Can anyone beat a madman president?

Freddy Gray speaks to James D. Boys, author of the new book US grand strategy and the madman theory . He is also a senior research fellow at UCL. They discuss the origins of the madman theory – which applies insights from psychology to understand how your enemies think. James covers it from from Nixon to Trump and its intellectual home in Boston. They also explore how the madman theory is being applied in the Middle East conflict and how regularly the theory can be misapplied. Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more. For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts . Contact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Can anyone beat a madman president? is an episode from Americano by The Spectator.

This episode is 29:02 long.

This episode was published on Mar 17, 2026.

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