Team America: World Police? — Scaramucci and McCloskey Live
Former White House Director Anthony Scaramucci and ex-CIA analyst David McCloskey examine US global power, intelligence, and the future of American influence abroad.
Why we picked this
Two figures who have operated inside American power — one at the apex of the West Wing, the other in the CIA — debate what America still is and what it's becoming on the world stage.
Anthony Scaramucci served as White House Communications Director and has since become one of the more outspoken critics of the political forces he once helped install. David McCloskey spent years as a CIA analyst before turning to writing spy fiction and co-hosting The Rest Is Classified, the Goalhanger podcast that translates the world of intelligence into plain English. Together they make for an unusual pairing: two insiders who have left rooms that very few people ever enter.
Their conversation at the Queen Elizabeth Hall will take up the question that haunts current geopolitics — what does American power actually look like now? The title draws from the satirical 2004 film, but the questions are live ones: where does the US project strength, where does it retreat, and what fills the gap? The event is framed as a crossover between Goalhanger’s US politics and intelligence podcasts, which together have built a large audience drawn to substantive analysis without the noise of cable news.
This is one of several world-premiere live recordings taking place across the Southbank Centre site during Goalhanger: The Rest Is Fest (4–6 September 2026), the most ambitious live podcast event the UK has staged. Tickets go on general sale 26 March.