{"podcast":{"title":"Americast","slug":"americast-89638","podcast_index_feed_id":89638,"rss_url":"https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/p07h19zz.rss","website_url":"http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07h19zz","image_url":"http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/3000x3000/p0k99j29.jpg","author":"BBC","episode_count":644,"summary":"Insight and analysis on what's happening inside Donald Trump's White House. Americast is the authoritative US news and politics podcast from the BBC. Each week we provide audiences with the best analysis from across the BBC, with on-the-ground observations and big picture insights about the stories which are defining America right now. The podcast is hosted by trusted BBC journalists including the BBC’s North America editor, Sarah Smith, BBC Radio 4 presenter, Justin Webb, the BBC’s social media investigation correspondent, Marianna Spring, and BBC North America correspondent, Anthony Zurcher. As well as political analysis, we also specialise in social media. Each week Marianna Spring brings listeners the latest updates from the BBC’s Undercover Voters, our award-winning investigation into the content that is recommended to US voters on social media. The team is also joined by special guests each week, like CNN anchor, Christiane Amanpour, Emmy Award-winning TV host, Rachel Maddow, and Succession actress, J Smith-Cameron. Podcasts are published every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. As well as being a podcast, we are also available every Friday on BBC Radio 4 and every Saturday on th…","last_synced_at":"2026-09-22T06:20:31.692128+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/americast-89638"},"episode":{"title":"How will Trump’s former personal lawyer run the US justice department?","slug":"how-will-trump-s-former-personal-lawyer-run-the-us-justice-department","published_at":"2026-08-21T11:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/americast-89638/how-will-trump-s-former-personal-lawyer-run-the-us-justice-department","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/americast-89638","url":"http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0p5l363","audio_url":"http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/6/redir/version/2.0/mediaset/audio-nondrm-download-rss/proto/http/vpid/p0p5l2r7.mp3","summary":"Attorney General Todd Blanche won’t pledge to act “independently” from the White House during an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press. Trump’s former personal attorney said no attorney general should ever “pledge” to act independently from the White House, but assured the public that the president would never ask to do “something illegal”. Blanche’s comments have sparked a debate over the extent to which the justice department should be free from White House control. This comes at a time when Blanche was criticised for helping set up an “anti weaponisation fund” to compensate people who Trump claims were unfairly targeted by the previous Biden administration, such as Jan 6th rioters. There are also fears among Epstein survivors that Blanche - who was criticised for interviewing Ghislane Maxwell in prison - could affect their pursuit of justice. And, a major legal case brought by 29 US states against Meta has begun, which could affect the way social media companies operate in the future. The states involved claim that Meta - which owns Facebook and Instagram - violated federal and state privacy laws for children and are seeking billions of dollars in damages as well as changes to user experience. HOSTS: • Sarah Smith, North America Editor • Sumi Somaskanda, BBC News Chief Presenter • Marianna Spring, Senior Social Media Investigations Senior Correspondent GET IN TOUCH: • Join our online community: https://discord.gg/qSrxqNcmRB • Send us a message or voice note via WhatsApp to +44 330 123 9480 • Email Americast@bbc.co.uk • Or use #Americast This episode was made by George Dabby with Alix Pickles. The technical producer was Ricardo McCarthy. The series producer is Purvee Pattni. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham. If you want to be notified every time we publish a new ep…","meta_description":"Attorney General Todd Blanche won’t pledge to act “independently” from the White House during an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press. Trump’s former perso…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":1731,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/americast-89638/episodes/how-will-trump-s-former-personal-lawyer-run-the-us-justice-department/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/americast-89638/how-will-trump-s-former-personal-lawyer-run-the-us-justice-department.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}