Episodes
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It’s Matt Bevan’s last 24 hours in Washington DC, and he’s leaving a very different place to the one he arrived in. Donald Trump is going to be president again, and in the United States, people from across the political spectrum are figuring out exactly what that looks like.
Matt sits down with ABC Global Affairs Reporter John Lyons in sunny Lafayette Park to chat about the potential geopolitical impacts of a second Trump term and how world leaders are already scrambling to get Trump on the phone to strike a deal.
This episode was produced by Kara Jensen-Mackinnon and Jess O'Callaghan.
This is the final Hello America bonus episode of If You’re Listening, thanks for coming along for the ride. The next episode of America’s Last Election will drop next Thursday morning.
Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.
Check out our series on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GOA7NxYvYKg?si=8U9OnBgsFBIjqRlA
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In this update from Washington DC, Matt Bevan is filling in as host for ABC News Daily to bring you an early morning update on all the events from overnight Australian time.
In a spectacular victory, Donald Trump has secured the US election to become the 47th President of the United States.
Matt is joined on the ground by Emma Shortis from The Australia Institute to explain where the Democrats went wrong and the Republicans went right - and what a more emboldened Trump with the support of the House, the Senate and the Supreme Court means for America.
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As the night goes on, and key states in the US presidential election are called for Donald Trump, it's becoming harder to see a way that Kamala Harris wins the White House.
Matt Bevan shares his view from a Washington rooftop on election night, where ABC News is covering the results. He reflects on the Harris and Trump campaigns, and what a second Trump presidency could look like.
Matt will be back in this podcast feed on Thursday morning hosting a special episode of ABC News Daily, speaking with Dr Emma Shortis from the Australia Institute.
Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.
Check out our series on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GOA7NxYvYKg?si=8U9OnBgsFBIjqRlA
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It's election day in America! But in the dying hours of Monday night (and the campaigns), Matt Bevan took a train to Pennsylvania to stand in queue for a massive Lady Gaga concert — Kamala Harris's final event before election day.
Luckily, you can get the speeches online. What you can't get is the vibe, which was apparent speaking to supporters in this kilometres-long queue.
On the train ride home Matt and Dr Emma Shortis from The Australia Institute decide the Democrats' election-eve vibe was: things seem good for Kamala Harris ... nobody jinx it.
We'll be back on Wednesday evening with an election-night update.
Read Matt on ABC News: When do polls close and when will we know the result of the US election?
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Check out our series on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GOA7NxYvYKg?si=8U9OnBgsFBIjqRlA
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It's election eve in America, and Matt Bevan is in Washington DC. How did he get there? By train, from Detroit, where he took in the fall foliage from the comfort of his tiny bunk bed, and talked politics over breakfast with a fellow train-devotee named Bill.
But neither Kamala Harris or Donald Trump is taking the slow train to election day -- both campaigns have whirlwind 24 hours planned, hitting the swing states key to winning the White House. Donald Trump is ending years of campaigning with a late-night rally that looks to soothe his superstitious mind, and Kamala Harris is throwing a massive garden party in Philadelphia. Speaking of which, Matt has another train to catch ...
This episode was produced by Kara Jensen Mackinnon and Jess O'Callaghan. Catch Matt across the ABC's election coverage on ABC TV, ABC NewsRadio and digital platforms, including this one; we'll drop a bonus episode when results start to shape up on Wednesday evening AEDT.
Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.
Check out our series on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GOA7NxYvYKg?si=8U9OnBgsFBIjqRlA
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Eight months before January 6, a very similar mob stormed a different government building. Armed men, furious about an extension of COVID lockdowns, stormed the state Capitol building in Lansing, Michigan.
It was a precursor to the march on the Capitol in Washington DC, with chants, signs and even protesters in common. But among some of the men in Michigan that day, a plot was brewing that was more sinister. It shows just how insidious and dangerous the lies spreading among Donald Trump’s supporters can be.
If he wins, Trump has vowed to pardon those people convicted of crimes on January 6—what signal could such immunity send?
We've released this episode of America's Last Election early, so you can listen before election day. The video of this podcast episode will be released on Saturday morning as usual.
Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.
Check out our series on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GOA7NxYvYKg?si=8U9OnBgsFBIjqRlA
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With only days until the election both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are zigzagging across the United States holding rallies to shore up support. At a Trump rally in the suburbs of Detroit, Matt Bevan chatted to a whole lot of fans waiting in line about why they're voting for Trump and what happens if the election doesn't go his way. He and Insiders host David Speers debriefed in the car ride back to the city.
If You're Listening's Hello America bonus episodes are produced by Kara Jensen Mackinnon and Jess O'Callaghan. Episode 4 of America's Last Election will drop early on Tuesday morning AEDT.
Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.
Check out our series on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GOA7NxYvYKg?si=8U9OnBgsFBIjqRlA
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It’s Halloween in America, and with the countdown on to election day, things are getting spooky. In downtown Detroit, Matt Bevan meets early voters, trick-or-treaters, and samples local delicacies — thanks to everyone who emailed with tips. Keep them coming, Washington DC is next: [email protected]
And as mentioned in the episode, if you have a question about the US election or our series America’s Last Election, email it through in the next few days. Matt will be kicking off election week by answering your questions in a live blog on ABC News Monday November 4, from 7AM AEDT.
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Check out our series on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GOA7NxYvYKg?si=8U9OnBgsFBIjqRlA
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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 Election, If You’re Listening looks at what that could mean for election day 2024, and the weeks that follow.
Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.
Check out our series on YouTube: https://youtu.be/UOu943VhPUM?si=tYbye3Z1esOay8n-
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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 on Thursday morning.
Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.
Check out our series on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GOA7NxYvYKg?si=8U9OnBgsFBIjqRlA
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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.
Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.
Check out our series on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GOA7NxYvYKg?si=8U9OnBgsFBIjqRlA
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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.
Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.
Check out our series on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GOA7NxYvYKg?si=3aBNwguMgMxDDmSl
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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, and what it tells us about the plan in 2024.
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Check out our series on YouTube: https://youtu.be/J2021J90VM8?si=rfkto42PZEG4PTPT
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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, Fox News, CBS, ABC News, and France 24.
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Check out our series on YouTube: https://youtu.be/J2021J90VM8?si=Tzw4B2i3Zp_qzPaK
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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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Check out our series on YouTube: https://youtu.be/-vew1rfrG6k?si=GFuWe7-uTaZiq_Gb
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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
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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 Germany’s propaganda playbook.
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Check out our series on YouTube: https://youtu.be/6XNK55tc3x8?si=LfMKtmTckpSzSGHO
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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?
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Check out our series on YouTube: https://youtu.be/SQdCl-cX-cU?si=AEQhcHtoBQXz2tSn
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Russia defends its enormous borders with the threat of nuclear war. It’s this threat that has long stopped Ukraine and its allies from attacking Russia on its home turf—there are ‘red lines’ that can’t be crossed without nuclear retaliation. Yet Ukraine just invaded Russian sovereign territory and still, no nukes. Volodymyr Zelenskyy appears to be calling Vladimir Putin’s bluff. It seems the ‘red lines’ were done in red pencil, not red pen. So how does this reshape the war, and what does it mean for Putin?
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Check out our series on YouTube: https://youtu.be/j08l1rGSdK4?si=6fW29sO97EPL991u
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It’s a dangerous moment for the Middle East. Israel and Hezbollah exchanged heavy fire over the weekend, including attacks on a pretty unique pocket of farmland — an Israeli-annexed area called the Golan Heights. In 2019 then-President Donald Trump broke with the rest of the international community and recognised it as part of Israel. There’s even an Israeli settlement named after him. Now, the world is watching the Golan Heights closely, fearful that fighting there could escalate and become a massive regional conflict.
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Check out our series on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ChypAR3VoTs?si=xqd83_k1xcRgCRFd
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