On the 27th of March, the Coffeehouse Shots team will be joined by special guests to give you their take on a Spring Statement.

We will be live on stage at London's Cadogan Hall.

To get your tickets today, visit spectator.co.com.uk forward slash spring statement live.

We'll see you there.

Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American politics, power and prejudices.

It is 2025 and Donald Trump is president once again of the United States. We will, of course, be following the moves of the Donald and his second administration very closely. However, it won't just be politics

for us this year. We'll also talk a lot and cover American culture, life and the arts.

I should also remind you, because my producer, Natasha Natasha will not let me hear the end of it,

that we are on Spectator TV.

So head to our YouTube channel to watch that.

Today I am delighted to be joined by Jacob Halbrun,

who is editor of the national interest,

and a much appreciated spectator-contributor and columnist.

And we are going to be talking about whether Vladimir Putin has played Donald Trump,

because I'm reading that Donald Trump has been played quite a lot.

And Jacob, you have written a piece for the spectator,

the headline of which is Putin agrees to the bare minimum to placate Trump.

Do you think that it really was the bare minimum?

Could Putin have been even more obstinate in his concessions?

Well, first of all, Freddie, I should like to welcome you to our shores here.

I'm glad to see that you made it through customs and immigration, unscathed.

I should say, yeah, I'm in New York.

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