If You're Listening
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The world is on fire. There's a coup. A former president is being indicted. Inflation is through the roof, and AI is taking our jobs. What does it all mean? Each week, Matt Bevan explains the biggest story in world news while hiding in his basement from assassins and authoritarian regimes.
If You're Listening
1d ago
In the United States, presidential elections rely on thousands of actual people coming together to scrutinise and then certify the results. That’s what will happen next week, when polls close on the race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. So what would happen if they just refused to certify a result, for political reasons?
In 2020, exactly this scenario played out, in an extraordinarily tense meeting room in Detroit, Michigan. In the four years since, Trump’s supporters have worked hard to try and replicate this roadblock around the country.
In this third episode of America’s Last E ..read more
If You're Listening
1d ago
On the road in Michigan, Matt Bevan heads to the state's political capital of Lansing. There, he meets a swing voter named David who is all in on Trump, navigates the labyrinth that is the state Capitol building, and samples local delicacies on the I-96.
Former top Trump advisor Steve Bannon is out of prison, and vowing to do what he can to help the Trump campaign win days out from the election, but the car radio is abuzz with a different story — the impact of comedian Tony Hinchcliffe's jokes on Puerto Rican voters in key swing states.
Episode 3 of America's Last Election will drop ..read more
If You're Listening
2d ago
Matt Bevan is on the ground in Michigan, Detroit, a key swing state in next week’s US presidential election. There are some things you just don’t get when you’re telling a story from your basement in Newcastle: candid chats with Republican voters on the plane, for one. Vice presidential motorcades screaming past you on the highway for another. Follow Matt as he travels through America in the lead up to election day, and hear from the people he meets along the way.
Episode 3 of America's Last Election will drop on Thursday morning.
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If You're Listening
1w ago
After the 2020 election, Donald Trump searched desperately for any theory that would allow him to retain control of the White House. On Christmas Eve, his team called a constitutional lawyer named John Eastman, who gave them something to work with. Eastman’s theory relied on Vice President Mike Pence playing along.
In this second episode of America’s Last Election, If You’re Listening looks at the theory the riot on January 6 was based on, and why Trump’s supporters thought it might work.
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Check out our series on YouTub ..read more
If You're Listening
2w ago
Donald Trump did not win the 2020 presidential election. But if you watched his speech on election night, you wouldn’t come away with that understanding. ‘Frankly,’ he said ‘We did win this election.’
In the months that followed, the story backing up that claim warped and changed, but at its core was a big lie about a supercomputer called ‘The Hammer’, an imaginary software called ‘Scorecard’, and a man with a long history of fooling the US government.
And now Donald Trump is on the ballot again. Over five episodes, If You’re Listening looks at the transition period after the 2020 election, an ..read more
If You're Listening
3w ago
Within months of becoming US president in 2017, Donald Trump threatened North Korea with “fire and fury”. Soon afterwards, he would tear up a nuclear deal with Iran and bring the US to the brink of war. And yet that war never came. This is the story of how Donald Trump resisted temptation and kept the peace.
This is a repeat episode, it was first broadcast on September 21, 2020. You can hear the rest of that series on our website or in our podcast feed: America, If You’re Listening.
News audio used in this episode comes from: Arirang News, Inside Edition, CNN, ABC America, Democracy Now ..read more
If You're Listening
1M ago
The world's most famous artificial intelligence company, OpenAI — the creator of ChatGPT — was set up to create a superintelligent AI, while at the same time safeguarding humanity from an omnipotent robot overlord which could enslave us all.
So is an AI apocalypse possible, and with wunderkind CEO Sam Altman in charge, will OpenAI be able to protect us from its own robots?
This is a repeat episode. It was first broadcast on November 30, 2023. You can watch this episode now on YouTube.
We'll be back with new episodes from October 17.
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If You're Listening
1M ago
After years of tension, diplomatic cold shoulders, and mountain skirmishes, both India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping appear to be looking for ways their nations can be friends again.
So what’s changed between the world’s two most populous countries? And what would a closer relationship between India and China mean for the rest of us?
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Check out our series on YouTube: https://youtu.be/J2021J90VM8?si=WIqBJ1vtlZ2et0lB ..read more
If You're Listening
1M ago
This month, the US Justice Department unsealed an indictment of two Russian state media employees. It alleges that they were funnelling millions of dollars into the pockets of American YouTubers, known for their contrarian viewpoints and controversial takes on the war in Ukraine. The YouTubers say they are victims of a criminal scheme and did not know they were being paid by Russia. But it’s not the first time that something like this has happened. There’s a long history of foreign adversaries covertly paying Americans to spread fake news to other Americans—it’s a move right out of Nazi German ..read more
If You're Listening
1M ago
The massive infrastructure project NEOM sits in the Saudi Arabian desert, and the jewel in its crown is The Line, a futuristic city which looks insane. The AI-generated ads depict a car-free city, for 9 million people, housed between two mirrors. Despite promises of millions of residents by 2030, the project has been scaled back by 98 per cent. The Line will be more like a dot. So what the hell happened? And was it all just a scam?
Subscribe to If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.
Check out our series on YouTube: https://youtu.be/SQdCl-cX-cU?si=AEQhcHtoBQXz2tSn ..read more