Dr Emma Shortis explains what's going on with the United States this week.
Mon 20 Oct 2025 09.00
Photo: AAP Image/Lukas Coch
It isn’t always easy to keep up with what’s happening in the US. ‘This Week in America” is a series where Dr Emma Shortis loops you in on what’s going on in America and shares news and analysis that you can trust.
It’s a big week for Australia’s relationship with the United States. In the early hours of Tuesday morning Australian time, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will sit down in the White House with President Donald Trump.
This week:
Ok – not quite. Christmas would be a State Dinner – a special, sit-down dinner at the White House in honour of the Australian Prime Minister. Albanese had one with President Biden. It seems unlikely there’ll be one of those, but you never know.
Anyway, Albanese meets Trump in the early hours of Tuesday morning our time.
There’ll be lots of fawning coverage, lots of body language analysis, and probably not much deep thinking about what we’re really getting in to. Or any real questions about why anyone thinks a meeting in which the best possible outcome is that the PM is just a little bit humiliated is a good idea.
Will the President call Anthony Albanese “beautiful”? Will Australia hand over all of our critical minerals to the United States in the hope that Daddy will still protect us? We’ll know by tomorrow.
I’ll have a piece in The Conversation and here on The Point analysing what happens and what it might mean, and a special crossover episode of our podcasts After America and Follow the Money will drop on Wednesday afternoon.
The Australian Government has generally, and rightly, shied away from talking up Australia’s “shared values” with the United States more recently (though there are some notable exceptions).
As the Australian Prime Minister heads to Washington, the “shared value” of democracy is under considerable strain.
I’m generally pretty sceptical of Cailfornia Governor Gavin Newsom – American political culture generally looks too hard for individual heroes to come and save the day, and all the talk of Newsom as a 2028 Presidential candidate can get pretty tiring. But I was really struck by this interview he did with Politico – pointing out, rightly, that Trump isn’t leaving, and struggling to keep the audience to take him seriously.
But they keep telling us what they’ll do – Steve Bannon, MAGA architect, did it again just this week.
Speaking of Christmas – two of our favourite writers did a thing together!
I get asked a lot about the psychology of Trump as an individual, and I’m increasingly convinced there’s not much point talking about that anymore.
Trump himself is straightforward. It’s understanding the politics and the history and the culture that got him there that matters.
Tressie McMillan Cottom and Jamelle Bouie are brilliant at that. They’ve done a collaborative piece in the NYT on Trump and the South, with David French. It’s also available in video podcast form.
Shorter America this week, link roundup:
Experts say the insertion of US special forces into Caracas and the abduction of President Maduro was a precision tactical operation.
A new Australia Institute podcast shows why an amnesty is needed to address the estimated 7000 cases of people who have “disengaged” from the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme.
The abduction and subsequent arrest of the President of Venezuela is a dramatic re-statement of America’s dominance of the western hemisphere and its willingness to do whatever it takes – including defiance of international legal norms – to protect and promote its interests.