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    The week in audio: The Fault Line: Bush, Blair and Iraq; The Heist – review

    The Fault Line: Bush, Blair and Iraq | PodcastThe Heist | The Center for Public Integrity A couple of enlightening shows this week about how American and British politics work. The first, The Fault Line: Bush, Blair and Iraq, concerns itself with the politics of the fairly recent past: the 18 months between 9/11 and the 2003 Iraq war. Or: how Tony Blair and George W Bush fell in love.Hosted by David Dimbleby, whose podcast on the rise of Rupert Murdoch, The Sun King, was such a success last year, The Fault Line, produced by Somethin’ Else, is a clear and classy listen. Informative, too: Dimbers, as ex-host of Question Time, has an enviable contact list, and we hear from many important behind-the-scenesters. In last week’s episode, the first, we met Bill Murray (not that one), a US spy who repeatedly informed the White House that his intelligence indicated that Saddam Hussein did not have any weapons of mass destruction. This week, we’ll hear from Christopher Meyer, the British ambassador who says he was told to “get up the arse of the White House and stay there”. Dimbleby gives us little portraits of each. Murray: “quite a conspicuous person … he sticks out in a crowd”; Meyer: “slightly maverick, freewheeling”. He has an exemplary presenting style: honest without being trashy, measured without being boring.I’m not sure what I expected from this podcast. I think I thought I knew the story, so worried that I might be bored. I was very wrong: the show reminds you of those months before the invasion, but also gives context, unpicks relationships, underpins everything with insider info.Plus, The Fault Line has something else on its mind. Dimbleby asserts that this particular time, this particular US-UK love affair, laid the foundations for the current breakdown of trust between the electorate and our politicians. The podcast has not quite got there yet (an interview with Blair is promised, as well as Alastair Campbell.Until then, enjoy such little gems as the time that Dimbleby interviewed the then US secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, and Rumsfeld’s PR, after the interview, said, faintly: “Well, I think that’s lost me my job.” Or, in the second episode, when Lorna Fitzsimons, voted in as Rochdale’s MP in the 1997 election, recalls campaigning for New Labour: “It was wave after wave after wave of possibility and excitement. And people got involved: fourth-generation single parents, Asian women who had never been in politics before.”Enough of the good ol’ days: let’s tackle the now. The Heist, from the US’s Center for Public Integrity, has just released its third episode. It’s been getting a lot of attention in the US, not least because of Trump’s recent tax “revelations”. The Heist also talks Trump and taxes and – amazingly – makes this interesting.In the first episode, we learn about tax cutting. The Orange One was elected in 2016, partly because he promised to reform US taxes. When that didn’t happen, many Republican donors were upset. And in an unexpected move, one of these donors, Doug Deason from Dallas, decided to withdraw any financial help to Republican senators until the promised tax reform was passed. What’s more, he got in touch with a lot of other donors and urged them to stop coughing up too. He got them to turn off the money tap; the “Dallas piggy bank”, he calls it.A sensible straight-shooter, Deason’s job is to invest his family’s wealth, and he chooses to do this by investing in politicians. (There are different schemes to do this: the most disturbing is called dark money, as the show explains.) When Sarah Kleiner, from the Center for Public Integrity, asks him why, Deason is clear: he does it because he expects the politicians in whom he invests to do what he wants. “Obviously, you sort of buy access,” he says. “It’s no secret.”And the next episode, about Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s treasury secretary, is just as jaw-droppingly clear. A sometime banker and film producer, Mnuchin “is who he needs to be at any given moment”, says Sally Herships, The Heist’s host. Mnuchin’s most personally exciting Treasury moment appears to have been getting his signature printed on dollar bills.The Heist is a revelatory show, easy to understand and very listenable. So listen, understand, throw something in frustration, and then have a cup of tea to calm down.Three interesting shows about family (sort of)AppearancesThis is a fiction podcast that’s so close to the truth that I thought it was real for the whole of the first episode. Sharon Mashihi is Melanie Barzadeh, an Iranian-American on the verge of having a baby with her on-off older boyfriend. Melanie is in a mid-30s funk: messed up by her personal history and cultural expectations, as well as her own whither-my-life Brooklynite navel-gazing, she genuinely doesn’t know what to do in order to create the family life she craves. Produced by The Heart’s Kaitlin Prest, simultaneously irritating, moving, insightful and captivating, Appearances is unlike anything else out there.One of the Family With Nicky CampbellMention family and Nicky Campbell, and you’ll probably think of ITV’s Long Lost Family, which he’s co-hosted for years. But this show is about the brilliance of dogs. Campbell pulls in high profile guests – Ricky Gervais, Rebecca Front, Chris Packham – who relax, completely, when talking about their pets, revealing a softer side that we rarely witness. There is a little bit in the show about how best to look after dogs, but really this is just a chat between dog people about how great each other’s dogs are. Start with Gary Lineker and Nihal Arthanayake talking (separately) about the grief they felt when their dogs died.Newsbeat: Coronavirus and StudentsWhen you leave home to go to university, you begin to create your own, new family. So what happens when you have to lock down for 14 days? On Monday, Radio 1’s Newsbeat had the bright idea of asking student radio stations to report in. “We’ve been four days without food,” said one student at Manchester. A Nottingham student described his first experience of university as “a different version of socialising… fear and loneliness is accentuated in our year”. “Everyone feels isolated,” said a guy from Aberystwyth. “I’m quite homesick at the minute,” said a girl at Glasgow. Poor kids. More

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    Moderator Chris Wallace criticized as Biden drowned out by Trump in debate

    US elections 2020

    Fox News host blamed for failing to control debate stage as president spends evening talking over others

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    1:41

    US presidential debate moderator Chris Wallace struggles to contain Trump – video

    The Fox News host Chris Wallace faced much criticism as he struggled to referee the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden on Tuesday night.
    For most of the event, Trump talked over Biden and Wallace failed to keep the president patient for his chance to talk. At a few other moments, the Democratic challenger’s scowls and snickering at the president interrupted Trump’s comments.
    Many viewers blamed Wallace, though it was Trump who most often broke the agreed rules of the debate, refused to stick to his own speaking time, and steamrollered over both other men.
    “That was a hot mess, inside a dumpster fire, inside a train wreck,” said CNN’s chief Washington correspondent, Jake Tapper. “That was the worst debate I have ever seen. In fact, it wasn’t even a debate. It was a disgrace, and it’s primarily because of President Trump.”
    “That was the worst presidential debate I have ever seen in my life,” said ABC political anchor George Stephanopoulos.
    The former Democratic senator Claire McCaskill tweeted: “Chris Wallace is embarrassing, and trying to pretend that the problem isn’t 100% Trump.”

    Claire McCaskill
    (@clairecmc)
    Chris Wallace is embarrassing, and trying to pretend that the problem isn’t 100% Trump.

    September 30, 2020

    Again and again as Trump interrupted Biden, Wallace could be heard in the background saying “Mr President, Mr President”, trying to get Trump to wait his turn.
    Ben Rhodes, a political commentator and former deputy national security adviser under Barack Obama, tweeted: “Chris Wallace just disappearing.”

    Ben Rhodes
    (@brhodes)
    Chris Wallace just disappearing

    September 30, 2020

    Ana Navarro-Cárdenas
    (@ananavarro)
    Oh my God.Chris Wallace has totally lost control of this thing. He’s allowing Trump to behave like schoolyard bully, completely disrespecting the millions of Americans who tuned-in hoping to see a debate of ideas, and a plan to move America forward.

    September 30, 2020

    The New York magazine business journalist Josh Barro tweeted: “People are hating on Chris Wallace but I think there was no way to moderate this debate effectively.”

    Josh Barro
    (@jbarro)
    People are hating on Chris Wallace but I think there was no way to moderate this debate effectively.

    September 30, 2020

    Carl Bernstein
    (@carlbernstein)
    Chris Wallace needs to shut trump down and insist he follow rules…and , as moderator, enforce them…stop the debate for 60 secs and lay down the rules.

    September 30, 2020

    Debate moderators often get either high marks or low marks from viewers, conservative and liberal, during presidential debates. It’s rarer to see bipartisan agreement that a moderator lost control. That was the emerging opinion coming out of the first debate, as conservative commentators criticised Wallace for not challenging Biden on some of his attacks on Trump.
    Biden seemed to get frustrated with Wallace’s failing attempts to rein in Trump when it was his turn to talk.
    “It’s hard to get a word in with this clown,” Biden said.
    Wallace himself seemed aware that he didn’t have total command over the debate. After an extended speech by Trump, Biden said: “I can’t remember everything he was ranting about.”
    Wallace responded: “I’m having trouble myself.”

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    6:22

    Biden and Trump trade insults in frenzied presidential debate – video highlights

    Topics

    US elections 2020

    Donald Trump

    Joe Biden

    Fox News

    TV news

    news

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