A 31-year-old man has been charged with attempting to assassinate Donald Trump, after a thwarted attack at Saturday’s White House correspondents’ dinner. Immediately after this, conspiracy theories spread online that the assassination attempt was fake. This week, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Rachel Leingang about why conspiracy theories such as this about the US president are so prevalent

Three cabinet secretaries have left – or been pushed out – of the US administration since the start of March. Recent reporting suggests more could soon find themselves on the chopping block. Jonathan Freedland speaks to the MS NOW White House correspondent Laura Barrón-López about why Donald Trump is more ruthless in his second term

No matter how much Donald Trump outrages his opponents, nothing ever seems to stick. But what about his own base? With controversies surrounding the Epstein files, his war on Iran, and now a ‘blasphemous’ post depicting the president as Jesus, could Maga finally be pulling away? Jonathan Freedland speaks to Rolling Stone’s Nikki McCann Ramírez about the string of scandals dogging Trump, the Maga big beasts biting the hand that fed them, and what happens when a personality cult loses its personality

This week, despite securing a temporary ceasefire with Iran, there were calls from both the left and the right to invoke the 25th amendment of the US constitution to remove Donald Trump from office. Jonathan Freedland speaks to the Guardian’s Washington bureau chief, David Smith, about the various ways Congress could remove Trump from the White House

In the end, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or Doge, sort of just … fizzled out. So did Musk save the taxpayer any money? What happened the people who lost their jobs in the mass bureaucratic culling? What services were affected? Will Americans ever trust their government again? Jonathan Freedland speaks to author Sasha Abramsky about his new book, American Carnage: How Trump, Musk, and DOGE Butchered the US Government, and about what lasting legacy of Doge will be

Donald Trump says the US has won its war with Iran. Iranian officials responded to this by mocking him. This week, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Susan Glasser of the New Yorker about analysis suggesting Trump is losing his touch when it comes to sealing the deal, winning elections or just having the energy to run the White House

This is episode one of Off Duty, a new Guardian Investigates podcast series by Melissa Segura. On the evening of 29 December 2011, the police officer Clifton Lewis was moonlighting as a security guard at a Chicago minimart when two men walked in. They shot Lewis several times, then took off with his gun and police star. A week later, police had their suspects: four men affiliated with a gang called the Spanish Cobras. For hours, under intense police questioning, they all denied doing it. But that did not seem to matter. You can find the rest of the series on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts

Donald Trump has told his Nato allies: ‘We don’t need you.’ He also threatened to ‘massively blow up’ the world’s largest gasfield, despite Americans already having to deal with higher prices. This week, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Kamala Harris’s former national security adviser, Philip Gordon, about what this all means for the Iran war and Trump’s ‘America First’ policy

Since coming back into office, Donald Trump has sent troops to Venezuela, Iran and US cities. He has threatened to deploy them to Greenland in order to get what he wants. But what do the people who serve think of their commander-in-chief? If they wanted to, could they disobey his orders?

This week, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Janessa Goldbeck, a former Marine and the chief executive of Vet Voice Foundation

If you’ve been listening to the Trump administration this week, you would be forgiven for being confused about who started the war, why America got involved and what the end game is.

This week, the foreign policy expert Ali Vaez tells Rachel Leingang what it was like to take part in war game exercises for the Pentagon and how they compare with what he has seen play out this week. Then the Guardian’s Andrew Roth talks us through the inner chaos in the Trump administration and Congress over Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran