🎙️ LIVE from the Amerikahaus Munich | Over Here, Over There — The Podcast Across Borders

What does America really look like — from the outside?

German journalist and author Johanna Roth spent four years reporting from inside the United States as a foreign correspondent for one of Germany's most respected newspapers, Die Zeit. What she found was a country at war with its own ideals — a nation that proclaimed "all men are created equal" while enslaving human beings, that celebrates freedom while living in fear, and that wraps its deepest contradictions in the flag.

Her book "This is America — Is This America?" (published by Piper) is one of the most talked-about German-language analyses of the United States in years. And in this very special live episode, recorded on stage at the prestigious Amerikahaus Munich, your hosts Claudia Koestler and Dan Harris sit down with Johanna Roth for a candid, provocative, and deeply illuminating conversation — in both German and English.

🔥 In this episode, we ask:

Was America founded by hypocrites — and does that original sin still define the country today?
How close is American democracy to the edge?
Who really runs America right now — Trump, or the Tech Bros?
What do the 250 years between 1776 and today tell us about where the US is headed?
Should Europeans even travel to the United States anymore?
And: what can Germany and America learn from each other — if they're willing to listen?
📖 About Johanna Roth

Johanna Roth (b. 1989) trained at the Deutsche Journalistenschule in Munich, and holds degrees in literature and political science. She served as US correspondent for four years before moving to Brussels as EU correspondent. Unlike many of her generation, she arrived in America without nostalgia — and left with a clear-eyed, analytical portrait of a country in profound conflict with itself. Her book "This is America — Is This America?" is available now via Piper Verlag.

🏛️ About the Amerikahaus Munich

This episode was recorded live on stage at the Amerikahaus Munich — one of Germany's most important transatlantic cultural institutions, dedicated to fostering dialogue, understanding, and exchange between Europe and the United States. We are proud and grateful to partner with the Amerikahaus for this very special live recording.

🔗 Learn more: www.amerikahaus.de

🎧 About Over Here, Over There

Over Here, Over There — The Podcast Across Borders brings you sharp, honest, and human conversations about what divides and connects the US and Europe. Hosted by Claudia Koestler and Dan Harris, the podcast explores transatlantic politics, culture, and society — with the curiosity of an insider and the honesty of an outsider.

🌐 Website: www.overhereoverthere.org

Be honest — when did you last feel genuinely optimistic about the future?
With Trump, Putin, climate chaos, wars, inflation and a media machine built
on doom — it's never been harder to stay hopeful. But what if optimism
isn't just a feeling? What if it's a science-backed survival skill — and
the single most important force keeping democracy alive?

In this live episode, recorded at the beautiful Hotel Klostermaier in Icking,
Bavaria, we sit down with two of Germany's most respected science journalists
and documentary filmmakers — Dirk and Sabine Steffens — to talk about
optimism, the negativity bias, doomscrolling, climate solutions, and why the
facts about our world are far better than the headlines suggest.

Dirk has just published his new book "Hoffnungslos Optimistisch"
(Hopelessly Optimistic) — a must-read for anyone who wants to stop
feeling paralysed and starting to feel empowered again.

🌍 In this episode, you'll discover:
✅ Why pessimism is actually the lazy option — and optimism takes real work
✅ The evolutionary reason your brain is wired for doom (and how to override it)
✅ Why a toddler falls 4,000 times before walking — and what that tells us about resilience
✅ How pooping blue whales could solve up to 40% of our climate problem (yes, really)
✅ Why bees ARE coming back — and you haven't heard about it because of the negativity bias
✅ The shocking truth: over 60% of Germany's electricity now comes from renewables
✅ Why democracy literally cannot function without optimism
✅ How to hack the algorithm to feed you good news instead of doom
✅ What JFK's moon speech teaches us about courage and goal-setting
✅ Why the future is still an open book — and that is great news

💬 "You cannot solve any problem by not being optimistic." — Dirk Steffens
💬 "We have more solutions than problems." — Sabine Steffens
💬 "Democracy is the promise of a better future." — Dirk Steffens

─────────────────────────────────────────
👉 ABOUT DIRK & SABINE STEFFENS
─────────────────────────────────────────
Dirk Steffens and Sabine Steffens are award-winning German science journalists,
documentary filmmakers, and TV presenters. They have traveled to over 120 countries, covering nature, climate, science, and the future of our planet for ZDF, Terra X, and international media. Dirk is the author of the new book
"Hoffnungslos Optimistisch" — a science-based case for hope in troubled times.

📺 Watch their documentaries and reports: https://www.zdf.de/serien/terra-x
🎙️ Their Podcast: https://www.geo.de/wissen/kettenreakt...
📘 Dirk's Book "Hoffnungslos Optimistisch": https://www.penguin.de/buecher/dirk

King Charles III and Queen Camilla are heading to Washington — but is this the most politically charged royal state visit in modern history?

With the UK-US "Special Relationship" under unprecedented strain, a gunman at a White House dinner, the Falklands sovereignty row reigniting, and Donald Trump at his most unpredictable — what can Britain's greatest diplomat actually achieve?

In this exclusive interview, Dan Harris — former White House and Capitol Hill insider, now host of the Global Affairs Podcast @OverHereOverThere — gives the unfiltered American perspective on King Charles's high-stakes visit to Trump's Washington.

👉 What you'll find out in this episode:

- Why Americans are watching this state visit with "morbid fascination"
- Can King Charles actually repair the Special Relationship — or is it already too late?
- How the shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner is casting a shadow over the visit
- Why BOTH sides of a divided America are desperately trying to work out: whose side IS the King on?
- What this means for Trump's poll numbers, the midterms — and the future of the UK-US alliance
- The Falklands, Iran, tariffs, Ukraine — and why this visit matters far beyond a royal photo op

🔔 Subscribe for more global affairs analysis, breaking political news and exclusive interviews.

👍 Like this video if you want more content on UK-US relations, royal news and international politics.

📻 Originally broadcast on @BBC Radio Gloucestershire with presenter Graham Rogers.

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