in his adherence and his disciples who see him actually as a godsend.
A
I mean, just finally on this, Patricia, I do always find. Well, it's mixed feelings because on the one hand it is depressing that somebody in such a position could have behaved in such a fashion that they end up in the dock. But I think it does say something about a country and something by and large good. And we've seen it recently in France imprisoning former President Nicolas Sarkozy, if not for very long. We see it in Israel where Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime minister, remains technically on trial. Does it have a value in that least kind of might nag somewhere in the back of the head of whoever comes to power in future that there is a possibility that if you don't behave yourself, you do end up in the clink. Well.
B
If only our effective justice systems were more of a deterrent, I think that would be great. I'm not sure how much that plays into account, particularly when you're getting to that level of power. I mean, supposedly the U.S. which is one of the most kind of legalistic and rules based societies around, certainly legalistic. This president has pushed the boundaries of that more than any other.
C
Yeah. And the presidential pardon seems to be coming like a routine now, like Hunter Biden. And you see this like. So then it's also clearly it puts an end to. Yeah. As a legal persecution, if you so will. If like there are preemptive pardons given like right away.
A
Well, to Zurich and to exciting news for people hoping to pay for a festive hot chocolate with a crisp 20 franc note. And you are now all supposed to be chuckling at the clear implication that there would be little if any change. Organizers of the annual Christmas market at Zurich Hauptbahnhof have withdrawn an earlier edict that this year's event would be completely cashless cards and phones only. And furthermore that any trader who did attempt to take folding currency in receipt for goods or services would be on the hook for 500 francs. An amount of consternation ensued, prompting the rethink. Alexander, first of all, where are you on this? Would you take up arms to defend your right to buy a little Christmas tree with cash money?
C
Also coming from Germany, where we have. We are an in between society which just like slowly compared to England for instance, like very slowly goes into cashless. I feel like this is. It's made an argument about personal freedoms or liberties and I think our Swiss neighbors have shared this sort of sentiment. The German Liberal Party has been running several campaigns not only but also on exactly that that we keep our cash so that we will not be completely be controllable by our governments like WeChat and all the other apps that are out there in the world where you can pay your stuff with. And I think like I love to pay with a card and I love to pay and tap with my phone, so I'm more on that side. But I do see however that there is a clear implication of control the moment we would not have the chance to take our money like physically somewhere else. I think that be definitely a change from the beginning, from the dawn of time since we have been exchanging things as a currency.
A
This is a common refrain among the tinfoil hat tendency Patricia, that the government's trying to shift us from cash to digital only current means of exchange. It is so they can control and so they can monitor. Despite the fact that it is mostly cranks who were mostly angry about this, it's not a completely unreasonable concern, is it?
B
So two things when there started to be the major shift from cash to let's say credit or tapping your phone. I think the most common complaint was actually not so much about tracking, but was that particularly that it really cut out poor people who did not have maybe particularly at that time, bank accounts or phones.
A
This is one of the complaints that has been made in this case that older people in particular may not have a smartphone, not be comfortable with the tech.
B
Right. And I mean certainly I don't know the figures here, but I Know, in the United States, there are millions of people who are called, you know, the unbanked, who don't have bank accounts, and if they do have credit cards, they are probably incredibly usurious ones that have very high interest rates. The tracking, I think, is a newer, more recent concern and is part and parcel of the fact that. That everything can be tracked now. Your phone, your whereabouts, your data, your social media. I mean, in a way that I think is truly frightening. My assumption, I actually don't know. My assumption is the reason that the Swiss authorities probably initially imposed that was because of concerns about tax evasion, because I can't really imagine any other reason for it. The thing that I'm most struck about actually walking around London as well as New York, where there are lots of homeless and poor people in the streets asking for money, is that I never carry cash around, and I think most people don't either. And it's just interesting in terms of the way kind of the social contract and interactions about money, particularly with the poor, are kind of playing out just.
A
Finally on this one, to establish a benchmark, I wanted to ask you both if you could remember the last thing you paid for with cash. I did buy a Remembrance Day poppy with a banknote note, which I. I had to hand, but that was. So that was a couple of weeks ago.
C
I would have really to think hard when I did pay something because in. In here in London, you can pay everything with a. With a. With card. So I really. I don't know if I paid. I came here two months ago and I don't think I have paid anything since then with the cash.
B
So. So one of my. I'm kind of embarrassed to say this because my.
A
Well, it's not going to be a turkey, as we learned.
B
No, it's not. No, no. One of my cooking indulgences is buying garlic that's already peeled, which my British friends, even those who cook, have ridiculed me for. And it's almost impossible to find.
A
Actually, peeling garlic is a faff. I was peeling garlic as recently as last night and thinking this is a faff.
B
Well, I don't know what a faff is, but I probably agree with you anyway, so. But there is. Korean grocers tend to sell them, but you have to have like a little minimum for the charge. So I paid for that with cash.
A
What isn't the minimum amount of peeled garlic you can buy in cash?
B
Oh, well, no, I mean, it was.
A
Like you can buy other things besides.
B
No, I'm saying it was only like 2 or 3 pounds, and they had like a 5 pound minimum. He didn't want to take my card for just the peeled garlic, so I paid for it in cash, which fortunately I had.
A
Well, to the US Billboard charts, specifically the country variant thereof, which have been topped for the first time by a track written and performed by Nobody. The song is called Walk My Walk. It is attributed to Breaking Rust. It is entirely AI generated. And it goes like this.
D
I've lost some friends Made a few.
C
New foes but that's just life that's.
A
How it goes I ain't bending over.
D
Just to please a crowd if I fall down I'll fall down proud I.
A
Talk my truth Walk my Walk by Breaking Rust, who does not Patricia, in any meaningful sense actually exist? Does this depress you on a scale of one to wherever?
B
So it sounds like the theme song for like a zombie series on Netflix.
A
And it probably will be.
B
I mean, so number one. I just want to say a lot of the download could be people listening to it or just people who are curious to what it sounds like. I was curious to what it sounds like. I think this is probably only the start. And we've seen it not only in this art, but in music, but in other arts and where you're having more and more AI generated things. And it's just, I think we can't even imagine the kind of things that are gonna come up that are gonna be reflected, replace things that many of us thought of as uniquely. Not only uniquely, but also kind of essential to being a human being or a living being.
A
Alexander. There is certainly, I will concede, generic country music created by human musicians, which is every bit as boring as that. But what I wanted to get into is like, can we imagine that it's going to be possible that AI is ever going to be able to do anything beyond competent generic replications of things other people have already done. Are we going to get an actually AI generated? I don't know, Merle Haggard, George Jones, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline. I'm trying to keep it strictly country so we stay focused here.
C
Well, I mean, some might see this just like as the continuation of the 80s and the synthesizer. So, like the. The electrification or the artificial. Whatever the word would be. I'm German, so we make long of music, is a fact for decades.
A
I remember the synthesizer panic of the 80s. Yes.
C
And that's what I mean. Like, there could be, like, some could make that sort of argument. On the other hand, we have been saying that AI and robotics are coming into this world to make us all poets and musicians. And now also AI is taking that from us. So, and you see, like on platforms such as Amazon, AI generated books who do not even make any sense, sell, and like big time. So you see, like, this is kind of a. I don't know if you have really anticipated that, because as I said, we believed in a new liberation for us to be creative human beings. But how AI is working, it's interesting. I'm playing the organ and you look into, let's say, Bach, and what did Bach different than the composers before him? It was just maybe one single note in one of his four voices, and that made the whole difference. And that came from his creativity. And exactly. This tiny little thing AI I believe, cannot replicate, because that's just like literally the thing, the quantum, that AI who's just working on the high amount and volume of data it has, I don't see how that will be producing this little, little thing that Bach could just do with one striking note.
A
Patricia, if we look at the question, I guess from the opposite direction, it makes me wonder the extent to which our appreciation of any work of art, whether it is a country song or a painting or a novel or whatever, is informed by our understanding of the creator. So I guess if. If you heard a song that you'd never heard before and you thought, wow, cool tune, and then subsequently learned that it was an entirely AI generated confection, would you then think the less of that song? Would you feel like you'd been swizzed in some respect?
B
I mean, look, we. That. That clearly is important to people, because otherwise there should just be a huge market for expert forgeries of every great painting that there is or artwork. And I mean, there's a lot of actually really good ones out there. There is something that people feel that they desire, and I can't really even explain necessarily why of this, you know, authentic, the unique. I've seen visual things produced by AI that I thought were really amazingly good. And I certainly can see, I mean, you're talking about Bach at a genius level. I'm sure there is AI music, probably, that would be pleasing to a lot of people. But it does concern me in terms of the larger question about the degree to which we're making ourselves obsolete.
C
We also see in there, if I may add on that especially we remembering our teenage years just now, the music in the 80s and the 90s was bands with lots of male singers with its own appeal. And now it became more like the solo. And now we have lots of female singers like in the charts. So I think, and these concerts are like well sought after and people pay a lot of money to go. But I'm saying the human element of the show and the performance of the music has gained even more traction, let's say, in the last five, six, seven years. And I think that might not only, but also be also a sign for that. We literally, especially after the pandemic, seek and long for these humanness in the encounter experience.
B
I mean, and also it was making me think, you know, why do people want a Gucci belt or a Hermes Birkin bag as opposed to a knockoff for a fraction of the price? I would be totally happy with the knockoff, actually. I think it's ridiculous to spend that. But your point also about experience, I think is craved and increasingly important.
C
And you make less money today with the music itself. A CD back then was 30 quid and now just the streaming. So you see, you pay hundreds of dollars for the tick just to see the human dance and sing, right?
A
Alexander Gerlach and Patricia Cohen, thank you both for joining us. Finally on today's show, some words for a country musician whose authenticity was never in question. Todd Snider died this weekend at the age of 59. If mainstream success largely eluded him, and it did, that was entirely the mainstream's fault and the mainstream's loss. If at any point in the last 30 years or so you asked any other somewhat left field country songwriter who they really looked up to, Todd Snider's name tended pretty quickly. It says much that the songwriters he most admired, John Prine, Jerry, Jeff Walker, became fans and friends. Snyder was a storyteller, first and foremost in performance. It was not unusual for his introductions to his songs to go on longer than the songs and generate at least as much applause. He wrote one memoir, I never Met a story I didn't like. Mostly true tall tales. Probably not all of it would stand up in court. But it was all absolutely in keeping with the career of a writer with a prodigious gift for spinning glorious yarns from the everyday and compressing complexities into witheringly economic zingers. On his song Age like wine. Reflecting on the road behind and the road ahead, he noted, it's too late to die young now. Like the most astute satirists, some of Snyder's work acquired the status of prophecy. This track from his 2004 album East Nashville Skyline is a startling prediction of the United States states 20 years later.
D
Conservative, Christian, right wing, Republican, straight white, American, male, gay Bashing black, fearing poor fighting tree, killing regional leaders of sales, frat housing, cake tapping, shirt tucking back slapping haters of hippies like me.
A
Todd Snider was a guest here at Midori House in the very early years of Monacle Radio. We gave him a microphone in the cafeteria. He plugged in his guitar. He told some stories and sang some songs, including this one. Looking for a job.
D
You can't talk to me like that, Bone. I don't care who you are. If you don't wanna have to hang your own drywall, don't push me too far. Boomtown work ain't that hard to come by. Boomtown workers are. You might be the one running the shadow show, but that doesn't mean you're in charge. I was looking for a job when I found this one. Don't need this work like you need the work done. You look like you're under pressure. I was looking for a job when I met you. I'm sharing a room with two guys over at the Motel 6 Ball saying every time I make you home to my ex wife. Just did 2 years and 28 days with a little bit of aim. I'd been in there for my life. So you see, broke. Won't take much getting used to neither. Bob White jailhouse.
A
Whoa.
D
Watch what you say to someone with nothing. It's almost like having it all. I was looking for a job when I found this one. Don't need this work like you need this work done. You look like you're under pressure. I was looking for a job when I met you.
A
The late, great Todd Snider at Midori House in 2012. Buy one of his records. That's an order. That's all for this edition of the Monocle Daily. Thanks to our panels today, Patricia Cohen and Alexander Gerlach. Today's show was produced by Hassan Anderson and researched by Joanna Moser. Our sound engineer was Christy o'. Grady. I'm Andrew Muller here in London. The Daily is back at the same time tomorrow. Thanks for listening.
Date: November 17, 2025
Title: Trump’s U-turn on the Epstein files: Does this help the MAGA camp or make things worse?
Host: Andrew Muller
Guests:
This episode delves into Donald Trump’s sudden shift in support for releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files, exploring the potential political motivations behind the move and how it may impact Trump and his supporters—particularly within the MAGA base. The panel also analyzes political justice in Bangladesh, the debate over cashless payments in Zurich, and the impact of AI on music, with reflections on the late country songwriter Todd Snider.
[04:00 – 12:50]
[12:51 – 19:32]
[19:32 – 24:58]
[25:12 – 31:30]
[31:42 – 36:00]
The episode thoughtfully examines Trump’s political strategy with the Epstein files, the evolving divide and cult of personality within the MAGA base, and the broader social impacts of both symbolic justice and new technology. It ends on a poignant note, celebrating Todd Snider’s legacy in contrast to the rise of AI-generated art, encapsulating the enduring value of authentic human creativity and connection.