Freddie Hayward

Washington, D.C., United States

US Correspondent at The New Statesman

Writer at Morning Call (The New Statesman)

US correspondent, @NewStatesman Contact: [email protected]

Articles

Can the White House stomach this trade war?

2 weeks ago | newstatesman.com | Freddie Hayward

The question every finance minister, factory owner, stockbroker and person who uses money to buy stuff is trying to answer is whether Donald Trump’s tariffs are permanent. Will he back down on his huge wave of tariffs once other countries drop their own tariffs on American products? Or is protectionism the point? Team Trump itself does not seem to know. Each day more loyalists start to sound as if they hope the president is lying but fear he is being honest.
Elon Musk’s Wisconsin mission explodes

3 weeks ago | newstatesman.com | Freddie Hayward

Elon Musk might have just lost his lustre in the Oval Office. Just days ago, he said Western civilisation hinged on whether the Republican-backed candidate won a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The election results are now in, and the West has fallen. The Democratic-endorsed candidate Susan Crawford won despite Musk pumping $25 million into her opponent’s campaign, handing out $1 million cheques to voters and even paying voters $50 to take photos outside polling stations.
Gavin Newsom’s cynical, shallow podcast

3 weeks ago | newstatesman.com | Freddie Hayward

The Democrats are getting into the entertainment business. During the campaign, they watched Donald Trump bypass the mainstream media by riffing for three hours in the studios of podcast kings such as Lex Fridman, Theo Von and Joe Rogan. Young voters listened enraptured, the thinking goes, and then bolted to the polls. So now the party is on a tortured search for that political elixir called “authenticity”.
What the Signal group chat really revealed about Trump's team

4 weeks ago | newstatesman.com | Freddie Hayward

One way Europeans have coped with the return of Donald Trump is by clinging to the belief that the president and his team don’t really mean what they say. Anyone still labouring under that delusion should look at the leaked Signal group chat messages about a missile strike on the Houthis between the US defense secretary Pete Hegseth and other top officials.
Trump’s Golden Age

1 month ago | newstatesman.com | Freddie Hayward

In his inauguration speech in January, Donald Trump heralded a new “golden age of America”. “From this day forward,” he said, “our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world.” He promised a manufacturing boom, falling consumer prices and the colonisation of Mars.
Trump's speech highlighted America's new politics

1 month ago | newstatesman.com | Freddie Hayward

You would have learned more about American politics by observing the audience at Donald Trump’s speech to Congress on Tuesday (4 March) than by listening to what the president actually said. Trump was there to tout his achievements over his first 43 days in office. The Senate, the House of Representatives, his cabinet and the Supreme Court all gathered in the Capitol to hear him speak. Tens of millions of people were expected to tune in.
MAGA godfather Steven Bannon extols a ‘reframing’ US-Russia alliance

1 month ago | afr.com | Freddie Hayward

Freddie HaywardMar 4, 2025 – 11.24am or Subscribe to save articleSubscribe to gift this articleGift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe. Subscribe nowAlready a subscriber? At 9.39am on February 18, Steve Bannon walked into his basement studio in Washington DC, placed three iPhones on the table, hoisted the blinds and started ripping newspapers out of plastic packets: The Washington Times, the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal.
Morning Call: Was Starmer’s Trump meeting really a triumph?

1 month ago | morningcall.substack.com | Freddie Hayward

Good morning from Washington DC. It’s Freddie here. My report from yesterday’s historic day at the White House is below. You would be forgiven for thinking that Keir Starmer had restored the “special relationship” of legend. He’d just finished his remarks in the White House’s grand East Room, when Donald Trump turned to him and praised his “beautiful accent”. It was already going well and then Trump made warm noises about a UK-US trade deal – Boris Johnson’s great chimera.
Was Keir Starmer’s Trump meeting really a triumph?

1 month ago | newstatesman.com | Freddie Hayward

You’d be forgiven for thinking that Keir Starmer had restored the “special relationship” of legend. He’d just finished his remarks in the White House’s grand East Room, when Donald Trump turned to him and praised his “beautiful accent”. It was already going well and then Trump made warm noises about a UK-US trade deal – Boris Johnson’s great chimera. The threat of tariffs was talked down, and Trump blessed Starmer’s return of the Chagos islands.
Steve Bannon interview: the godfather of the Maga right

1 month ago | newstatesman.com | Freddie Hayward

At 9.39am on 18 February, Steve Bannon walked into his basement studio in Washington DC, placed three iPhones on the table, hoisted the blinds and started ripping newspapers out of plastic packets: the Washington Times, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal. His television show, WarRoom, which appears on the cable channel Real America’s Voice, was due to go live in 21 minutes. “Have [you] got a map yet?” he demanded of his young producer like a Napoleonic marshal.