Woman's Hour - 2024 US Presidential Election, Comedian Hannah Gadsby, Irina Janakievska: The Balkan Kitchen

Episode Date: November 6, 2024

As results come in from the 2024 US Presidential Election, Krupa Padhy speaks to Woman’s Hour presenter Nuala McGovern from Washington DC about what we know so far, and the big ticket issues for women in this election. Krupa gets reaction from Sarah Elliott, spokesperson for Republicans Overseas UK and Sharon Manitta, spokesperson for Democrats Abroad UK. And, as further results come in from the battleground states, she speaks to Emma Long, Associate Professor in American History and Politics at the University of East Anglia.Award-winning comedian Hannah Gadsby is in London for four nights only with their new show: Woof!. They join Krupa to talk about their diagnosis of Autism and ADHD and how that influences their work, and what they want people to get from their performance. Irina Janakievska is a food writer and recipe developer. Born in what is now North Macedonia, she left her career in corporate law to follow her passion for sharing her love of Balkan cuisine. In her new cookery book, The Balkan Kitchen, she takes us on a culinary and cultural journey across the former Yugoslavia with recipes that speak for the vast and varied cuisine of a region overshadowed by conflict in recent years – from North Macedonia to Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia and Kosovo. Presented by Krupa Padhy Producer: Louise Corley

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2. And of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme. Peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Krupa Bharti and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome. Donald Trump's campaign is calling it the greatest political comeback ever as he declares victory in the US election. I should say we at the BBC are still waiting for that to be officially announced. But here's what we do know. That the race was predicted to be one of the tightest. And this was the first election since Roe versus Wade was overturned.

And it's not gone the way Kamala Harris wanted. Mr Trump has now run for president against two different women. He beat Hillary Clinton back in 2016. And it looks like the votes have tilted in his favour again. We're going to understand why. The role of race, gender, abortion rights, immigration, the economy, what worked in his favour? We're going to be speaking to our very own Nuala McGovern, who's been co-presenting the BBC's election coverage

with Roz Atkins overnight in Washington, DC. Yes, she did stay up even longer just for us. And we'll also be hearing reaction from a Republican and a Democrat. And your thoughts are always welcome. How do you feel about the possibility of a second Trump presidency? You can text us. The number is 84844 over on social media. You'll find us on the handle at BBC Women's Hour. That's X and Instagram. And of course, you can email us. Do that via our website or you can send us a WhatsApp audio message. Use the number 03700 100444. All of our terms and conditions can be found on our website. and Italian, Indian, Chinese. How about Balkan cuisine, the ancient lands where Europe meets Asia? The food writer Irina Yankievska will join me

to tell us more about the history of the region through her family's food story. She says Balkan food is the cuisine at the crossroads of human history. And also with us is the award-winning comedian Hannah Gadsby, currently in London with their tour Woof. You might know them from the Netflix show Nanette, where they spoke about coming out as a young person

and the role of comedy in that process. There is much to learn about their humour, their life and their new production. So, to the US election. We've got another batch of exit poll data shedding light on that divide between men and women in this election. And not surprisingly, a majority of women are backing Kamala Harris whilst men are giving their support to Donald Trump. But what is a bit surprising, at least according to these findings, is that 54% of women voting for Harris doesn't match the 57% that backed Joe Biden in 2020. Earlier I spoke to Women's Hour's Nuala McGovern who's in Washington DC for the election and she began by telling me what she's seen overnight. Well it was

a really interesting night. I think people were expecting a longer wait for results. Instead really from early on it started going in Donald Trump's favour but instead it stayed on that path. People were expecting that it would swing back to the Democrats a little bit later in the night. It just didn't happen. There was also, of course,

the seven swing states that were considered too close to call. But as I speak to you now, Krupa, there are three that have been won by Donald Trump. The other four seem to be leaning towards him,

so not called yet. The result is not either. But it was a very good night for Donald Trump. He has already declared victory, but it does look like there's not a way back for Kamala Harris. And as you were saying there, it didn't turn out to be as tight as we predicted it to be. So at what point in the night, Nuala,

did that mood change for you and the guests in the studio? Really interesting. You just started seeing the numbers come in, particularly, I think, with the swing state of North Carolina you and the guests in the studio? Really interesting. You just started seeing the numbers come in, particularly, I think, with the swing state of North Carolina and then with Georgia, that he was winning those comfortably. I did have Republicans and Democrats

in the studio with me and the Democrats, for the most part, said, no, it's not over till it's over. They're still, as they were talking about, the Midwest or the Rust Belt states, as they're called, that is Wisconsin and Michigan, particularly with Pennsylvania. But it just became clear that it wasn't going to happen. And you have these small markers in certain states that kind of give an indication of how the whole state would go. But I think really, when Kamala Harris, who was supposed to speak at Howard University which was her alma mater where she went to college it's just not that far a couple of

miles from where I'm speaking to you from it's a historically black university and college and she was not going to speak to the people who had turned up and I think at that point everyone's like okay we think we know what's happening here um she had a representative come out cedric richmond who said she would speak to them tomorrow but there were some very dejected and deflated uh looking faces that were kind of coming up on social media and on the tv screens as well and as you say these results have come in much much faster than we thought they would yeah completely and there's a couple of things that did happen, that they had faster counting systems.

They've kind of changed the system over the past four years, particularly in two of the swing states. That was Georgia and North Carolina. So they were able to give those results quite quickly and it painted the picture a lot faster then as well. So even if some other states hadn't been called, you begin to see that she would not, Kamala Harris, be able to make it to the White House with what was left to her.

You know, some people were worried about there being a lag between some states being called and others, afraid that it might be fertile ground for disinformation or instead for Donald Trump to claim victory when in fact there was no such thing projected but instead the night it kind of went on a steady trot might be the way I describe it for Donald Trump right from the very beginning right through and Kamala Harris just kind of disappeared as the night went on. We still await her speech at some stage as well.

Let's break this down a bit and unpick what we understand from this situation. First of all, the gender gap, a term that we have heard so much over the past few weeks and months. What do we know about how men and women voted from those exit polls? I don't know enough yet and I want to know more. But what I was seeing originally was that women were turning out at about 11% more than men right that's that's a huge number and so with that you would expect women were favouring Kamala Harris it was sometimes called

the men versus women election talking about Trump versus Kamala Harris that you would expect her then to get a surge from that. But I was reading some of the posts of Anthony Zerker, our North America correspondent here at the BBC, who's been looking at it, and he says, it may have been overblown. We still don't know because some of the exit polling is kind of raw data that still needs to be analysed further.

But maybe it didn't materialise in the way that was expected actually on the night, even though there was so much discussion about it in advance of this election. And that's going to strike up a conversation, isn't it, about how we could have got it so wrong? You know, I want to know, this is etc., or whether it's different ethnicities? What they did talk about previously was about college education. There was a massive gap there. So those with a college degree and those without. Those with a college degree more likely to vote for Kamala Harris, those without for Donald Trump.

But I wonder how it actually broke down in the end. A lot of women are succeeding much more in the United States, in colleges, in education, sometimes going into further education than men. So I'd like to know those figures and see exactly what did it mean. And I wonder what your take is, Nuala, on this line that we're getting from so many people that the driving force really was the economy here, not abortion for women, as many had anticipated. What is the sense from the conversations you've been having? Because you've been there a number of days ahead of the election. Well, definitely. Everybody said this is going to be the winning path in a way for Kamala Harris was because of her position on abortion. When Donald Trump, it had proved a tricky issue for him because he was trying to walk a line of keeping more conservative voters happy with the way he characterised some of the laws. We know that Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022.

That meant that a constitutional right to abortion was abolished. So people were talking about it and they expected people to come out and vote on that issue. The first exit polls that I saw, they put down democracy as the number one issue and economy as the second. Yeah, very much so. But what did they mean by democracy?

Is it a democracy that Trump was calling for or that Harris was calling for? Those exact granular details I don't have yet. And also, when it came to abortion, like they had it on 10 states, they had it on the ballot. Various measures generally talking about having abortion rights. And a number of them have passed. They're not all in yet, but I can run through some of them.

Colorado, the right to abortion and the use of public funds for that that passed maryland uh right to reproductive freedom passed the same with missouri until fetal viability so that would be 24 weeks nebraska a ban on abortion after the first trimester passed instead. So that is restrictive, as did with Florida, the right to abortion until fetal viability. That was also rejected. New York, I see coming in instead, extending abortion rights. So a bit of a mixed bag for the most part, extending abortion rights. But you could vote on that on the ballot and still vote for Donald Trump at the top

of the ballot. So who knows? We will know. But at the moment, who knows exactly how Republican women voted or independent women voted? It remains to be seen. Yeah, so many unanswered questions. You are going to rest your head shortly. And I think it's very well deserved. And I'll be back with Women's Hour on Thursday. Thanks so much, Krupa. And thank you there to Nuala, who I spoke to a short time ago. We're going to be returning to the US election a little later in the programme for more analysis on that gender divide in this vote and reaction from a Republican and a Democrat and a US politics expert as well.

But for now, we're going to turn our attention to something very different. The award-winning comedian Hannah Gadsby is currently in London with their live tour, Woof. Now, you might know Hannah from watching some of their Netflix shows, Nanette, Douglas and Something Special. They all had huge audiences online, rocketing Hannah to worldwide fame for their honest and open comedy about all aspects of their life. Their new tour, Woof, has been described as deeply personal and also utterly relatable and, of course, gloriously funny. And I'm delighted to say Hannah joins me now. Welcome, Hannah.

Thank you very much for having me. Lovely to be here. Woof is a very interesting title. Can we start there? Tell us about it. Well, it began as a show about the death of my dog, but that's no longer in the show. So it's just a title that is floating around, meaning nothing almost. And tell us about it. If it's not about your dear dog that's passed, what's it about?

Look, it covers a lot of territory, if I'm perfectly honest. We're talking about whales. I've got a bit of grief in there. Cabbage patch dolls, a bit of a throwback there. It's, you know, it touches on a lot of subjects because it is essentially about anxiety and that's what our brains tend to do with anxiety and sort of collect a whole lot of disparate subjects to worry about

and then tie them together in a knot and make you want to sleep a lot. And what's the reaction been? You've done two days in London so far. It's been wonderful. It's been really nice. I've just come off a run in New York where I was doing at Abrams Theatre, which is about a 300-seater, so it's been a bit of a shock to the system to jump into the Palladium, which is such a beautiful stage to perform in,

and I'm having a great time. So it's been really nice. Well, let's better understand how your comedy works, because as you've mentioned, you're dealing with grief in this one through the medium of comedy, anxiety as well. How do you find that personally to process? Is this a medium that you might use ordinarily to process your own grief? Well, that's part of what the show is tackling because, you know,

I do use my work, you know, as a part of my processing. You know, all my shows have been that. But generally speaking, I've always waited a very long time before, you know, like Nanette was talking about things that had happened decades ago and then I'm like, oh, I think I can work that out now. Whereas this show I jumped in a bit quick and what I've discovered is being on the road and doing comedy is not actually a very healthy way to process big feelings.

So I pretty much acknowledge that in this show um but humor is also there as a both a sort of safety net and a catharsis um so it's it's sort of you know despite touching on themes of sadness it is probably my funniest show and those people who will have seen Nanette will have seen you talk about your journey your your path, and be very vulnerable. And you just used the word exposed there and how being on the road and doing this has really made you realise something that maybe you're not so comfortable with. Is there any point at which you feel that you're being

too vulnerable almost? Yeah, well, you know, Nanette was written and conceived and, you know, essentially filmed before I was famous to the level that I am now. And, you know, you don't really understand the exposure and the dissonance and, you know, in a certain sense, sudden fame is a traumatic experience. You know, it's not all trauma is completely negative, is what I've discovered. But, you know, because it just does change your landscape and your horizons very quickly and destabilises your existence.

So now I'm talking about these things from a much more exposed and public position, and that has given me a lot of pause for thought. Interesting. And, of course, you did Nanette back in 2018. A lot's changed since then. Yes, but now it seems to be sliding back into the same again, doesn't it? Hello, Donald, if you're listening. Nice touch.

I'm sure he tunes into the Women's Hour. Women's Hour, sorry. Women's. Women's Hour. Is it Women's Hour or Women's Hour? It's Women's, A- Hour. Is it Women's Hour or Women's Hour? It's Women's, A-N. Yeah. Women's.

Yeah. Yeah, okay. I'm glad you've got that straight. Yes. You know, if I can do anything, it's straight. Yeah, it'll be interesting now if the election that's being called is being called correctly there in terms of comedy because there certainly has been a lot of pushback

against what, you know, the kind of comedy I presented in Nanette and the sort of the most successful comedy in terms of eyeballs, if you want, since then has been quite, you know, generally cruel and not so feminist. So we'll see how that goes. I think it's going to be a really interesting landscape now. Those that have been grizzling about their freedom of speech being curbed certainly haven't had speech being curbed.

Certainly haven't had their speech curbed at all, but I dare say that those people that they're complaining against might find that their voices are diminished a little bit. I want to actually take us back, and in fact you've kind of led us into that, going back to not feeling heard, not having your voice heard, and your roots growing up and what that was like and how that factored into your comedy? Well, it factored in very, very deeply. You know, I think, you know, your voice is, you know,

you find your voice as you get older, but, you know, your experience as a younger person always inform that voice. But I'm older now. You know, my experiences now that I'm trying to process are of an older, you know, quite successful person who has for the first time in my life, you know, stability in my life. So I'm not so concerned about myself now. You know, I look back back looking to the younger generation

particularly of comedians the landscape is completely different the hustle is completely different um and you know I honestly I think um if if I'm I'm going to do anything in the future it's probably to try and you know help help help others come through the murk. But Hannah, you've had to work through a great deal to get to this point of comfort, which you're clearly at, and that includes being diagnosed with autism and ADHD. And I wonder how that's impacted that outlook of yours. You know, well, you know, the diagnosis doesn't give you autism.

So I've had it my whole life. What that's done has been given me the capacity to you know frame um you know my my uh difficulty with life I guess and navigating the world uh so you know and I think and since I've been diagnosed and started talking about it I think the world has really opened up about who can have autism and what that looks like. So I feel quite a lot better about, you know, these things. Of course, it depends on where you live. Of course, I seem to be straddling Australia, the US and UK,

generally speaking. So in all those three different places, you know, access to healthcare is vastly different and the pathway to diagnosis is incredibly difficult and so long. And I'm, you know, quite cruel, but I think there is a community that's communities building on, you know, that can support each other. But it is a framework with which you can understand. if I have any goal it's it's not so much to say you know hey my brain works differently it's to it to really urge people who are neurotypical to perhaps engage with the way that they think because I don't think any brain thinks in the same way and you know this this

this myth that there's a homogeneousogenous way of processing the world. We have five senses and they communicate in our brains in completely different ways. And I think, you know, being aware of the ways in which you think and process the world and how it affects you is quite an empowering thing. And also, I believe, can create a pathway to more empathy toward other people. Returning to your work, your latest show on Netflix was released earlier this year. It's Hannah Gadsby's Gender Agenda. It featured you alongside seven genderqueer comedians. What was it like having them on stage with you?

It was really fabulous. You know, comedy is a really lonely sport. You're often on the road on your own and developing material on your own. And, you know, a lot of the times when you're in a, you know, the club scene, it's a competitive scene, you know. You're vying for time and the affection of the audience, if you will. But we tried to create a sense of community in this moment and we gave all the comics a bit of a chance to get to know each other

and develop their material at Soho Theatre. And I think by the end of it, you know, I think the comics got a, you know, some really lovely time on stage. They got some money in their pocket and they built connections in the industry. I think there's a lot of pressure. I think success is, you know, if you go viral, that's your thing. Like, you know, if you hit this huge moment of success and,

you know, Netflix seems to offer that. But I think what's more important is those little steps. And, you know, I was offered a lot of those moments coming up through the ranks with various comics letting, you know, letting me or asking me, inviting me to open for them. And I think that's a really important part of the comedy landscape is sort of, you know, helping develop the grassroots of the industry. And I wasn't ready for that because I wasn't ready for fame. I wasn't ready for it early on in the industry. And I wasn't ready for that because I wasn't ready for fame. I wasn't ready for it early on in the piece. So, you know, ultimately I still am an autistic person

and I don't cope well with change. And fame, you know, really did change my life a lot. So I feel like I'm out of the whitewater rapids of that time now and I feel ready to sort of, you know, be a more constructive member of the community. So I really enjoyed that part of it. Hannah Gadsby, thank you so much for joining us on that positive note. We shall leave it and Woof is on at the London Palladium until the 8th of November. Thank you to all of you who are getting in touch on Donald Trump declaring

victory in the US presidential election. Let me bring you some of those messages. This is a wonderful day. I'm so glad Donald Trump has returned to the White House. He was an excellent president in 2016. He had no wars and the US was peaceful. The economy will thrive again and people will be able to afford food. A very happy day for the USA. This one from Margaret says, I am a sleepy and horrified American expat. Not entirely surprised that my idiotic countrymen have voted in this vulgar authoritarian for a second time.

We are all doomed. Actually, I blame Biden. He should have gotten out the way long before he did, which would have allowed for the proper election process for a new candidate to run its course. Thank you, Margaret, for your messages. I'll keep bringing you the various reactions that we are getting from you, our audience reacting to these developments. And let's continue talking about those US election results, because whilst it's not over yet, we are very close and very close to what looks like a victory for Donald Trump. 270 is the magic number of Electoral College votes that need to be won.

As it stands, it's Donald Trump at 266 and Kamala Harris at 219. I spoke a little earlier to Sarah Elliott, spokesperson for Republicans Overseas UK. She's been up all night watching those results and gave us her reaction. I mean, this is an unbelievable comeback story, probably the best political comeback story of all time in US history. He, you know, he's been attempted assassinated twice. He's had many legal challenges. He's been politically prosecuted through lawfare. He's, you know, lost a general election, had false claims like Russiagate against him. He's been impeached twice. And here he's come not just to win the electoral college, but to win the popular vote as well. So his MAGA movement now is no longer just a populist blip on the screen. It is now

permanent. And it is now the new Republican Party of the United States. And as you point out, the data suggests he is set to do better than he did in 2016. The big question here is how do you think he's done it? He's done it by being very authentic, by being himself, by having a real sense of what the American working class feel and need. He was the first one who addressed those who felt left behind their concerns in 2015. He was the first one to bring up the threat of China and the way they had been taking advantage of the American worker and the American taxpayer. He just really has this connection and this charisma with people. But I don't just think it's a referendum on him and his dynamism, whether you like it or not. There is an X factor about him. It is also a referendum on the Biden

Harris administration and how the Democrats have let the people down over the last four years. 70% of the country felt it was going in the wrong direction. The key issues were the economy and immigration, not abortion. And we saw that women did come out for Kamala, but not in the droves that she needed. And that Donald Trump was able to really connect with the apathetic male voter. And he has he won in the most Latino heavy county in the country in Texas. He won the Latino vote in that county by 16 points. He also won 40 percent of the African-American vote in a very heavily African-American community. Well, let's pick up on both of those things, Sarah. First of all, Latino men, the wider Latino

community, a community that hasn't always been well spoken of by the Trump campaign. Despite this, he still made those gains. I just think that people think about how they were four years ago under Trump and how they are now economically. I think they like a strong man, a strong leader who can come in and seal the border because these are border counties where he won the Latino vote. And people want there to be a sense of law and order. And right now there's not. There's a sense that anyone can enter and we don't know who they are. And they're also raising house prices and they're taking places in schools and jobs. And people want to work. They want to start their own business. And life is getting harder and harder.

And Trump deregulated and he cut taxes and he grew wages and he grew the economy when he was in office. And he also grew the national defense. He grew our military. And that also elevates America's standing in the world, which makes you feel more prosperous and more stable. So I think they're drawn to that. And what did Kamala Harris do for the African-American male in America? Well, she said, I'll legalize marijuana. I'll give you free money to get a loan for a house. I mean, it's pandering. And I think it's condescending and people picked up on that and there's an inauthenticity about her she was not a good

candidate and she was thrown into the pit without even a primary vote it was undemocratic. Just to intervene there Sarah some may well feel the same about Donald Trump's position when it comes to abortion rights which you mentioned there you believe that they didn't feature as prominently as anticipated. But we know it is a true and valid concern for women in the United States. There were concerns that the messaging on abortion from Donald Trump was not clear enough. I wonder where you stand on this and how he might drive those concerns and consider those concerns going forward? Well, actually, I think it was very clear. He gave an address. He said, listen, Roe v. Wade is done. You're not going to undo it. It's now a state level issue. And the Democrats have capitalized on the state level issue by putting up propositions and making abortion

part of state constitutions very successfully. But they were not successful last night in overturning the six-week abortion ban in Florida. There are concerns from women about what a second Trump presidency means for them. What do you say to women who are hugely worried? Listen, depending on where you live, your abortion rights aren't going to be impeded by this man. And if anything, he's proposed that he wants the government to pay for your IVF treatment. Now, I don't know if Congress will pass that, but that is what he wants to do. He's a big government guy. But also, he wants to put more money in your pocket. And, you know, I'm a woman,

and I want to be able to work and keep my hard-earned money. And that's what most women want to do to take care of their families or to buy a home or to get further in life. But I think that economic prosperity is something that women should be excited about and hope that he can deliver on. And that was Sarah Elliott there from Republican Overseas. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies.

I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby.

It's a long story, settle in. Available now. Is UK. So what is the mood in Kamala Harris's camp this morning? Just before I came on air, I spoke to Sharon Manita, spokesperson for Democrats Abroad UK. I asked her for her response to Donald Trump declaring victory. Well, obviously, I'm sad. I'm waiting, of course, for the final count, but it doesn't look good for the Democrats.

And I'm obviously concerned about how our country will be going forward. Things like declaring that climate change is a scam, the retribution he's planning against the Democrats. These are very worrying times. Explain to us how the night unfolded for everyone at Harris headquarters. Well, I can only speak to the UK committee. We were obviously watching very carefully. We knew that a lot of the count wouldn't be finalized at this point, and we are waiting to see what the final count is, but very anxious. We've put a lot of work in over the past year and a half. We started working on

this election in June of last summer. So it's been a long, hard slog and worked very hard to get out the overseas vote. Where do you think it has gone wrong for Kamala Harris, Sharon? Well, first of all, a lot of things were said that weren't true. And I know there's a lot of misogyny out there. I hate to say that in 2024. And a lot of times people don't want to face some very hard realities like the situation of climate change. She wasn't as known to the American population as he is over the many, many years that he's been in the public eye for one reason or another. And we have to rethink how we go forward.

Some exit poll data suggests that the divide between men and women in this election might not have been as stark as initially anticipated. I want to learn from you who you believe turned out or did not turn out for Kamala Harris. Well, it's hard to say until we see what the final vote is. I wouldn't want to think too far ahead at this point. I'm sorry. We're all so very, very tired. Of course. But, you know. But there is a feeling, but there is that feeling that Kamala Harris is running behind the margins of even Joe Biden back in 2020, including when it comes to the support of women.

Yes, well, that is a possibility. And I have to say that, you know, if people grow up in a culture where women aren't respected, where women are looked at in a very unenlightened way, could I put it that way, that they will vote within that culture. And also there's the media. If you watch right-wing media all the time, they're going to give you a reflection upon yourself that, you know, is something that the Democratic Party wouldn't agree with. The party will be doing a great deal of reflecting over the coming hours as to where it went wrong. And I wonder whether there is a feeling on whether Kamala Harris was right to downplay her gender and her race identity

in this election? Well, we could do a lot of second guessing. I think there's going to be plenty of time for that. I think at the moment, we all have to catch our breath and see where we go forward. Maybe, unfortunately, America still doesn't accept the idea of a woman as president. I was hoping that Hillary Clinton would have opened the door for Kamala Harris, but maybe not now. There will be a lot of maybes as you try and better understand the situation. And, of course, this was dubbed by some as the abortion election. How important do you think that was

for Democratic voters when they came to actually vote? Well, that's the question. What did the perception of a better economy in the past overrule the people's ideas of personal freedom? And again, we'll just have to look at that in the future.

And then, of course, there's the economy, which some believe was the winning hand for Donald Trump and the promises he was making on that front. Do you think the Harris campaign could have done more here as well? Well, we pushed as hard as we could. We put forward plans that we thought would help an awful, awful lot of people in America. But if you're constantly told that you were better off in the past, we've seen this happen in previous campaigns, you know,

were you better off? And people forget, you know, there was a pandemic that Joe Biden had to bring us out of. And I think people forgot about that. And the past always looks better than the future, doesn't it? Because we think we know what happened. What do we know about Kamala Harris at the moment? Where is she? When might she actually speak? I'm sure she will be speaking soon. But again, I think we're going to wait and see what the final count is. And what kind of a message do you think we'll be hearing from her? Well, I would hope that it would be what she has been saying all along, that we're divided and we have to come together. However, when you have a president-elect who is bent on retribution, I don't know how easy that's going to be.

My thanks there to Sharon Manita from Democrats Abroad there. I spoke to her before coming on air. And whilst we've been on there just playing that tape to you, we've had this update from CBS, which is the BBC's US partner. It is projecting that another swing state has gone to Donald Trump, Wisconsin. We've also since had the outcome from Alaska, three more votes. And this means that Donald Trump has 279 electoral college votes, more than the 270 needed to win the overall race. As a result, Mr. Trump is now projected to have won the presidency

and will re-enter the White House as America's 47th president. Quite the outcome. Let's bring in Emma Long, Associate Professor in American History and Politics at the University of East Anglia. I'm glad that we've got you with us, Emma. Hi, good morning. Thanks for having me. Here to help us make sense of this all reaction to that result i just announced um a little surprised i think i mean the polls had had the the candidates sort of neck and neck so we always knew it was going to be close but actually what we're seeing if you look at the popular vote is that i mean at the moment don Donald Trump is about five million votes ahead of Kamala Harris, which ultimately doesn't make it as close as the polls seem to suggest. So it's not so much the candidate. It could have been either of them.

But the fact actually this seems to be reasonably decisive and much less close than we've been thinking it would be for a while. We were told that women were central to this election. So what do we know so far about how they voted? We've got some early voting, which seems to suggest that more women than more women lean towards Kamala Harris. Men leaned towards Donald Trump. I think something like eight percentage, eight or nine percentage points between the two of them, which is slightly larger than the gap between in the 2020 election. But it's, Harris has not quite won as many women voters as Joe Biden did. And I think that's surprising people that, as we just heard from the previous speakers there was a lot of

thinking that abortion was going to be the big issue for this election that would bring particularly women particularly younger women out to to vote and that they'd be more likely to lean to the democrats and that doesn't necessarily seem to have played out and why do you think that is? I mean, again, as we just heard, I think the economy is a really big issue. The cost of living crisis, the recent issues with inflation, we're seeing in the UK as well. People just feel worse off. And that question, you know, are you better off than you were four years ago for many, many Americans is no. And Biden has struggled with the fact that even though he passed some really important economic legislation that invested in things to do with climate change and green energy and infrastructure that is critically important, and other economic policies, that

he was never really able to convince voters that those have been as successful as they actually have, because inflation has been affecting people on a day-to-day basis when they go to the supermarket, for example. And I think Trump came along and he doesn't necessarily have a detailed policy, but he does have a clear one. I want to put this to you. This is from Paul in Birmingham. As a UK born black man, I am happy at the Trump win and very happy with the return to Trump by many, but with the support by many black men who weren't swayed by identity politics. I wonder, do you think Kamala Harris missed a trick by not making more of her gender and her identity, her ethnic identity? I mean, it was quite surprising that she didn't make much of either. In fact, she seemed to quite actively try to kind of avoid discussion of both. I think in a

way, she was sort of damned if she did and damned if she didn't. We're talking about now, should she have pushed more because she lost the election. But I think had she pushed more on those issues, you would have seen criticisms of her playing identity politics and, you know, trying to talk to voters as if they're one thing rather than lots of other things. speaks to that sort of difficult line that actually leading female politicians have to walk even today, which is sort of between that kind of, we want them to be likable, but we want them to be effective. We want them to be strong, but not too strong. And I think, you know, I think the classic is if Harris or another female candidate had behaved as Trump has behaved, this election would not have been anywhere near as close as it turned out to be. So I think it speaks about the place of female politicians at the top of government. So that's women's votes. What about men? How did they vote? What do we understand? So my understanding is that white men particularly leaned towards Trump. That's not a surprise.

That happened at the last election. There's a lot of talk that maybe Harris was losing the black male vote in the last few weeks, but that initial poll suggests maybe that hasn't played out as much as as that suggested um and i think one of the interesting things of this election is actually the hispanic or the latino vote um has dropped and has moved significantly towards trump um i haven't seen breakdowns on gender for that as yet. It could be very interesting as well. I want to put this to you from Daisy in Lincoln, who's messaged us, who says, I'm finding it very hard to understand how a criminalised misogynistic man has triumphed over a well-educated woman overnight, sending love to women all over America who may be feeling scared this morning.

Sadly, despite the work already done, seemingly the feminist movement still has a very long way to go. Thank you for your message, Daisy. There will be concerns, as we've been discussing throughout the programme, particularly in relation to women and policy surrounding women's welfare. What do we know about his policy agenda on this front? I mean, we know that he's said contradictory things. So predicting things may be a little difficult, but he has said that he won't push for a national abortion ban. But then we also know that Republicans have taken control of the House and the Senate. So Trump may not want may not choose to do that.

But that doesn't mean that Congress won't try to to do that um but if we we take trump is his word he's not pushing for that which will leave it at state level and we know that some states have voted to protect abortion and women's reproductive rights in their constitutions in this election albeit as we heard earlier florida is one of the states that did not um beyond that it's, it's difficult to say. I mean, you know, the issue is wider than abortion. One of the things that Trump has promised, of course, is mass deportations. We don't know quite what form that's going to take. But we do know that when Trump was in office previously, what we saw widespread um breaking up of families at the border and you know

with particular you know impact for for men women and children um and this kind of mass deportation policy if he follows through on that runs risk runs the risk of having impact for you know for women both um documented fully documented documented immigrants to the United States and those who live there undocumented as well. Turning our attention to Kamala Harris, what next for her? It's a difficult one, isn't it? I mean, you know, she's gone from being vice president running for running this campaign sort of unexpectedly, actually, given what happened earlier on in the year um i think it's probably likely that we'll see her drop out of public view at least for a little while that's

what we saw with with hillary clinton she has a remarkable record for all the the slurs and the you know rubbish that has been thrown at her as part of this campaign. She has a remarkably successful legal and political career behind her. So she's well qualified. I, you know, whatever I think she decides to do afterwards, I think she'll find a place. But it's going to be, I think, it's going to take some time. And I think it's probably going to be difficult having had this kind of profile of this campaign to then go on and sort of find the next thing for her to do. Emma Long from the University of East Anglia reacting to that news that we had just a few minutes ago that Donald Trump is now projected to have won the US presidency and will re-enter the White House as America's 47th president. He now has the, well, he now has 279 electoral college votes to

have won the overall race. Plenty more on that story over at BBC News Online. But let's pause, let's breathe from this rather dramatic political story dominating our coverage. And let's talk about food with Irina Yanakievska, who is a food writer and recipe developer. She is born in what is now North Macedonia, and she left her career in corporate law to follow her passion for sharing her love of Balkan cuisine. Her new cookery book is called The Balkan Kitchen, and she takes us on a journey across the former Yugoslavia with recipes that speak for the vast and varied cuisine of a region overshadowed by conflict in recent years, from North Macedonia to Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia and Kosovo.

She joins me now live in the studio. Welcome. Thank you so much for having me on. It's a pleasure to be here. You've written this new book, The Balkan Kitchen. You grew up in what is now North Macedonia. Why was it important to write about Balkan cuisine? So for me, as somebody who was born in the 80s in former Yugoslavia, we were born with

this great ideal of a country where you could, you know, rise above your ethnicity, your religion. It was a very multicultural, very accepting, very idealistic place. And as I lived through the wars of dissolution in Yugoslavia, the tragic, tragic fragmentation of it, suddenly Yugoslavia and most importantly, the people from Yugoslavia started to become associated with this negative stereotype. Yugoslavia became synonymous with the Balkans and the Balkans with Yugoslavia, even though obviously the Balkans as a region is much wider. And I suppose I wanted to reclaim that term. I wanted to show the world the inherent beauty of the region.

And for me, as a historian, initially, it was the best way to do that through food, because food is the thing that unites us all around the world. It is the thing that brings people around the table and people can share stories of their grandmothers, of their mothers, of their fathers and family. And yeah, so I suppose I used food as a medium for showcasing the extraordinary wealth and culture of the Balkans with a view, with a purpose to hopefully making the world understand that there was more to us than our wars of dissolution. It's a very clever book because you talk about the region's history, but you also intertwine it with your own family's history. And that starts with you growing up.

There's a wonderful part where you talk about cooking when you're just four years old, chopping walnuts, peeling fruit under the watchful eye of your grandmother. Tell us about that childhood and the role that's played. I mean, it's influenced everything in my life. Everything I do is influenced through the prism of these women that raised me. And in Balkan culture, you grow up in and around the kitchen. You are expected to help, not just with the preparation and chopping walnuts, but you're just expected to be around and adored and immersed in this cultural experience. And the food is incredibly important to that.

It's sort of the Balkan rituals, not just religious, but wider than that, all revolve around preparing food for people, sharing food for people. One of our famous welcome customs is when you come to a person's home, you are first offered slatko, which is a spoon sweet made of whatever seasonal fruit you love, a Turkish coffee and water. And that's your welcome to my home and then after that the things start to come out you know things that we have that we've prepared then you sit down for a meal and that continues and then you have sweets in the afternoon. Food is a love language. It absolutely is and so and that's how I've always seen it and I didn't realize to what extent that was a love language until I lost my grandmother, sadly. And I thought, well, I'll never be able to learn from her.

In Balkan cooking, like in many cultures around the world, cooking is instinctive. It moves with the seasons. There are no recipes in my family. No measurements. Absolutely no measurements. It's all by eye. It's all with feeling. A pinch of this.

Exactly. It's all based on what you have in the home and how to cleverly use it to create something beautiful and delicious and nourishing. And I suddenly realized, well, I'll never be able to know how she approached that. So I'm going to teach myself more. Luckily, my mother has all the family recipes and cookbooks. Well, tell me how you put this all together then. If your grandmother hadn't written all this down, how did you go about the process of gathering all these recipes? So it was a combination. The idea was inspired by actually finding one of her old cookbooks that was published in the Yugoslav era.

It's called Veliki Narodni Kuver and it was a cookbook that had had various iterations over the 20th century. It was written by a lady who was essentially the Julia Child of the Balkans. And what she did was collect recipes from different women around the region of former Yugoslavia and put it in this tome. And I happened to, after my grandmother died tragically, I happened to open it on a page next to which she'd written my date of birth, or a date two weeks after my date of birth

for a cake she'd made. And I thought, well, this is beautiful. You know, as we said, this is a love language. So I started with these kind of collections of historical cookbooks. And then I used her notebooks and as vague as they were at times, little scraps of paper, little notes she'd written in the margins of her cookbooks, my mother's translations of these and slight updates, and then a lot of research as well in archives and articles online and travels through the Balkans as well. So I traveled extensively across former Yugoslavia to places I knew were associated with particular foods

or ingredients, and slowly a picture between this kind of historical analysis of the region through digging through family recipes, through digging through published recipes from different periods in Yugoslav history, through speaking to people as I met on my travels across the Balkans, I started to piece together this picture of a cuisine that was very special, that pointed to a commonality, as well as an incredible diversity across the region. Yes, because you do say quite clearly that there is no such thing as one Balkan cuisine. Absolutely not. In the same way, there's no such thing as Asian cuisine or, you know, or any other part of the world. It is I use the term as a sort of a safety net, because unfortunately, food is inherently political these days and has begun to be appropriated as a nationalist fig leaf, which it never should be, because food is an artifact that preserves more stubbornly than anything the threads of history, the influences of history, the human migration, actually.

You can trace human migration based on the usage of ingredients around the world. And so I didn't want to allocate nationalities to dishes because I think that undermines how complex and how interconnected ancient food ways are. So what I tried really hard to do was to explain to people, well, this is now commonly seen of as a national dish for whatever country it happens to be. However, it is also made in other countries in the region. However, it is also, you know, has iterations wider than the Balkans, you know, as far as the Levant, obviously pointing to a connection between the Balkans, either through Silk Road, through the Ottoman Empire, through human migration, and so on. So Balkan cuisine is an umbrella term which allows me from the safety of regionalism to explore all of these

different threads that tie the cuisine together and and celebrate that and and celebrate the diversity and how it's meaningful to particular groups either for religious reasons or for from an identity perspective or simply pointing to kind of the availability of ingredients in the region. So, yeah, so it was being practical. I believe you brought some along with you. What do we have? Can I stand up and have a peep? Absolutely. So I brought you some of my favourites. Am I meant to try some on air?

If you'd like to. Can I? I don't think I've got time. I'll have some afterwards. So I brought you some some ivar which is a pepper spread made from red peppers and aubergines sounds gorgeous in north macedonia and it's on a little solenki which is a little salty biscuit and i've also brought you lutanica which is made with also with red peppers but this is garlic it's sort of like a relish it's a little bit spicy and with tomatoes spice yeah and then i brought you my favorite cookies they're vanillite so need them this morning absolutely um they're like

little walnut um walnut cookies sandwiched with a plum peckmez which is a fruit butter and my mom's fruit and nut roll so we we all we always knew it in my family is uh mum's fruit and nut roll. So we always knew it in my family as mum's fruit and nut roll. And as I was researching, I found out that actually it's probably something that was inspired by Austrian bishop's bread. And it's now known as Austrian bishop's bread, even in Slovenia. But it has had some kind of adaptation as it traveled down into into the southern balkans or in my mom's kitchen i love these stories um you have some um and i want to understand from you how important it is that you pass these this food journey almost down to him as well and include him in the process my son yes well he it's a very strange thing when you find yourself a mother and suddenly you go from kind of cooking for yourself to being the only one that can pass on the identity to your children.

And he is born and bred British, so he will never know, as we have the saying, that you are from when your eyes first see sunlight. So he will never have that, the benefit of that identity. It is, isn't it? It's a lovely saying. And so the only way that I could pass on my heritage to him, I felt was food, because I failed atrociously to teach him my language. I thought if I involve him in this this he will at least have the benefit of of feeling part of what it is to be from the balkans and and reading your book i understand that the kitchen is you know the focus of the kitchen is not just on women it's absolutely it's a family affair absolutely yeah absolutely i i mean i talk about the women who've inspired this

because they have been central to my family. But certainly, you know, my grandfather was very involved, even my dad early, early on. So it's food. Everyone has a role to play in the Balkan kitchen. Everyone finds their role. You know, some people love the being involved in the fermentation aspect of things, for example, or making that stalwart of the Balkans, rakia, which is like a fruit brandy that is used widely for lots of things. Everyone's got their role by the sounds of it. Absolutely.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I feel so enlightened. Thank you, Irina. And Irina Yanukovskaya's book, The Balkan Kitchen, is out now. If you are focusing on the results of the US election, then do stay with us here on Radio 4 or go to BBC News Online because there is plenty more there about that win for Donald Trump.

But for now, thank you for your company here on Woman's Hour. Thanks for listening. There's plenty more from Woman's Hour over at BBC Sounds. Hello, I'm India Axon and I just want to quickly talk to you about witches. In this series from BBC Radio 4, simply titled Witch, I'm going to explore the meaning of the word today. It is a twisting, turning rabbit warren of a world, full of forgotten connections to land and to power, lost graves, stolen words and indelible marks on the world. Because the story of the witch is actually the story of us all.

Come and find out why on Witch, with me, India Rackerson. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, I'm India Raxson, and I just want to quickly talk to you about witches. In this series from BBC Radio 4, simply titled Witch, I'm going to explore the meaning of the word today. It is a twisting, turning rabbit warren of a world full of forgotten connections to land and to power,

lost graves, stolen words, and indelible marks on the world. Because the story of the witch is actually the story of us all. Come and find out why on Witch with me, India Rackerson. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know.

It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in.

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