PODCAST · society
Mallen Baker: Faultlines
by Mallen Baker
'Dangerously reasonable' analysis on politics, science, and particularly the bit where they bump into each other. I aim to give an independent, fact-focused, non-ideological take on the issues that matter.
Episodes
-
Zelensky Defies Trump And Hits Russian Oil Refineries Again
President Donald Trump came out this week as an agent of Putin's Russia, and adversary of Ukraine, and did so while demanding that Ukraine stop hitting Russian oil refineries. If it didn't, the US would likely withdraw all support. And it paused support for long enough to show what that would…
more -
Why Trump Cut US Support For Ukraine - And What Comes Next
Having threatened dire consequences if Ukraine didn't agree to President Donald Trump's demand that they stop attacked Russian oil refineries, over the last couple of days we've seen signs that those threats have turned into some action - maybe just temporary, to demonstrate to the Ukrainians…
more -
Russia vs NATO: The Ugly Truth Behind the New Defence Strategy
The top military leader of NATO just openly explained the alliance's strategy for dealing with possible Russian incursions into the territory of a NATO member. It's a construct that has obviously been carefully put together - but maybe not solely as the best military strategy for dealing with...
-
Trump Just Showed His True Face As An Enemy Of Ukraine
Following his shock deal with Russia on diesel, President Donald Trump followed up by making it starkly clear that he is going to use that deal to try to force Ukraine to give up its most powerful weapon against Russia. Ostensibly, it's to lower world diesel prices (which it won't) and it serves...
-
How Iran Just Forced Trump To Retreat | News Round-Up
In this news round-up of the week for Friday October 9th 2026. President Trump acts tough on Iran, but can't cover the fact that the US has been mostly running away from them in the last couple of weeks. The US finds itself similarly in retreat over the one-sided deals it tried to force African...
-
Trump In Full-On Panic Over Mid-Terms - Hints At A Coming 'Surprise'
The polls continue to give worse and worse news for Trump and the GOP over the coming mid-term elections, and now the signs are all over the place that panic is setting in. This involves President Trump posting constantly on social media, firing off in all directions, picking absurd fights,...
-
Russia Plague Report Shows The World Learned Nothing From Covid
One woman died from an unspecified illness in Russia - which wouldn't be a point of concern except that she worked in a laboratory that deals with the plague, and post-Covid there are concerns about just what sort of work might be being done, by a Russian state known to be involved with…
more -
Trump's Attacks On Allies Blow Up In His Face | News Round-Up
In this news round-up of the week for Friday October 2nd 2026. The G20 trade ministers revolt against the Trump administration's demands that they line up behind America's trade agenda. It turns out that abusing allies turns them into ex-allies. Britain's new prime minister has electrified the...
-
Trump's Divide And Conquer Plan To Blow Up NATO
NATO members have just discovered that the Trump administration has set up a meeting to discuss the future of the alliance, and has pointedly NOT invited some of its key members, including the United Kingdom and France. This seems to be the latest move in President Trump's plan to punish any…
more -
Why Trump's Latest Putin Plan Has His Own Side Disgusted
Recently, President Donald Trump has increased the pace of his attempt to rehabilitate Vladimir Putin's Russia in the world community. To all appearances, this seems driven by an increasingly urgent wish to strike lucrative deals with it, perhaps recognising that the options will narrow after a...
-
Russia's Hybrid War: How Europe Is Side-Stepping Trump In Its Response
Two things in one week. One - European countries have been meeting together to look at how they respond - outside of NATO - to Russia's increasing hybrid warfare against them. And two - a leaked report from the Belgian Foreign Ministry reveals how they see, and are responding to, US President...
-
How Xi Left Trump With Two Pandas And A Short Truce | News Round-Up
In this news round-up of the week for Friday September 25th, 2026: China's Xi Jinping has his big state visit hosted by President Trump. Almost none of the important things were said out loud. Trump invites Vladimir Putin to the G20 meeting in November, setting up a unintended opportunity for...
-
The Bizarre Conspiracy Of Silence On The Greenland Deal
The day after the deal was signed between President Donald Trump, Denmark and Greenland, and we've had time to absorb the full text of the agreement and the differing narratives that have circulated in its wake. The MAGA narrative is obvious, and probably required - 'Trump won'. But the other...
-
How Xi Jinping's China Is Taming Donald Trump
Today was a helter skelter of foreign policy set pieces for President Trump, with the United Nations General Assembly in full swing. But tomorrow is when the real action begins, when China's Xi Jinping arrives for his state visit to the US. Relations between the two competing giants are fraught,...
-
Is Greenland Making A Huge Mistake?
President Donald Trump has announced an imminent deal between Denmark, Greenland and the United States - and that has been confirmed in outline by the other parties. Some are presenting this as Trump getting what he always wanted, others that it is a neutral deal that will remove all the energy…
more -
Trump's Worst Week As Reality Smacks Him In The Face | News Round-Up
In this news round-up of the week for Friday 18th September 2026. President Trump has one of the worst weeks of his second term as all the big things come home to roost at the same time. Also, since Vladimir Putin shows no sign of ending his war on Ukraine in order to do deals with the US, Trump...
-
Why Canada and Europe's Move Just Sent Trump Into a Fury
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke today at the European Parliament, just one day after EC President Ursula von der Leyen called for Canada to become the first 'associate member' of the European Union. Needless to say, this news - which, at first glance has nothing to do with him, went…
more -
Republicans Turn on Trump Over Putin Oligarch Wedding Gift
A number of prominent Republicans have turned from Donald Trump and his family in disgust. Not because of Trump's support for Putin over Ukraine. Not because of his disastrous war in Iran. No - because a Putin-linked Oligarch funded a two-day wedding after-party for Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr....
-
Trump Insists The AI Apocalypse Be Made In America
All weekend, the talk has been about the AI apocalypse, with the most well-known and powerful AI company leaders letting it be known that they favour a slowdown so the technology doesn't get out of control. It turns out that President Donald Trump has no time for such talk, he's obviously better...
-
How JD Vance Is Getting Ready for When Trump Is Gone | News Round-Up
In this news round-up of the week for Friday September 11th 2026: The Iranians take actions to escalate the war with the US, even as Trump is trying to keep it quiet. JD Vance lays out his stall for his shot at the presidency in 2028 as echoes of politics-as-usual can just faintly be heard....
-
Why Trump's Big Bribe Is Designed To Fail
President Donald Trump spoke for two hours at his unusual midterm elections conference - and the big headline was that he promised to pay every adult citizen of the United States $5,000 should Republicans win both the Senate and the House. Yes, this is obvious and naked bribery. Yes, it should be...
-
Trump's War on Canada Has Nothing to Do With Trade
Today saw the imposition of Canada's retaliatory tariffs on the United States in the latest phase of its trade war with Donald Trump's America. In response, he has blustered and insulted, and today launched a broadside against Canadian aerospace firm Bombardier. But those covering the dispute as...
-
The Far-Right AfD Just Pulled Down Germany's Firewall - And Maybe Europe's As Well
The AfD victory in Saxony-Anhalt was not unexpected - polls have been forecasting the likely victory for months. But it remains shocking for what it represents. Because the AfD is not a populist like President Donald Trump, the clown show variety. Nor is it like Giorgia Meloni, the radical who...
-
Pete Hegseth - Trump's Pick For Next President? | News Round-Up
In this news round-up of the week for Friday September 4th 2026: The resignation of US Army secretary Dan Driscoll leaves Pete Hegseth exposed as more voices are raised against him - but could that actually make him the next MAGA presidential candidate? The US tells American space companies to...
-
Trump Needs The Iran War To Go Quiet - But Iran Won't Let It
The last few days have seen missiles exchanged once again between the United States and Iran. For all President Trump's threats to escalate and hit Iran 'harder than ever', he obviously is keen for the outburst to subside. And that's because the strategies have shifted into one where stalemate is...
-
World Pushes Back Against Trump's America At The G20
The United States grabbed its turn to host the G20 summits in order to boast to the world about how wonderful its economic policies are, and to encourage everyone else to follow its lead, to submit to its rules, to experience the freedom of subservience. They may not have used those exact words,...
-
Why Trump's Venezuelan Oil Grab Is Doomed To Fail
President Donald Trump shamelessly declared almost immediately that he aimed to get a big slice of Venezuela's oil for the United States once it had removed former dictator Nicolas Maduro. But not only is he finding the practical reality of that oil grab more difficult than he had anticipated…
more -
Why Trump's NATO 'Loyalty Test' Has Allies Scrambling | News Round-Up
In this news round-up of the week for Friday August 28th 2026: The US pushes NATO alliance members to declare their loyalty to Donald Trump, even as different stories emerge over the secret mission to talk to Moscow. President Trump signs an executive order to rename the Lake of Ontario while...
-
Why Trump's CIA Director Just Went To Moscow — And It's Not About Ukraine
John Ratcliffe, CIA Director, just made a surprise visit to Moscow. Nobody will say why, and speculation turned immediately to the idea he was there to push Putin on moving towards making peace with Ukraine. But that seems like wishful thinking, compared to the other likely explanations - one of...
-
How China and Canada Block Trump's Bid To Dominate The World
President Donald Trump really wants to make the decisive move that will bring Iran to heel, and end the war there in triumph. But his best chance is blocked by China. And he really wants to be able to bully all the former allies of the US into doing whatever he wants, whenever he wants it. But…
more -
Why Carney Called Trump's War On Canada - And Why Others Should Do The Same
The trade deal, which had been described as 'nearly there', fell apart. And Mark Carney explained after the event, it did so because a last minute insertion of demands that intruded onto Canada's sovereignty, as well as being one-sided. This is no surprise - it is the Trump playbook of the last…
more -
The Trump and Carney Showdown | News Round-Up
In this news round-up of the week for Friday August 21st 2026: Canada's Mark Carney is head to head with the Trump administration as attempts are made to get a last minute trade deal over the line. But is there more to it than meets the eye? Disney is fighting an apparent punitive censorship push...
-
Trump And Iran Are Both Changing Their War Strategy — And Only One Of Them Has A Plan
The war in Iran has been at a standstill for months, with traffic trickling through the Strait of Hormuz, and no real impetus for negotiations. You should expect that, in such a situation, eventually people will change their approach to seek to gain a breakthrough advantage. And over the last…
more -
How Trump Is Quietly Bullying South America (And The World)
We've seen the bluster and the bullying of President Donald Trump in the headlines, but there is a quiet daily push going on much more under the surface. It is all the more insidious because it is little noticed, part of the daily friction of life in Trump World, and more to the point - it works....
-
Bizarre Trump Lashes Out At Allies, But Not The Enemy
President Trump has the appearance of a man furious at his lack of options - to the degree where he is thrashing out at whatever is within reach. So he threatened US ally Oman with being bombed if it 'gets in the way'. He slated ally South Korea because it declined to help him in Iran, even…
more -
Trump Demands Loyalty From NATO Or Lose US Troops | News Round-Up
In this news round-up of the week for Friday August 14th 2026. President Trump is demanding expressions of loyalty from NATO members before deciding where US troops will be withdrawn. Is this the moment where it really gets ugly? 150 thousand Canadians are demanding that the US ambassador to…
more -
What Nobody's Saying About Trump's Catering Truck Switch
We just learned that Trump switched planes to fly out of the Turkey NATO summit, and he did so under the cover of a catering truck. There's one detail to this that nobody is commenting on - and a wider context that is likewise not getting attention, even though it's absolutely key to the dynamic…
more -
Trump Just Pulled His Next Move On Greenland
Various people in the know have said that President Donald Trump has not given up on his ambitions to get Greenland. And so we can see, as an oil company with strong connections to the president has been preparing to drill for oil there without the needed permission from the Greenlandic...
-
How Trump's Bullying Is Increasingly Backfiring On America
There is nothing in the mere fact of having a dominantly powerful country in the world that says that it would be expected to act as an out-and-out bully. Indeed, before President Donald Trump, it was considered to be in the US strategic interest not to do that, for all that the US would…
more -
Iran Cuts Trump Out Of Its Deal | News Roundup
In this news round-up of the week for Friday August 7th 2026. Iran and Oman are close to a deal on the Strait of Hormuz that cuts out Donald Trump's America entirely. Not everyone in the media, nor in the Trump administration itself, have entirely absorbed the fact. As the dust settles on the...
-
Why Pete Hegseth's Luck May Have Run Out
For the last year and a half, President Donald Trump and his self-styled Secretary of War Pete Hegseth have been pretty much in lockstep. But as the Iran war sours on Trump and he is confronted with the reality of weapons depletion, he has started lashing out at those he holds responsible - and…
more -
Why Trump Is Calling Everyone A Communist — And What Comes Next
President Trump is displaying one of the most distinctive traits of the irrational dictator, as seen throughout history. And it's very bad news for Americans, given how it tends to play out as one step follows another. But it's trouble as well for the rest of the world, because the US is...
-
Why Iran Is Now Openly Laughing At Trump's Latest U-Turn
When President Trump threatens thunder and fury, and then announces that negotiations are under way - he rather expects to be taken seriously. And he's used to the illusion of that, because world leaders won't mock in public, and the media often report his words as though they represent more than...
-
Why Trump's Big Gaza Breakthrough Is Not Real | News Round-Up
In this news round-up of the week for Friday July 31st 2026 President Donald Trump announces that his Board of Peace has emerged triumphant with a breakthrough in Gaza. As you would expect, it's a bit more complicated than he would have you believe. Brazil denies visas to US state department...
-
Fauci Hearing Shows How Far America Has Fallen
Many countries across the world have held inquiries into what worked and what didn't during the Covid-19 pandemic. Some have been better than others, but none of them looked like the complete sham accountability exercise that saw Anthony Fauci required to testify to Rand Paul's committee. So what...
-
What Almost Nobody's Saying About Trump, Putin And Ukraine
Following Trump's reportedly successful meeting with Ukraine's President Zelensky, many reporters are talking about how various factors are 'turning' Trump, or 'warming him' towards Ukraine and against Putin's Russia. At this stage in the Trump presidency, with all that has happened in the last...
-
Trump Confronted With Stark Reality Of His Failure In Iran
President Trump was in talks to discuss all his options in massively escalating the war against Iran over the weekend. It turns out, they were a lot more limited than he had imagined. Now, confronted as he has finally been, with the enfeeblement he has brought upon the US military, he must surely...
-
Trump's Delusions About Iran Make The War Unwinnable | News Round-Up
In this news round-up of the week on Friday July 24th 2026. President Trump is furious about the rapid leaks about all the mis-steps and u-turns he's making over the Iran war. But they are many, and serious, and reveal that his push for military escalation is based on a delusion. The Saudis are...
-
Trump's Gaza Peace Plan Just Fell Apart
President Trump's biggest triumph, according to some, was to get Israel and Hamas to agree to his Gaza peace deal. And then, to follow that up with the creation of the Board of Peace to oversee an astonishingly ambitious transformation of the territory from wartime disaster to thriving economic...
-
Trump Clueless About Missile Shortage As He Escalates Iran War
As Trump's attacks on Iran resume, and his rhetoric escalates, reports are emerging that officials in the Pentagon are just not telling the White House, and Pete Hegseth, the truth about how depleted the US arsenal actually has become. Why? Largely because Hegseth's purges of senior figures have...
We're indexing this podcast's transcripts for the first time — this can take a minute or two. We'll show results as soon as they're ready.
No matches for "" in this podcast's transcripts.
No topics indexed yet for this podcast.
Loading reviews...
ABOUT THIS SHOW
'Dangerously reasonable' analysis on politics, science, and particularly the bit where they bump into each other. I aim to give an independent, fact-focused, non-ideological take on the issues that matter.
HOSTED BY
Mallen Baker
CATEGORIES
Loading similar podcasts...
Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Mallen Baker: Faultlines have?
Mallen Baker: Faultlines currently has 600 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Mallen Baker: Faultlines about?
'Dangerously reasonable' analysis on politics, science, and particularly the bit where they bump into each other. I aim to give an independent, fact-focused, non-ideological take on the issues that matter.
How often does Mallen Baker: Faultlines release new episodes?
Mallen Baker: Faultlines releases new episodes frequently with a large back catalog of 600 episodes. Check the episode list for recent publication dates.
Where can I listen to Mallen Baker: Faultlines?
You can listen to Mallen Baker: Faultlines on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Mallen Baker: Faultlines?
Mallen Baker: Faultlines is created and hosted by Mallen Baker.
URL copied to clipboard!