Divided States Sky News

It surprised everyone: President Trump is taking hydroxycholorquine as a prophylactic for Coronavirus. He dropped the announcement at the end of a long event, and it sent Washington into a spin.

On this week’s episode we take a deep dive into the drug normally used to treat malaria, and ask why the leader of the free world is choosing to take it. His own government agencies have yet to approve hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 – so what’s driving Donald Trump?

Amanda Walker, Cordelia Lynch and Emily Purser Brown talk through Donald Trump’s journey with the science behind the medicine, who else has been pushing the drug, and who, in all of this, called him fat.

Download Divided States wherever you get your podcasts.

On this week’s episode, we look at the stark message from the government’s scientists, not to rush re-opening – and discuss whether that advice is being followed by President Trump.

A top government virologist turned whistleblower gave a damning appraisal of the Trump administration’s handling of the crisis on Capitol Hill - as the White House tries to contain its own outbreak.

When will a vaccine be ready? When will America’s schools re-open? These are questions that draw division, even within the White House’s own team.

Amanda Walker, Cordelia Lynch and Emily Purser Brown are in Washington to talk through the latest on the US response to Coronavirus.

America is not out of the woods with coronavirus - far from it. But states are beginning to re-open, and Donald Trump is back on the road too.

This week our team in Washington DC talk about the President’s trip to an Arizona mask factory – where he didn’t wear a mask – and the astonishing choice of music during the visit (spoiler: it’s a Guns N’ Roses classic).

And as governors try and reopen and restart their state’s economies, we’ve been to Pennsylvania to talk to Trump voters about how they feel the President has handled the crisis.

Lastly we can’t forget the presidential election: we’re getting ready for Joe Biden to pick his Vice Presidential candidate – we talk you through the runners and riders.

Download and subscribe to Divided States wherever you get your podcasts.

Over the past week, protests have begun to spring up across America, demanding that the economy re-opens. They have been partly spurred on by President Trump – but does relaxing social distancing now fit the medical data?

This week on Divided States, we take you inside those protests, talking to the people there to find out what’s driving them to show up.

Our team are all back in Washington DC: Amanda Walker, Cordelia Lynch and Emily Purser Brown talk though the latest developments on the miracle cure that wasn’t, and discuss what’s going on with President Trump’s latest immigration ban.

Across America over 30,000 people have died from coronavirus - doubling in one week - hundreds of thousands of people are sick and millions are struggling for financial survival. 

Donald Trump is lashing out as his handling of the crisis comes under intense scrutiny. But despite no real end in sight - the president is intent on opening at least part of the country in two weeks' time.

On Divided States, Amanda Walker is in Washington and joined on the podcast by Alistair Bunkall, in New York, and Greg Milam, in California.

They discuss Trump's bizarre press conference this week, where he declared he had 'absolute power', and after which he was accused of having 'the biggest meltdown ever' from a US president and of trying to 'rewrite history' over his administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic. 

Greg tell us how the west coast of America is coping with the lockdown, and Ali revisits a doctor in New York who a few weeks ago described the situation there as 'hell' and 'worse than 9/11.'

We also discuss the 2020 race for the White House as former President Barack Obama formally endorses Joe Biden. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have also given their endorsement, Warren going so far to say that she would accept being Biden's pick for running mate. 

The coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc across the United States.

Cordelia Lynch and Emily Purser present an eyewitness report from inside one Brooklyn hospital where they are struggling to cope with the amount of patients., and report from one morgue where workers are now Facetiming victims' families so they can say one final goodbye. 

But is there also some hope coming out of America's epicentre, New York, with signs that social distancing is working and the curve is flattening. 

In the nation's capital Washington DC, Amanda Walker explains why President Trump has attacked the World Health Organisation and threatened to withhold their funding, and why he continues to encourage Americans to take the untested drug hydroxycholoroquine.

And you may be forgiven for forgetting that we are in an election year but we are. Bernie Sanders, the democratic socialist, has dropped out of the Democratic race for president, leaving Joe Biden, President Obama's vice-president, as the party's presumptive nominee to take on Donald Trump this November.