Following President Donald Trump’s tariffs and President Xi Jinping's refusal to back down, the world is in a new era and the UK has a decision to make. Does it line up behind the US President and freeze diplomatic relationships with Beijing? Or, with an increasingly radical leader in Washington DC, do they switch their allegiance? What does the UK do about China’s human rights record? In a world of strong men hostile to liberal democracies, where does the UK go? On this episode of the Fourcast,...
Apr 17, 2025•39 min
President Donald Trump’s second term is almost at 100 days. Unlike 2016, he is now surrounded by passionate supporters and close allies. One key figure in the second series of Trump is Vice President JD Vance, a pure believer in the MAGA movement. On this episode of the Fourcast, Matt Frei is joined by Dr James Orr, JD Vance’s ‘British sherpa’, self-described ‘national conservative’ and leading intellectual figure of the right. Orr is the UK Chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation and an Associa...
Apr 15, 2025•32 min
Economic relations between the US and China are effectively over as the world’s two largest economies trade blows in a tit-for-tat trade war that’s brought the global world order into a new era. As Xi Jinping calls on the EU to join him in opposing President Donald Trump’s ‘bullying’, where does this leave the rest of the world? Is globalisation over? On this episode of The Fourcast, Matt Frei is joined by Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, former adviser of Bill Clinton and forme...
Apr 11, 2025•39 min
President Donald Trump has authorised a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs for all countries except for one, China. The president slapped a bespoke 145% tariff on Beijing, effectively ending trade between the world’s two largest economies. What does this new world order mean for the rest of us? Where will this tit-for-tat trade war end? Will there be any winners? Or could it escalate into something much worse? On this episode of The Fourcast, Matt Frei is joined by Fiona Hill, who was senior dir...
Apr 10, 2025•36 min
Pia Sinha worked in prisons for 24 years before being appointed CEO of the charity Prison Reform Trust and she describes herself as a "ridiculously optimistic" person, who believes the prisons can be made to work properly. Sinha started her career in prison as a psychologist and went on to work in female, male prisons and institutions for young offenders. She was the governor at three prisons and later was responsible for all the women’s prisons in the country. Sinha, who believes many of the pr...
Apr 10, 2025•36 min
Donald Trump has announced global tariffs on an unprecedented scale, holding up a chart in the White House Rose Garden outlining what each country will pay and while the UK seems to have got off relatively lightly, almost nowhere has escaped America's determination to bolster its home-grown trade and manufacturing. Even the penguins that are the only inhabitants of a chain of remote Antarctic islands have been slapped with a 10 percent tariff. Prices in the US are likely to go up. The global eco...
Apr 03, 2025•34 min
Benjamin Netanyahu has said his intention is to implement Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza, while Israel comes under intense criticism after the bodies of 15 emergency workers were discovered dead in southern Gaza and the UN says they were killed “one be one” by Israeli forces. Sharon Haskell is from the New Hope party in the Israeli parliament and she is the deputy foreign minister in Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government. She spoke to Krishnan Guru-Murthy in the latest episode of the Fourcast....
Mar 31, 2025•40 min
The Fourcast breaks down a huge day for the UK economy and British politics, as Rachel Reeves delivers her Spring Statement with cuts to welfare and a new forecast from the OBR slashing the UK’s prospect for growth. Krishnan Guru-Murthy was joined by our Economics Correspondent Helia Ebrahimi and our Senior Political Correspondent Paul McNamara to explain what this means for you and explore the political fallout. Produced by Girish Juneja, Rob Thomson, Ka Yee Mak, Calum Fraser...
Mar 26, 2025•31 min
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have spoken on the phone for over 90 minutes thrashing out a deal to halt the bloodshed in Ukraine, and Russia has now agreed to a 30 day energy and infrastructure ceasefire as well as negotiations on the implementation of a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea. In this episode of the Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murthy speaks to Russia’s Ambassador to the UK, Andrei Kelin, about the talks between Russia and the USA over Ukraine, Europe's attempts to provide security gu...
Mar 19, 2025•34 min
The ceasefire between Hamas and Israel has been broken, as Israel launched overnight air strikes on Gaza that Hamas says has killed more than 400 people - sparking fears the region could be plunged into all out war once again. Francesca Albanese is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories and her opinions have sparked controversy in the past. Israel officially banned her from entering the country in February 2024 after she wrote in a tweet “the victims of 7/1...
Mar 18, 2025•30 min
President Zelenskyy has signed up to Donald Trump's proposal for a 30-day ceasefire with Russia and in return American arms and intelligence have started flowing into Ukraine again, but the question now is whether Vladimir Putin will agree to a pause in hostilities. The Russian President knows every KGB trick in the book and is likely to resist giving up territory and prisoners. How does Donald Trump get him on board for a peace deal that lasts longer than the time it will take Russia to regroup...
Mar 12, 2025•23 min
Donald Trump has read out a letter from Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying Ukraine is ready to negotiate and the president says he's getting strong signals from Russia that it is also ready for peace, but - if that deal boils down to Ukraine surrendering territory, American mining companies extracting minerals from Ukraine, and no security guarantee - is that real peace? And would a deal like that hold? In this new world of strong man politics, has Ukraine been bullied and Russia indulged? And what does...
Mar 05, 2025•32 min
Donald Trump has suspended all military aid to Ukraine, in another move that has shocked Europe, thrilled Vladimir Putin and Russia and dismayed Ukraine, but Volodymyr Zelenskyy has now reached out to the US president in a bid to heal relations damaged by the bust up in the Oval Office last week. Will it work? Will Donald Trump change his mind, again? And what does Vladimir Putin really think of it all? In this episode of the Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murthy is joined by CNN Chief International An...
Mar 04, 2025•31 min
Keir Starmer has met Donald Trump at the White House but will his flattering words and invitation from the King be enough to persuade America not to turn its back on Europe and help Ukraine in its fight against the army of Vladimir Putin - or will President Zelenskyy need to give up all his country’s mineral wealth too? In this special episode of the Fourcast, Matt Frei is joined at the White House by Channel 4 News Political Editor Gary Gibbon and International Editor Lindsey Hilsum. Produced b...
Feb 28, 2025•20 min
As the war between Russia and Ukraine hits its 3 year mark, Germany elects a new government to join its beleaguered neighbours in trying to get Europe – and President Zelenskyy - out of the mess caused by an aggressive President Putin on its East flank, and an antagonistic President Trump on its West. More money, for more troops, actually on the ground in Ukraine? It’s a move most of Europe seems reluctant to make, but can the continent avoid catastrophe by going it alone? In this episode of the...
Feb 24, 2025•26 min
America’s Marco Rubio and Russia’s Sergey Lavrov have met in Saudi Arabia for Ukraine war peace talks. The US says a peace deal must be "fair, enduring and acceptable to all the parties involved" - not that all the parties - like Ukraine or the Europeans - were invited by Donald Trump to the first round of the talks. So what do Russia and the US really want to get out from it? And will Russia be brought in from the cold internationally? To discuss this on this episode of The Fourcast, Matt Frei ...
Feb 18, 2025•27 min
As Trump is invited to Moscow and praises Putin after a call with the Russian leader about peace negotiations, his defence secretary Pete Hegseth says American troops will not go to Ukraine as peacekeepers as part of any future deal with Russia. He also announced Ukraine will never be part of NATO and needs to say goodbye to territory seized by Russia. In this episode of the Fourcast, Matt Frei discusses all of this and more with Channel 4 News’ international editor Lindsey Hilsum. Produced by C...
Feb 12, 2025•31 min
Donald Trump has spent the week turning the world upside down again - launching a trade war with China and claiming America will take over the Gaza Strip - and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is scrambling to work out how best to respond to the American president. Sir Keir met with EU leaders earlier in the week for post-Brexit reset, but the prospect of closer ties comes just as Donald Trump has the EU in his crosshairs - saying he’ll slap tariffs on the bloc, while suggesting he might spare th...
Feb 06, 2025•33 min
Donald Trump, with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his side, has said the US should take over Gaza, own it, and turn it into the "Riviera of the Middle East", but within hours of these comments Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Palestinians have rejected the suggestion outright. So what is Donald Trump really up to? Is this a serious proposal, a negotiating position or the dreams of a reality show star on the world stage? On this episode of the Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murthy is joined by our...
Feb 05, 2025•31 min
Donald Trump’s long promised trade war has begun, sort of - the US president threatened to slap tariffs on America’s biggest trading partners, before backtracking and striking a deal with Mexico and Canada. But a 10% tariff on Chinese goods has come into force and Beijing has retaliated by imposing hefty levies on a range of American imports and vowing to investigate Google over antitrust allegations. So will Trump’s tariff wars totally backfire? And how should other world leaders, including Kei...
Feb 04, 2025•27 min
In a major speech on growing the UK economy, Chancellor Rachel Reeves says she will make Cambridge and Oxford the “Silicon Valley of Europe” and build a third runway at Heathrow Airport - which is now backed by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer even though he opposed it in the past. So will Labour deliver? Can Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves really get the economy firing again? And will it be enough to turn around their recent political woes? Discussing this and more in this episode of the Fourcast...
Jan 29, 2025•30 min
In Donald Trump’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos he said, again , that he wants a peace deal with Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine, again suggested Canada could become part of America and again raised the spectre of tariffs that economists say could devastate the global economy, so what is the new American president’s vision of the world order and how will he deal with China and Xi Jinping’s claims over Taiwan? In his inaugural address President Trump said America would expand...
Jan 23, 2025•27 min
Hours after Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States of America, he signed executive orders to take the US out of the World Health Organisation and the Paris Climate Accords; around 1,500 January 6 rioters were freed; a national emergency at the US-Mexico border was declared, he made the designation of two genders an official government policy and the TikTok ban was paused - and that’s before he made off-hand comments on whether the fragile ceasefire in Gaza will last...
Jan 21, 2025•28 min
Donald Trump is set to be sworn in as President of the United States of America for the second time - but, from TikTok and the southern border, to Ukraine and the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza - he faces even bigger challenges than he did eight years ago. Will he really end the Ukraine war on day one, pardon the January 6 rioters in the “first hour” and potentially bring back TikTok? And while his personal brand of right-wing populism is totally dominant now, will there be a...
Jan 19, 2025•26 min
Israel and Hamas have finally reached a ceasefire deal over the war in Gaza days before Donald Trump takes over from Joe Biden as the next US president - but Benjamin Netanyahu’s government hasn't signed it yet - and while Palestinians in Gaza are celebrating, there’s still a chance it could be derailed. Yet, if the deal holds, it will be a historic moment, but why has it taken so long and what’s next for the people of Gaza and Israel? In this episode of the Fourcast, Matt Frei is joined by Chan...
Jan 16, 2025•27 min
Amid turmoil in the bond market and a plummeting pound, Sir Keir Starmer has had to defend his chancellor Rachel Reeves while dealing with the resignation of the former anti-corruption minister Tulip Siddiq. So, can Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves turn it around? The Prime Minister says it will take 10 years to solve some of the chronic issues facing the UK, but will he even get a second term with Labour's support sliding in the polls and Nigel Farage's Reform UK breathing down his neck? In this ...
Jan 15, 2025•28 min
Silicon Valley’s billionaires are making headlines again as Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg says he’s going to get rid of factcheckers on his social media platforms, while X’s Elon Musk continues to attack UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz - so have we entered a new age of political discourse? In this episode of the America Fourcast, Matt Frei is joined by Albert Eisenberg, a political strategist who runs the messaging firm BlueStateRed, and Joan Donovan, assistant prof...
Jan 07, 2025•34 min
With the Israel Gaza war reportedly on the brink of a ceasefire and Iran reeling after the devastation of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the Middle East is on the cusp of a complete realignment in 2025. Will Syria buck the trend of so many nations after the Arab Spring that have descended into chaos after the fall of a tyrant? The country’s new de facto leader Mohammed al-Jolani, who is now using his real name Ahmed al-Sharaa, says he will be moderate and will sta...
Dec 20, 2024•25 min
It’s a matter of days since Bashar Al-Assad’s regime in Syria was toppled by a lightning-quick offensive led by the rebel group Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) - and Syrians are still in a state of euphoria at their newfound freedoms, but also horror as evidence of Assad’s torture chambres are revealed. Channel 4 News’ Krishnan Guru-Murthy and Lindsey Hilsum have been on the ground in Damascus and in this week’s episode of The Political Fourcast they discuss what is really happening there and whethe...
Dec 12, 2024•25 min
Bashar al-Assad has fled Damascus to Russia where Vladimir Putin is reportedly sheltering the former Syrian dictator - for those Syrians who have defied Assad’s brutal regime for years this is a moment of celebration and hope, but also fear. Will Syria manage to move on from more than a decade of war to become a democratic state, or will it descend into further chaos and violence like Libya and Iraq did after liberation from their dictators? On this week’s episode of the Political Fourcast, Kris...
Dec 09, 2024•25 min
