Episodes
What do Donald Trump’s tweets reveal about the man who, on 20 January, will be America’s next president? Will he continue to use what he has called his "beautiful Twitter” account to tell the world what he is thinking - and doing?
Published 01/18/17
A history of how the White House and the press corps learned how to live with each other. In 1897, when President McKinley was sworn in, there was no working relationship between the office of the US President and the members of the press. McKinley became the first president to allow press briefings, let the reporters into the Oval office and harness the power of the newspapers to affect public opinion.
President Woodrow Wilson treated the press like schoolboys and chatted to them while...
Published 01/16/17
A moving human story. If you listen to just one thing today, make it this one.
In 2008 Chloe Hadjimatheou was covering Barack Obama's first election campaign when she met a 15-year-old black boy in a Mississippi trailer park. Back then the young Tobias was full of potential and had big dreams of becoming a policeman.
"He really made an impression on me when I met him eight years ago. He just seemed like such a smart young man and I was just curious to see what happened to him... I was...
Published 11/17/16
Katty Kay explores the key moments and turning points in the US election campaigns and hears why Trump supporters in the key swing states such as Pennsylvania were so motivated to vote for Trump.
Weeks before, in the run up to the first Presidential debate, polls indicated that the candidates were neck and neck. Then the momentum of the campaign changed, with Donald Trump rocked by the leaked tape of his lewd comments and repudiation by some Republicans. Following an astonishing second...
Published 11/16/16
Donald Trump predicted that if he won the votes of America's evangelical Christians he would win the election, and he was right.
A quarter of all voters count themselves as evangelical and 81% of them voted for Trump, despite the deep misgivings and public disagreements among Christian leaders over whether their conscience would allow them to endorse him.
Jane Little speaks to four leading evangelical leaders about how they define evangelical Christianity, their hopes and misgivings...
Published 11/13/16
What might American foreign policy look like under a Donald Trump presidency? Based on his rhetoric during the campaign, the scale of the departure from the status quo will be profound. He promises to upend long-standing relationships with both America's traditional allies and its foes; he says Europe and Asia should pay more for their own security; and his plans to defeat so-called Islamic State are bellicose but unfocussed. On this week's Newshour Extra, Owen Bennett Jones and his guests...
Published 11/11/16
People scoffed, the pollsters dismissed it, the media thought better, the world is shocked - Donald Trump is President elect of the United States.
But as one Trump voter put it "He's done something amazing. He has turned the establishment on its end: is a man who never ran for political office, decided he was going to do it, beat the odds. I feel like it's a huge statement."
Jon Sopel and Katty Kay, presenter of the World News America, talk about how people voted in the US elections;...
Published 11/11/16
How has the US changed since 2008? As the world chews its nails, waiting to see how the US election story ends, Lizzie O’Leary looks at data to figure out how America is different now, in November 2016, from the country which elected its first black president eight years ago.
Published 11/07/16
In April 1995 a devastating bomb ripped through the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and 168 people died and many more were injured. Emma Barnett travels to Oklahoma City to find out what happened afterwards. She hears stories of resilience, defiance and success against the odds as the city came together to support and help those who suffered.
Published 10/31/16
Hamtramck, Michigan, is the first Muslim majority city in the United States. Just over 50% of the residents are immigrants from Bangladesh, Yemen and Bosnia. Only a few decades ago, the city was dominated by Polish immigrants. Jennifer Chevalier meets its residents and asks, can faith bring this city together?
Published 10/26/16
After three US presidential debates which have attracted some of the biggest viewing audiences in modern American political memory, what have we learned from these televised clashes? In one of the most bitter and polarised presidential campaigns, how much have Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton actually revealed about themselves, their policies and what they could bring to the White House?
Published 10/24/16
San Antonio is now a majority Hispanic city, and home to many entrepreneurial success stories. Joe Miller asks why Hispanic representation in big business has lagged.
Published 10/20/16
The final programme in the series brings together five of the speakers from the road trip
Published 10/12/16
In what is described as the fitting coda to his administration, President Obama cut the ribbon of the Smithsonian’s new National Museum of African American History and Culture on 24 September. Journalists Jesse J Holland and Robin N Hamilton are onsite in Washington DC for BBC World Service to hear from the architects, curators, donors, and expectant visitors who have travelled hundreds of miles to celebrate its grand opening.
Taking the last spot on America’s National Mall, the museum –...
Published 10/04/16
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are seen as the most unpopular candidates to have ever stood for the presidency of the United States. So why is it so difficult for a third party candidate to break through and make a real impact? Owen Bennett Jones and his guests discuss whether the US political system, trumpeted as a shining beacon of democracy across the world, really does give the voter the best choice.
Photo: A Trump supporter at the first US presidential debate in September 2016....
Published 09/30/16
Michelle Fleury and Ben Crighton travel from Louisville in Kentucky to New York on the East Coast. Along the way they speak to miners, environmentalists, food bank volunteers, drug addicts and former school students about President Obama’s legacy. Although the economy seems to have recovered from the global financial crisis, they encounter anger and disillusionment, and find that much of the optimism that swept Obama into office in 2008 has been replaced by division in Washington and across...
Published 09/25/16
Philippa Thomas and Charlotte Pritchard travel from Los Angeles and the glitz and glamour of Vegas to the edge of the country on the US-Mexican border in Texas. They talk to musicians, gun enthusiasts and cowboys about whether President Obama has delivered all he promised. As well as enthusiasm for the new healthcare reforms and the recovering housing market, they uncover the deep tensions and worries permeating this election year.
In the weeks before the 2008 US election, the BBC drove a...
Published 09/21/16
When President Obama stepped into the White House back in 2008, many hoped his mixed heritage would help unite the country, but eight years on America has never appeared more polarised. From Dallas to Nashville Chloe Hadjimatheou retraces a journey she took before Obama’s election across the southern states and stumbles across a gay community under attack, unfettered poverty in trailer parks, the last abortion clinic in Missouri, and meets convicted murderers, to find out why liberal and...
Published 09/21/16