In the last few years, we’ve seen ideas that were once on the far fringes of American political thought become some of the most important and frightening factors in our politics. Overturning elections. QAnon. "Alternative Electors." Strict originalist views on abortion. And now, using an obscure section of the Constitution to create a right-wing rewrite of the Constitution itself. Former US Senator Russ Feingold served nearly two decades in the United States Senate, and is the co-author of “The ...
Sep 26, 2022•42 min
Political scientist Dr. William Ewell and I just wrote an article for Newsweek breaking down the go-to Republican panic move every time they run into a rough patch politically. Pull a stunt on immigration, no matter the human cost. William joins me to run through the Groundhog Day history and likely future of their immigration ploy, and how it will probably be the ideal cover Republicans will look to in the unfolding Trump legal disaster. Photo: Jeff Swensen/Getty Images...
Sep 22, 2022•43 min
Chris Hill of Motley Fool Money on why no one knows what to make of the confusing mess of economic data and business news...and that's making the market super jumpy. Also, Amazon goes all in on the NFL.
Sep 21, 2022•20 min
Just as Republican Senator Lindsay Graham scored a possible own-goal by proposing a national abortion ban, suddenly Ron DeSantis Diverted media attention onto his stunt to fly migrants from Texas to Massachusetts. Are Democrats at risk of letting the election focus change to Republicans' favorite territory. Also, the country dodged a train last week when President Biden helped to avert a railroad strike--but it ain't over yet.
Sep 20, 2022•44 min
Brookings Institution expert Jonathan Rauch breaks down his amazing viral article for The Atlantic, "Trump's Second Term Would Look Like This," detailing a nightmarish future with an unprecedented assault on the agencies, military, courts, and democracy. Rauch is the author of eight books and a contributing writer to The Atlantic. He was the recipient of the 2005 National Magazine Award, the magazine industry’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. For the video of this podcast, subscribe to The Tak...
Sep 19, 2022•43 min
Also, the tide turns in Ukraine. The big primaries today. And should Democrats try to keep Trump off the ballot?
Sep 13, 2022•45 min
Several weeks ago, an NBC news poll found that the number one issue for Americans was not inflation, but the threat to democracy. Yet, despite American's clear concern, and despite Republican gaslighting about the supposed liberal bias of the media (hint, it's the opposite, as we cover in this episode), former Chicago Sun Times Editor Mark Jacob says that the stunning rise of fascist forces in America and the MAGA takeover of the Republican Party remains stunningly under-covered. "The media is s...
Sep 12, 2022•42 min
Time Magazine recently described Jesse Ferguson by saying that he "as been one of the quiet forces inside rooms where power has been negotiated, won, or ceded over the last two decades." He's one of the most sought-after messaging experts among Democrats, and he has a lot to say about the key thing that Democrats always seem to get wrong when talking to voters, and how to fix it (hint: there's an easy acronym to remember how...ABC-V). Matt and Jesse also cover how to make the Inflation Reduction...
Sep 08, 2022•41 min
The shape of what and how we view things on television is rapidly evolving, with the NFL moving to Amazon, NBC potentially dropping an hour of prime time, and sports looking to a streaming future. Chris Hill, host of Motley Fool Money, explains the dizzying changes and what might be coming next. Also, what will the homestretch of the business year look like?
Sep 07, 2022•25 min
By which we mean the homestretch toward the midterms, with 9 weeks until election day, and the outcome depending on voters' priorities between inflation and autocracy. But also, President Biden's big speech last week depicted a country on the brink of a total meltdown, with MAGA forces poised to upend 250 years of democracy. Are we actually that close to the brink, and if so, was his speech the right thing to do? Plus, if we're so close to a MAGA takeover of government, why are Democrats promoti...
Sep 06, 2022•42 min
Several years ago, Newt Gingrich created a bit of controversy when he said in an interview that feelings are facts, and that the way people perceive an issue has just as much to say about it’s reality as any set of statistics that you could gather. Many people scoffed or reacted with outrage...but the truth is, he was kind of right: for instance, the way people feel about the economy has a strong influence on the objective reality of the economy as seen in the kinds of statistics that we can mea...
Sep 01, 2022•41 min
We’ve been talking a lot about President Biden's decision to give holders of student loan debt substantial aid by canceling up to $10,000 in debt for those making less than $125,000. It seems like the decision has made no one happy, and that's definitely true of today's guest. Brian Riedl is a Senior Fellow with the Manhattan Institute who is an expert in economic policy, having worked for six years a chief economist senator Rob Portman and Director of Budget and Spending Policy for Marco Rubio’...
Aug 30, 2022•42 min
Or will it amp it up even further? The panel dives into why Democrats are gaining ground, and whether President Biden's big move on student debt is the right thing to do both economically and politically. Plus, Lindsay Graham makes the MAGA hostage threat explicit: stay away from Trump, or the base will attack (again). Does that mean prosecutors should back off?
Aug 29, 2022•44 min
In the past week, Republican attacks on the Inflation Reduction Act around how it funds tax enforcement have gotten downright scary, claiming that the IRS will use the additional funding to hire thousands of armed agents and threaten Americans’ life and liberty. It's nonsense, but it's nothing new. Back in December, we did an episode of Great Ideas that ran through the myths, realities, and partisan lies that were emerging then about tax enforcement...and most of it applies just as much now as i...
Aug 26, 2022•39 min
We work very hard on this show to get out of our bubble and challenge our perceptions about what is happening, so that we don't end up just living in a political echo chamber. There’s no better way to do that for Democrat than to hear from one the very top Republican pollsters working today. Right now, the big question is whether there is a real shift going on in politics...is it just a case of Democrats over tilting on a bit of good news, or is it based on real, tangible signs that voters' fund...
Aug 25, 2022•43 min
This week, we're focusing on the question of the big vibe shift in politics: is it just a hazy feeling among Democrats, or a real reflection of a significant change in their favor? Aliza Astrow is a senior political analyst at Third Way who conducts public opinion research and analysis on voter views, and she walks through whether, how much, and why voters may be warming to keeping Democrats in power.
Aug 23, 2022•42 min
Numerous data points are suggesting that there may be some positive trends for Democrats, along with some troubling signs for Republicans. Dems have been acting downright giddy about what they see as the recent turn. But is it mostly in their mind? Is it going to be enough? Or are they getting meaningful traction at just the right time? The panel weighs what we're seeing out there and separates what's real from what's not.
Aug 22, 2022•42 min
Since the FBI search on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home more than a week ago, the response from Republican office holders has been to demonize the Department of Justice, FBI, and law-enforcement in general. Republican firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene called for the FBI to be "destroyed and defunded," and the echoes of that exact sentiment have sounded throughout Republican Party leadership. Our guest today identifies a growing pattern of opposing the rule of law and celebrating lawlessness at the...
Aug 18, 2022•38 min
Chris Hill, host of the country's #1 stock investing radio show, joins Matt to dive into the question of whether we are actually in a recession, and whether that question really matters. There are confusing, contradictory market signs, promising indications, and warnings that could spell trouble ahead. Chris and Matt try to untangle the indications from jobs, retailer's earnings, stock market performance, GDP growth, and hiring to understand what the big picture really is.
Aug 17, 2022•25 min
A new, highly-regarded poll from the St. Anselm's Institute of Politics is providing the best understanding yet of the politics of abortion after the Supreme Court's historic ruling ending Roe v. Wade. Neil Levesque, Executive Director at the IOP, takes us inside what they found, including how they are differentiating between people's personal views and how they will behave politically, and why this issue really could provide a winning edge for Democrats in some of the nation's most closely cont...
Aug 16, 2022•43 min
Our panel of former US Congressman Paul Hodes, conservative columnist Alicia Preston, and former staffer/campaign manager Matt Robison unpacks what we've learned in recent days about Donald Trump's hidden stash of top secret files, and identifies the one big question that no Republican Trump defender seems able to answer. Also, are things truly turning in Dem's direction politically?
Aug 15, 2022•44 min
On April 14 2021, President Biden announced that a full withdrawal from Afghanistan -- one that President Trump had previously promised would happen by May -- would go forward by September 11. The withdrawal turned out to be chaotic and deadly. By August 15, Kabul had fallen to the Taliban, and 13 US service-members were subsequently killed. Now, as we approach the one year anniversary of that date, how should we think about the withdrawal decision? Was the price too high? Or does the recent kil...
Aug 11, 2022•44 min
Former Democratic Congressman and prosecutor Paul Hodes, conservative consultant Alicia Preston, and host Matt Robison break down the early legal and political fallout from the surprise FBI raid on former President Trump. Paul explains from a prosecutor's standpoint what the behind-the-scenes mechanics are of getting a warrant like this, Alicia analyzes the Republican reaction, and Matt runs through the short and longer term political implications.
Aug 09, 2022•44 min
The Senate passage of the Inflation Reduction Act caps a surprisingly successful summer for President Biden and Congressional Democrats in which they passed major legislation to help veterans exposed to toxins, to increase manufacturing competitiveness against China, a bipartisan deal to rein in gun violence...not to mention President Biden holding together the western alliance against Vladimir Putin‘s war in Ukraine, adding two new members to NATO, and taking out the world's number one terroris...
Aug 08, 2022•41 min
Recently, legendary West Virginia broadcaster Howard Monroe has been wondering: has something deeply changed about the 2024 picture? It seems like both Donald Trump and Joe Biden's position has been softening in measurable ways. So what is the trajectory of the next presidential race? Matt Robison joins him to walk through what the indicators are -- and aren't -- telling us.
Aug 02, 2022•25 min
The day before Joe Manchin made his thunderbolt announcement of the new Inflation Reduction Act, I had a conversation with one of the Democratic Party's top communications strategists. Jim Manley - who served as senior communications advisor and spokesman for then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid - walked me through the question of whether all this wrangling over President Biden's economic agenda had been all negative, or whether Senator Manchin had actually helped steer Democrats ultimately to...
Aug 01, 2022•42 min
In this crossover edition of Great Ideas and Beyond Politics, we take a closer look at Christian nationalism. Recently, controversial Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene said that she’s a Christian nationalist...and the Republican party should be too. In fact, increasing numbers of candidates have embraced the language of Christian nationalism, if not the outright label, in the past year. But what does it actually mean? Is Christian nationalism an extreme religious and political ideo...
Jul 29, 2022•42 min
Late last week, a blockbuster report from Jonathan Swan of Axios detailed how former President Trump’s top allies are prepping a plan to purge the federal government. They want to remove thousands of key decision-makers and replace them with MAGA loyalists, all through an Executive Order called "Schedule F." The report shows that even beyond the usual targets like EPA and the IRS, the Trump shadow team is targeting our entire law enforcement, intelligence, and defense apparatus. The end result? ...
Jul 28, 2022•28 min
Chris Hill, host of Motley Fool Money, explains what the low earnings reports and downward guidance from major retailers really reflects about the economy. Does it mean that the biggest sellers see troubled times ahead, or is something else going on? Also, why is Google forever? And is now a good time to buy...grills?!?
Jul 27, 2022•25 min
Did last week mark a major crumbling in Donald Trump's pillars of support? Today, we bring you another episode of our in-depth roundtable analysis show "Balance of Power" in which we look at a not-so-subtle turn in conservative media around the former President. Also, is it time for both parties to turn the page to a new generation? Why is one of the biggest Senate races in the country swinging toward the Democrat? And do recent revelations show that the media has been messing up the Hunter Bide...
Jul 26, 2022•45 min
