The News Agents

Welcome to The News Agents USA - a new weekly podcast hosted by Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel.

Episodes are available every Tuesday on Global Player and on all other platforms from Wednesday.

The News Agents are on the move this week.

Jon is in Miami, where Donald Trump is due to be formally arraigned by a federal court. The man in the golfing gear brings us the latest from Florida and speaks to the legion of Mega die hards who have assembled outside the courthouse.

Meanwhile, Lewis has been on his own tour of the central belt of Scotland, where the SNP are still reeling from the shock arrest of former leader and First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon. He speaks to SNP MSP James Dornan and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar.

We of course also find the time to chew over Nadine Dorries’ allegation that she didn’t get a peerage because of her background. Rather than because she was, you know, already a democratically elected representative.

Just another day in politics on both sides of the Atlantic.

How should an incumbent handle their big beast predecessor? Rishi Sunak discovered the satisfaction of a drive by shooting - accusing Boris Johnson of asking him to break the rules. Later on in the day, Johnson told LBC that Sunak's claims were "rubbish".

In Scotland, Humza Yousaf has meanwhile refused to suspend his SNP mentor Nicola Sturgeon - arrested and released without charge over the weekend.

What does this behaviour tell us about the way the parties are handing scandal in their midst?

We talk to Lord Nicholas Soames - grandchild of Churchill about the man who thought he was Churchill. And to Douglas Ross - Tory Leader in Scotland.

We hear from Jon on his way to Miami and reflect on the partygate grandfather of them all - Silvio Berlusconi who has died.

Boris Johnson quits as an MP after being handed the findings of the Privileges Committee report into whether he knowingly misled parliament.

In this emergency episode, Lewis (yes, him again), Emily and Jon pick apart this extraordinary day in UK politics.

Boris Johnson's long-awaited resignation honours list has been published. It means some of his closest aides throughout the partygate scandal will sit in the House of Lords for life, and his list also honours former cabinet ministers Jacob Rees-Mogg and Priti Patel.

Just minutes before the list came out, Nadine Dorries - the former culture secretary and a close ally of Boris Johnson - quit as an MP with immediate effect, triggering a by-election in her Mid-Bedfordshire seat, hours after she said on TV that she didn't want that...

And the Labour party are also causing a stir after watering down their flagship pledge to spend £28 billion a year on green technology.

The policy was supposed to power Britain’s next industrial revolution. But now Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves has rowed back the plans - blaming the Conservative party for “crashing the economy”. Lewis asks what it means for Labour, as they aim for election victory.

Rishi Sunak has reportedly waved through Boris Johnson's controversial and much-talked about honours list. Why? And what does this mean at the slightly grubbier end of British politics.

Caroline Lucas is to step down from Parliament after 13 years of flying the Green Party flag. Is the beginning of a rebirth in left-wing politics, or is it more like the beginning of the end?

And how does the newspaper industry cover Prince Harry when they’re part of the trial?

Golf as we know it has just been sold, kind of wholesale, to Saudi Arabia.

The gulf state is acquiring lots of high end sports brands right now. And it's using sportswashing to reposition itself as a diplomat on the world stage.

Meanwhile, Keir Starmer has run into trouble with the unions by promising an end to new oil fields in the North Sea. He wants his own Inflation Reduction Act creating green jobs for the future. But can we afford it?

And UFOs are no longer the stuff of conspiracy nutters - Congress has now promised protection to whistleblowers who will come forward to tell us what alien aeriel sightings they've spotted in our skies. Why is this happening now?

Prince Harry has blamed the tabloid press for the rift with his brother, the break up of former relationships and what he describes as a narrowing circle of friends.

The Mirror - who he's suing today at the High Court - say he's been through a lot but technically it wasn't their hacking... So who is going to win this one?

And as Mike Pence - Trump's former Vice President - enters the race to be President of the USA, we talk to a man who thinks neither will make it to the final round.

Anthony Scaramucci was Trump's comms director for ten and a half days. He's full of the gossip of the biggest race in town.

MPs are allowed to donate however much they wish of their private money to whomever they chose.

In 2018, as per The Mirror, when Rishi Sunak was just an MP - the family donated more than 3 million dollars to a private tech college in California - previously attended by his wife.

Fast forward to 2023 where a primary school in his constituency has spent nearly a year fundraising to find 10k to buy school kids computers.

We talk to a mum who's been at the coalface of the bake sales and is wondering why she had to work so hard to drum up a fraction of Sunak's donation.

We also look at the narratives -loud and soft - coming out of Ukraine and ask if the military counter-offensive is finally underway.

The government has taken the Covid inquiry, that it set up and poured so much public and private faith in, to court. What the f•••?!

We try to make sense of this with Lara Spirit of The Times

And.. is the mortgage market fast becoming a serious economic crisis in the UK?