April 24, 2026 - "American Week": U.S. threatens to review Falkland Islands' British sovereignty, as King and Queen pack bags for Washington

Tom Swalbrick on LBC.

10-6 Friday evening, Tom Swalbrick here on LBC means, as you know, one thing.

We're all here to celebrate or commiserate the fact that 250 years ago,

that upstart nation over the Atlantic decided we weren't good enough for them.

Well, how's that working out for you?

With the US about to feel the sharp end of British soft power as the king head stateside,

it's Simon Marx, American week.

Tom, I must confess that when I went to bed last night, it never occurred to me

that I would be starting this American week by talking about the Falkland Islands.

But here we are, 72 hours before the king and queen arrive in Washington for their state visit.

And this time round, the president is not even waiting for the fair wells

to open up a new front against Sakeer Starmer's government.

In a set of options that would punish NATO members for failing to join the disastrous US and Israeli war on Iran,

the Pentagon is suggesting the future of the Falklands should be on the block,

which of course would not only punish number 10, but delight President Javier Malay,

Trump's mucker in Buenos Aires, who happens to have reasserted Argentina's right to the islands just three weeks ago.

And beyond the Falklands, yesterday at the White House, there was this.

Prince Harry, today, has said that he would like to do more to end the war in Ukraine.

Do you think it's appropriate for a royal to make those comments ahead of the visit on Monday?

Prince Harry?

Yes, sir. How's he doing?

Well, is his wife, please give her my regards, okay?

Now, he could have left it there. His voice dripping with sarcasm about the estranged son and daughter-in-law of the very king

he will be welcoming to Washington next week. But of course, he didn't.

Prince Harry is not speaking for the UK. That's for sure.

I think I'm speaking for the UK more than Prince Harry.

But I appreciate his advice very much.

Which you are a great advice to the dinners of the state business.

Well, I look forward to the dinners. Having King Charles come, he's a friend of mine.

We're really looking forward to it. We've spoken. And it's working out a great time.

We're going to have very great people that love the UK. I love the UK.

I think they made a big mistake on energy.

You should open up the North Sea in Aberdeen.

We should open it up. And the other thing is they made a big mistake on immigration.

He just can't stop himself, which is why next week is such a potentially treacherous moment

for the rapidly diminishing and no longer special relationship between our two countries.

It is hard to imagine what a win looks like beyond 96 hours in which the president zips his lip

and at least waits for the royal plane to depart American airspace

before launching yet another effort to diminish the Prime Minister

who has already got more than enough trouble on his plate.

Speaking of trouble, Iran continues to provide the president with plenty of it.

They want to make a deal. We have been speaking to them.

But they don't even know who's leading the country. They're in turmoil.

We don't know who the leader is in Iran.

Now, you could actually argue his own government is the one in turmoil.

This week, the president's approval rating created to 33%, its lowest level yet

and only 30% of American voters approve of his handling of the economy,

which is the top issue on their minds less than seven months from midterm elections.

As ever, there were contradictions aplenty in his various pronouncements on Iran this week.

His claim there that we don't know who the leader is in Iran.

Another undercut his own press secretary Caroline Levitt, 24 hours earlier,

she had assured White House reporters that the administration knew exactly what it was doing.

Well, we obviously know who we're negotiating with because our negotiating team has sat down with those individuals in person.

But obviously, there's a lot of internal fraction and internal division,

which, again, just proves the effectiveness of Operation Epic Fury in the first place.

Oh, yes, the effectiveness of Operation Epic Fury,

the military attacks that the White House publicly claims have brought Iran to its knees.

Here's the president on Tuesday with a whole raft of non-sequitors on CNBC.

We've taken out their navy, we've taken out their Air Force.

It is regime change no matter what you want to call it,

which is not something I said I was going to do, but I've done it indirectly maybe, but I've done it.

I think we're in a very strong negotiating position.

The thing about that, though, is that they're telling an entirely different story

in classified briefings on Capitol Hill.

The Washington Post reported this week that behind closed doors,

the Pentagon has warned Congress that even when peace is finally agreed,

it will then take up to six months to clear the straighter four moves of minds.

So higher petrol prices are very much here to stay.

And Fox News revealed that in a separate classified briefing,

the top official from the Defense Intelligence Agency told lawmakers,

Iran still has thousands of missiles and drones,

both of them posing a significant risk to militaries of the United States and its Gulf allies.

So this ain't the slam dunk that self-styled Secretary of War Pete Hegseth wants you to believe.

Our blockade is only growing and going global.

We have all the time in the world.

Iran has a historic chance to make a serious deal,

and the ball is in their court.

Either way, the war department stands ready for what comes next, locked and loaded.

Now talking about being loaded, veteran listeners may remember that when Mr. Hegseth was nominated to lead the Pentagon,

many lawmakers were somewhat nervous about his enjoyment of a drink,

to the point where he had to promise to disavow alcohol

if he wanted more than two million active duty military personnel under his command.

This week, another member of the Trump administration found himself accused of an ongoing relationship with the bottle.

Can you say definitively that you have not been intoxicated or absent during your tenure as FBI director?

I can say unequivocally that I never listen to the fake news mafia.

And as when they get louder, it just means I'm doing my job.

Except FBI director Cash Patel has, according to the reporting of the Atlantic,

rather full and short of that mark.

A devastating investigation revealed his alleged drinking, much of it in public,

has been a recurring source of concern across the government,

with members of his security team often having difficulty waking him up,

so much so that at one point a request for breaching equipment,

the battering rams, you see SWAT teams using on TV dramas,

when they need to break into a room, was made last year,

because Mr. Patel was allegedly unreachable behind locked doors.

Reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick spoke to 20 current and former officials for her story.

We stand by every word. These are not the types of people who are willing to speak out outside of the FBI,

especially right now, because Cash Patel is going after people with polygraphs

in a way that has never happened at the Bureau.

She spoke to MSNOW, Mr. Patel is also going after her and the Atlantic,

suing them for defamation in a long shot, $250 million lawsuit.

Now, there's an issue we have not talked about sufficiently here on American Week,

and it's time to start correcting that, because, as you know,

successive American governments have done nothing to regulate social media,

cryptocurrencies, AI, and now the burgeoning predictive betting markets.

Yesterday, a U.S. Special Forces Master Sergeant was arrested

for allegedly using classified information to place bets on polymarket,

relating to the U.S. Military Action in Venezuela that toppled President Nicholas Maduro.

He allegedly pocketed $400,000, which, of course, is a fraction of the millions

that Trump's friends in the oil industry will be making as a result of America's military intervention.

But at a time when all of these technologies are running rampant without any guardrails,

there's a man in New York who is vowing to change all of that.

I'm Alex Boris, Computer Engineer and New York State Legislative.

I'm running for Congress because the most important technology the Millennium is being built right now,

and our current government doesn't understand it.

And we can't afford them to miss the boat like they did on social media.

We need to get this right so that it works for us.

Alex Boris is making history in Manhattan.

A Democrat, he is the first candidate from either party seeking election to Congress

ever to make the need for regulation of the artificial intelligence industry

the central pillar of his political platform.

He used to work for Palantir and says his former colleagues there

and at all the other AI companies cannot be trusted to police themselves.

10% of Americans want to put the genie back in the bottle.

10% of people want to just let it rip

and they don't care how many people it hurts as long as it's moving as fast as possible.

And 80% of people are like their aspects that are good.

I use it for this aspect, but like there's also things that are scary

and it's moving really quickly.

And I'm not sure I trust the people we currently have in government

to get to the right answer.

This is a campaign for those people.

It is definitely not a campaign for the AI behemoths

who are now flooding the airwaves in New York with attack ads

designed to discredit and undermine the Boris campaign.

Meet Alex Boris. He's got a master's in computer science

but he's an expert in hypocrisy.

He made hundreds of thousands of dollars

building and selling the tech for ice, enabling ice

and powering their deportations while making bank.

Now he's running from his past while ice is in our communities.

But the facts don't lie, even if Alex does.

That ad and scores of others like it are appearing all over the country

in congressional primaries where the big tech community is spending millions

to derail any politician, including some Republicans

who are threatening to regulate the big tech industry.

In the case of Mr. Boris, who was already successfully passed a bill

in the New York State Assembly regulating AI,

that advertisement completely misstates his record.

The goal, as they've stated, is to extract so much pain in this race

and to beat me up so badly that when the idea of AI regulation

is proposed in the future, politicians run in the other direction.

Will New York Democrats get behind him in next month's primary

and make him their candidate for Congress this November?

We're going to keep a close eye on it because in many ways

the future of American society may depend on it.

Next week, we're going to have our eyes firmly on the royal visit

which will include the Queen participating in a Winnie the Pooh event

in Manhattan. That is where the original Pooh Bear,

E.O., Piglet, Kanga and Tigger, Christopher Robbins' actual toys,

are on long-term display at the New York Public Library.

I'll tell you what, Tom. How about we tell Donald Trump

that if he wants to review the UK's sovereignty over the Fultlands,

we'll review America's stewardship of Winnie the Pooh

and all his friends in return.

From Washington, D.C., Simon Marx, American Week.