If You're Listening

Epizódy

• Trump's rise from bunker boy to billionaire 16.07.2026 25min

  In 2020, Secret Service agents rushed Donald Trump to the White House bunker as protests raged outside. Trump was down on his luck…the media nicknamed him “Bunker Boy” and he had a measly $92 million in the bank.  Fast forward to his second term, and financial disclosures show he made more than $2.2 billion in a single year. The man who once dismissed crypto as a scam found his fortune transformed by meme coins, a hype-driven venture called World Liberty Financial, and a cast of podcast bros and pickup artists selling access to the most powerful man in the world. So is this just what being president looks like now? Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
• Is Trump pushing more countries toward nuclear weapons? 14.07.2026 25min

  President Trump promised he'd negotiate a better nuclear deal with Iran than the one struck under Barack Obama, which he's described as "the worst deal ever negotiated." But after another Trump-brokered ceasefire appears to have broken down, that looks increasingly unlikely. So what did it take to get the 2015 deal over the line? Matt sits down with former US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, one of its lead negotiators, to talk about negotiating with Iran, Trump's approach to diplomacy, and how worried we should be about the risk of nuclear conflict. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq  
• What’s Under Trump’s Ballroom? 09.07.2026 26min

  Presidents have always left their mark on the White House. Harry Truman rebuilt it from the inside out. John F. Kennedy restored its elegance. Jimmy Carter installed solar panels… then Ronald Reagan removed them. By that standard, Donald Trump's plan to build a grand ballroom isn't all that unusual. In fact, it's something he's talked about for years. The real story isn't the renovation; it's the reaction. After years of fuelling conspiracy theories about Washington elites and corruption, Trump has created an audience primed to question everything. So when he announces his biggest White House project yet, many of his own supporters assume there's far more to it.  Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
• Criminals, if you're listening 07.07.2026 23min

  In last Thursday's episode, we talked about one of the most sophisticated intelligence operations in recent history, when Israel planted bombs in thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah. But it wasn't the first time something like this has happened. Today, Matt and Kara trace the long history of people accidentally spying on themselves: from the CIA's best-selling encryption machines, bought by governments around the world, to the "secure" phones that tricked organised criminals into incriminating themselves. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
• Why is Netanyahu sabotaging Trump? 02.07.2026 26min

  Israel's campaign against Hezbollah began with one of the boldest intelligence operations in recent memory. The pager attacks devastated the group's leadership, and Benjamin Netanyahu declared Hezbollah had been crushed. But eliminating a leader is one thing, defeating an ideology is another. In southern Lebanon, Hezbollah is woven into daily life. After decades of conflict and a weak central government, it provides schools, healthcare and social services alongside its military wing.    That leaves Bibi Netanyahu and Donald Trump facing the same problem. Netanyahu needs enough security for evacuated Israelis to return to the north before the Israeli election in October. Trump needs a lasting peace deal before the mid-terms in November. The trouble is, both men need different endings to the same war. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq  
• Matt finally gets to talk about Sealand 30.06.2026 23min

  Last Thursday's episode touched on the relatively short-lived, Israel-backed microstate of Free Lebanon. For Matt, that's all the excuse he needs to tell the story of his favourite ever micronation: the Principality of Sealand. Especially because, when he mentioned Sealand in an episode last year, so many of you wrote in to say you shared his enthusiasm. So here we finally are. Today, Matt is telling producer Adair the story of the radio pirate turned actual pirate who declared himself Prince of a rusting gun platform in the North Sea. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
• Why Israel-Hezbollah threatens Trump’s Iran peace plan 25.06.2026 27min

  Donald Trump wants a historic deal with Iran. The problem is that some of the biggest obstacles aren't in Tehran or Washington. They're on the border between Israel and Lebanon.  In this two-part special, we trace the conflict that keeps dragging the region back into crisis. From Israel's invasion of Lebanon and the creation of a security zone in the south, to the rise of Hezbollah and years of cross-border fighting, this frontier has remained one of the Middle East's most dangerous flashpoints. More recently, Hezbollah attacks forced tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes, challenging assumptions about security in the country's north.  As diplomats pursue a new agreement with Iran, one question looms large: can this conflict be contained, or will it derail the deal before it's signed?  Listen to our 2023 episode on the history of Hezbollah: https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/if-youre-listening/who-is-hezbollah-the-group-backing-hamas/103040512  Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq  
• Trump’s grand designs for the White House 23.06.2026 24min

  The construction of Trump's new White House ballroom would make for maybe the best episode of Grand Designs ever made. The budget has blown out, a historic wing of the house has been demolished, and it's putting a strain on President Trump and Melania's relationship. Sadly, Kevin McCloud wasn't available for this episode. Instead, Matt is talking to White House reporter for the Washington Post, Dan Diamond, who has watched, and heard, all of it go down. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
• Trump’s unbreakable bond with the UFC 18.06.2026 25min

  Before it was a billion-dollar sporting empire, the UFC was fighting for survival. Regulators wanted it banned, broadcasters kept their distance.  The company was down for the count. Then Donald Trump stepped in. When few venues would host the sport, he opened the doors of the Trump Taj Mahal, giving the sport a much-needed lifeline and UFC President Dana White never forgot it. Decades later, the relationship may have come full circle. After January 6, Trump's approval rating was collapsing, and some of his first major public appearances were cage-side at UFC events, reconnecting him with the young male audience that helped power his 2024 victory. Now, as new political challenges emerge, the UFC is back by Trump's side. But can it save him again? Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
• The Taiwanese masters of genital weightlifting 16.06.2026 23min

  While researching our series on Taiwan, we stumbled across one of the strangest stories ever filed for ABC's Foreign Correspondent. In 2005, while covering the aftermath of Taiwan's disputed presidential election, reporter Eric Campbell investigated a bizarre practice that its followers claim dates back centuries. In this episode, Matt and Eric revisit that remarkable report and reflect on Eric's almost three decades reporting from the world's most contested places. Eric's report on Yin Diao Gong: https://www.instagram.com/reels/Cgg1xWGlxb4/ Al Jazeera report on the South China Sea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGMTjsB5SVs&pp=ygUkc291dGggY2hpbmEgc2VhOiBlc2NhbGF0aW5nIHRlbnNpb25z Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
• Will Xi Jinping cross the Taiwan Strait? 11.06.2026 25min

  For decades, Beijing has pursued a simple strategy towards Taiwan: the carrot and the stick. The stick comes in the form of military drills, missile launches, and increasingly aggressive displays of force designed to remind Taiwan of China's power. The carrot is soft diplomacy: business opportunities, cultural exchanges, economic integration, and promises of prosperity under closer ties with the mainland. The problem is that neither approach has delivered the outcome the Chinese Communist Party wanted. Since the 1990s, the number of people in Taiwan who identify as Chinese has collapsed, while a distinct Taiwanese identity has surged. That leaves Xi Jinping facing an uncomfortable reality. Taiwan won't come willingly, but a military invasion would be enormously costly. So what happens when both the carrot and the stick fail? Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
• How Peking Duck and Moutai changed the world 09.06.2026 22min

  Modern China has used ceremonial banquets to resolve diplomatic disputes for decades - but there's often a message hidden within. ABC reporter Bang Xiao gives Matt the meaning behind the meal.  Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq  
• Taiwan’s violent, messy, beautiful democracy 04.06.2026 27min

  A fistfight erupts in Taiwan's parliament. Punches fly as two rivals find themselves at the centre of the chaos. On one side is Chen Shui-bian, a member of Taiwan’s progressive DPP who became Taiwan's first president from outside the long-ruling KMT. On the other is Han Kuo-yu, a KMT populist. But this isn't just another political brawl.  Their careers mirror Taiwan's transformation from authoritarian rule to one of Asia's most vibrant democracies. At the heart of the story is an unresolved question: what is Taiwan? While politicians have spent decades debating the answer, most Taiwanese people have embraced the status quo, neither part of China nor formally independent, but something in between. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
• Was Taiwan's Olympic champion sabotaged? 02.06.2026 19min

  To this day, international recognition of Taiwan is a fraught issue - with only a handful of countries affirming their claim of statehood.  Today, Matt's producer Adair tells him the strange saga of Taiwan's Olympic ambitions, including the tale of a Taiwanese man once called the greatest athlete in the world, and the potential plot to take him down. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq  
• Taiwan’s 100 year fight for freedom 28.05.2026 25min

  For decades, Taiwan has existed in political limbo: claimed by China, governed separately, and shaped by a history far more complicated than most people realise. After the Second World War, Taiwan was handed back from Japan to China just as the mainland descended into civil war. Mao Zedong’s Communists eventually defeated Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists, who fled to Taiwan and rebuilt the Republic of China government there. Taiwan was marketed internationally as “Free China” but on the ground, it was a different story. Taiwanese people were subject to nearly 40 years of martial law: censorship, political persecution, arrests, and violent crackdowns on dissent. Eventually the people started to push back.  Today, Beijing considers Taiwan a breakaway province. But in Taiwan, a growing number of people see themselves as something entirely separate: not Chinese, but Taiwanese. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
• The secret techbro city of the future 26.05.2026 23min

  A team of tech billionaires and venture capitalists have proposed a city that promises to revive the American Dream. But secret landgrabs, legal disputes, and good old reliable NIMBYism stands in their way. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq  
• Trump and Xi Jinping’s deadly game of chess 21.05.2026 26min

  The world watched Donald Trump and Xi Jinping sit across from each other in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing last week. Two leaders with radically different foreign policy styles but the same conviction: that the future belongs to the bold. Trump’s approach to foreign policy has looked like a blitz attack, complete with tariffs, airstrikes and threatening to close strategic chokepoints to force rivals into line. In contrast, Xi’s strategy is slower, colder, and arguably more dangerous. He’s spent years stockpiling resources, staging large-scale military exercises and playing the long game around Taiwan. Two very different strategies, but the same ambition. Two grandmasters are playing for control of the chessboard. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq
• What is Palantir doing in Australia? 19.05.2026 19min

  Palantir has hundreds of millions of dollars worth of contracts with Australian federal and state governments. The ABC's national AI reporter Cam Wilson joins Matt to share the details. Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq  
• Will anything stop Palantir? 14.05.2026 23min

  The shadowy U.S. tech company Palantir has had a meteoric rise from complete obscurity to transforming the nature of surveillance forever. Pivotal to that rise is its unorthodox CEO, the philosophising tech-entrepreneur Alex Karp.  As Palantir integrates itself into systems in every facet of life, from Australian supermarkets to the controversial U.S. ICE raids, Alex Karp provides justifications and bold mission statements for his company, citing a laser-focus on maintaining U.S. hegemony across the world. In doing so, he believes Palantir prevents the rise of undemocratic, far-right movements. But is there any line that Palantir won’t cross to assert U.S. superiority? And could they be in danger of undermining the democracy they claim to defend?  Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq   Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq  
• The FBI dug a tunnel under the Russian embassy 12.05.2026 24min

  The CIA and the FBI famously weren't talking to each other in the lead-up to 9/11. This is the story of why.  Supervising producer Kara Jensen-Mackinnon tells Matt about a decades-long secret FBI operation underneath the streets of Washington which ended in one of the most extraordinary betrayals in American intelligence history. Listen to Matt on No One Saw it Coming on the ABC Listen App Follow If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app. Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq