The Coming Storm

Gabriel Gatehouse is joined by the BBC’s US Digital reporter Mike Wendling to answer listener questions. Has the storm finally come? What do listeners want to know about the incoming Trump administration? Gabriel Gatehouse is joined by US-based BBC journalist Mike Wendling to answer listener questions about Donald Trump's picks for influential positions and about how to report on conspiracy culture. This live recording happened on the Live News stream on BBC Sounds the day before President Trump was inaugurated. Producers: Lucy Proctor and Charlotte McDonald

Over two series this podcast has followed a cast of characters who propelled Trump into the White House – twice. Many of them are now likely to take power and inject their reality-bending world views into America’s health, security and intelligence infrastructure. Who are they and what do they believe? There's Kash Patel, Trump's pick for FBI director. He was deeply embedded in the Russiagate saga. Several bit-part players in our episodes who've now been promised influence. Elon Musk of course. And then there's Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Son of a murdered Senator, nephew of a murdered president, he believes many of America's three-letter agencies represent a threat to national health and security. Presenter: Gabriel Gatehouse Producer: Lucy Proctor

Gabriel Gatehouse, producer Lucy Proctor and Ben Ansell, Professor of Comparative Democratic Institutions at Oxford University, in front of a live audience at the BBC’s Radio Theatre. As the team emerges from series 2, what have we learned about the future of democracy in an age of technological change and split realities? Producer: Lucy Proctor Sound design and mix: James Beard Editor: Richard Vadon Script consultants: Richard Fenton-Smith and Afsaneh Gray Commissioning editor: Dan Clarke Original music: Pete Cunningham

In the 1990s a group of futurist thinkers meet on one of the world’s first email lists. The Extropians imagine a world of augmented human bodies, nanotechnology, cryptocurrencies and artificial intelligence. Now, some of the thinkers on that email list are turning that AI future into a reality. But others are now worried - what if the AI ends up in charge of us all? As we head into an epochal shift for humanity, questions about democracy and tyranny run through the debates about how fast or slow to move forward. Because we don’t want to end up living in the Matrix… Producer: Lucy Proctor Sound design and mix: James Beard Editor: Richard Vadon Script consultants: Richard Fenton-Smith and Afsaneh Gray Commissioning editor: Dan Clarke Original music: Pete Cunningham CREDITS: Timothy Leary 1992 half-hour appearance with cable TV host Skip E Lowe, copyright unknown, Alan Eichler, YouTube After all, the body is an extension of fashion, Natasha Vita More, YouTube

In series one of this podcast we spent months investigating QAnon, a crazy conspiracy theory involving an elite cabal of paedophiles and child sex traffickers. And we never really grappled with… this actual convicted paedophile and sex trafficker, who was at the centre of a network of global financial cultural and political elites. But the story of Jeffrey Epstein is more than a kernel of truth at the heart of Qanon. It connects the idea of a cabal of elite paedophiles to the wider conspiracy theory we’re looking into for series two, one that millions of Americans believe: that democracy is a facade, and that the institutions of America, from politics to finance, from Hollywood to the secret intelligence agencies, are controlled by hidden hands. Producer: Lucy Proctor Sound design and mix: James Beard Editor: Richard Vadon Script consultants: Richard Fenton-Smith and Afsaneh Gray Commissioning editor: Dan Clarke Original music: Pete Cunningham CREDITS: Stephen Hawking clip from goal.cast, TikTok Jeffrey Epstein reporting in Florida, 2008-2011 from WPBF, Palm Beach Post, WBTV, Miami Herald G Edward Griffin clip from The Subversion Factor, Knowledge 2020 Media, 1983 Gamestop archive from CNBC Ian Carrol's videos: Cancelthisclothingco on TikTok Peter Thiel on The Joe Rogan Experience