It’s now been more than a 100 days for Trump’s administration. The self proclaimed master of dealmaking has made international waves, with tariffs that have shaken (and confused) the world. But what do his deals look like now? And are politicians around the world starting to cotton on to how you keep him at bay? Is it just a case of giving him a large jet, as Qatar have done this week? The question for America is how can domestic opponents to Trump learn from his dealmaking abroad? Emily Tamkin and Rohan Venkat discuss.

Here are the Cycle Recommendations from this episode:

• Half of American Jewish voters believe Trump is antisemitic – Forward
• What does Trump want in the Middle East? – The Ghost of Abu Aardvark
• Trump did Riyadh. What did we just see? – The Ghost of Abu Aardvark

Subscribe below to our contributors' Substacks:

• ET Write Home by Emily Tamkin
• India Inside Out by Rohan Venkat
• Dividing Lines by Tom Hamilton

The Political Tricycle is a Podot podcast.

It's presented by Emily Tamkin, Tom Hamilton and Rohan Venkat.

Executive Producer: Nick Hilton.

Producer: Ewan Cameron

For sales and advertising, email nick@podotpods.com

To watch a video version of the show, go to COOLER.NEWS

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, India launched retaliatory attacks on Pakistani territory following last month's terror attacks that left 26 people dead in the tourist town of Pahalgam in Kashmir. That was the worst attack on civilians, on Indian soil, in 15 years, and it has reignited simmering tensions between the two nations, which focus on the disputed region of Kashmir. Operation Sindoor – as India has dubbed it – has been deemed a commitment to holding those responsible for the attack accountable, but the Pakistani authorities have denied all responsibility and promise their own reprisals. How dangerous is the situation between these two nuclear powers? How much of this escalation is being propelled by domestic political considerations? And will the international community – most importantly Trump's America – intervene? Emily Tamkin talks to Rohan Venkat about this delicate situation.

Here are the Cycle Recommendations from this episode:

• Bug-eyed and Shameless by Justin Ling
• Trump's first 100 days in 10 charts
• https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/pahalgam-terror-attack-jammu-and-kashmir-9963428/

Subscribe below to our contributors' Substacks:

• ET Write Home by Emily Tamkin (via Emily's Substack you can also listen to an ad-free version of the show)
• India Inside Out by Rohan Venkat
• Dividing Lines by Tom Hamilton

The Political Tricycle is a Podot podcast.

It's presented by Emily Tamkin, Tom Hamilton and Rohan Venkat.

Executive Producer: Nick Hilton.

Producer: Ewan Cameron

For sales and advertising, email nick@podotpods.com

To watch a video version of the show, go to COOLER.NEWS

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Canadians went to the polls this week and completed a staggering turnaround for the Liberal party. Having trailed hugely at the start of the year, a new leader – suave former central banker Mark Carney – has found himself elected, via a minority, as the country's next PM. Is this a victory for technocratic leadership? Or have Canadian voters simply wanted to demonstrate their ideological distance from Donald Trump, who has been battling Canada on trade and inflaming national pride with remarks about it being "the 51st state"? To look at this week's electoral shake-up, Emily Tamkin and Rohan Venkat are joined by political commentator and former Justin Trudeau speechwriter Colin Horgan.

Subscribe to Colin's Substack here!

Here are the Trike Recommendations from this episode:

• Bug-eyed and Shameless by Justin Ling
• Trump's first 100 days in 10 charts
• https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/pahalgam-terror-attack-jammu-and-kashmir-9963428/

Subscribe below to our contributors' Substacks:

• ET Write Home by Emily Tamkin (via Emily's Substack you can also listen to an ad-free version of the show)
• India Inside Out by Rohan Venkat
• Dividing Lines by Tom Hamilton

The Political Tricycle is a Podot podcast.

It's presented by Emily Tamkin, Tom Hamilton and Rohan Venkat.

Executive Producer: Nick Hilton.

Producer: Ewan Cameron

For sales and advertising, email nick@podotpods.com

To watch a video version of the show, go to COOLER.NEWS

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's episode of The Political Cycle, we're talking to Yamini Aiyar, Senior Visiting Fellow at the Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia, about a recent Foreign Policy report she's co-authored on the question of efficiency. With Elon Musk's DOGE bringing the idea to a mainstream audience, do we need to better interrogate the motives behind this trend? Here, she talks to our Cyclist Rohan Venkat.

Read Yamini's piece here.

Here are the Trike Recommendations from this episode:

• The Nehru Years: An International History of Indian Non-Alignment by Swapna Kona Nayudu
• Recoding America by Jennifer Pahlka

Subscribe below to our contributors' Substacks:

• ET Write Home by Emily Tamkin (via Emily's Substack you can also listen to an ad-free version of the show)
• India Inside Out by Rohan Venkat
• Dividing Lines by Tom Hamilton

The Political Tricycle is a Podot podcast.

It's presented by Emily Tamkin, Tom Hamilton and Rohan Venkat.

Executive Producer: Nick Hilton.

Producer: Ewan Cameron

For sales and advertising, email nick@podotpods.com

To watch a video version of the show, go to COOLER.NEWS

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

President Trump has been continuing his tornado of tariffs. Today, China was given a 104% tariff (naturally, this figure has changed in the few hours since we recorded). This has shocked the global economy, with stock markets around the world in fluctuation. But is this a tipping point? What recent global economic moments can we look at to guess what comes next? Is this anything like Brexit? Does it share similarities to India’s demonetisation? Emily Tamkin, Rohan Venkat, and Tom Hamilton discuss.

Here are the Trike Recommendations from this episode:

• https://alexmassie.substack.com/p/what-are-you-going-to-do-stab-me
• https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/09/opinion/trump-deportations-gulag-prison.html
• Foreign Policy: Efficiency Isn't Everything
• And a bonus extra: https://www.compactmag.com/article/liberation-now/

Subscribe below to our contributors' Substacks:

• ET Write Home by Emily Tamkin (via Emily's Substack you can also listen to an ad-free version of the show)
• India Inside Out by Rohan Venkat
• Dividing Lines by Tom Hamilton

The Political Tricycle is a Podot podcast.

It's presented by Emily Tamkin, Tom Hamilton and Rohan Venkat.

Executive Producer: Nick Hilton.

Producer: Ewan Cameron

For sales and advertising, email nick@podotpods.com

To watch a video version of the show, go to COOLER.NEWS

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In a blow to France’s far-right, Marine Le Pen has been barred from running for office for five years. The leader of the National Rally received a four-year prison sentence, two years of which were suspended, in addition to a €100,000 fine. Accused of embezzling EU funds, her hopes of becoming President in the immediate future have been dashed. But is the ruling an attack on far-right politics or a defence of democracy? And does the defanging of Le Pen and the NR provide a roadmap for other countries dealing with insurgent demagogues?

Emily Tamkin and Tom Hamilton discuss all this with Julien Hoez, a political expert and editor of The French Dispatch.

Here are the Trike Recommendations from this episode:

• https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/03/19/trump-tariffs-trade-farmers-agriculture-economy/
• https://danieldrezner.substack.com/p/the-exorbitant-price-of-trumps-tariffs
• https://apnews.com/article/wisconsin-supreme-court-elon-musk-81f71cdda271827ae281a77072a26bad

Subscribe below to our contributors' Substacks:

• ET Write Home by Emily Tamkin (via Emily's Substack you can also listen to an ad-free version of the show)
• India Inside Out by Rohan Venkat
• Dividing Lines by Tom Hamilton

The Political Tricycle is a Podot podcast.

It's presented by Emily Tamkin, Tom Hamilton and Rohan Venkat.

Executive Producer: Nick Hilton.

Producer: Ewan Cameron

For sales and advertising, email nick@podotpods.com

To watch a video version of the show, go to COOLER.NEWS

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mass demonstrations have erupted in Turkey after the jailing of Istanbul’s mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu. Thousands have gone to the streets to protest the silencing of President Erdogan’s most obvious opponent for the 2028 elections.

What does this public anger tell us about the regime’s current strength in Turkey? And are there through lines with other far right governments world-wide?

Tom Hamilton, Emily Tamkin and Rohan Venkat are joined by Selim Koru, the author of New Turkey and the Far Right.

Here's Selim's Substack!

Here are the Trike Recommendations from this episode:

• https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/is-turkeys-declining-democracy-a-model-for-trumps-america
• https://kalamweekly.substack.com/p/will-the-monarchy-return
• https://amitavghosh.com/parallel-journeys-turkeys-experience-of-akp-rule-and-its-portents-for-india-under-the-bjp/

Subscribe below to our contributors' Substacks:

• ET Write Home by Emily Tamkin (via Emily's Substack you can also listen to an ad-free version of the show)
• India Inside Out by Rohan Venkat
• Dividing Lines by Tom Hamilton

The Political Tricycle is a Podot podcast.

It's presented by Emily Tamkin, Tom Hamilton and Rohan Venkat.

Executive Producer: Nick Hilton.

For sales and advertising, email nick@podotpods.com

To watch a video version of the show, go to COOLER.NEWS

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Elon Musk and his DOGE squad continue their crusade against government bodies, slashing departments and firing federal employees. This, apparently, is done in the name of stripping things back, maximising efficiency and getting rid of the dark forces that obstruct government productivity.

But where did the idea of federal employees as a powerful force come from? And does it exist elsewhere in the world? Rohan Venkat, Emily Tamkin and Tom Hamilton discuss how countries view their own civil servants and federal employees.

Here are the Trike Recommendations from this episode:

• https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/19/canadian-detained-us-immigration-jasmine-mooney
• https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/january/everyone-has-their-reasons
• https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-doge-firing-federal-employees-ivy-league-jobs.html
• https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/19/health/food-safety-trump-fda-cutbacks-deadly-outbreaks.html (if only they’d published this before we recorded!)

Subscribe below to our contributors' Substacks:

• ET Write Home by Emily Tamkin (via Emily's Substack you can also listen to an ad-free version of the show)
• India Inside Out by Rohan Venkat
• Dividing Lines by Tom Hamilton

The Political Tricycle is a Podot podcast.

It's presented by Emily Tamkin, Tom Hamilton and Rohan Venkat.

Executive Producer: Nick Hilton.

For sales and advertising, email nick@podotpods.com

To watch a video version of the show, go to COOLER.NEWS

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.