First, where to begin? Roy Moore? Al Franken? Tax bill? Jerusalem? Government shutdown? Russia? The pace of politics is relentless – fatiguing, really – so you need someone of relentless energy to talk about politics with. And few have more relentless energy than Chris Matthews. But these times also call out for perspective and context. What in the world is going on? To many of us, it feels like there’s an all-out war – on decency, good behavior, justice – even democracy. What does history have ...
Dec 08, 2017•39 min
It’s only a slight exaggeration that there is nothing in the political world that Charlie Cook can’t analyze, clarify or explain. Which is good news, because we had plenty to cover, starting with the Cook Political Report’s Midterm analysis. The report -- Political Environment and Congressional Breakdown Charts – is available only to Charlie’s subscribers. But he went into the details with me. I also asked Charlie about a recent piece he wrote – one with a headline sure to excite Democrats and f...
Nov 22, 2017•44 min
I just finished talking with former U.S. Attorney and current podcast/analysis/and media star Preet Bharara. He claims to be a rookie at this whole media thing, but if you’ve listened to his top rated podcast “Stay Tuned with Preet,” you know that’s what someone in the law enforcement business might graciously call “pretext.” The guy’s a pro. Our conversation covered the topics you would expect – Russia, President Trump, flipping witnesses – and some you might not – like what was that Senate sta...
Nov 13, 2017•29 min
So a couple of weeks ago, I saw Rep. Jim Jordan – Republican from Ohio’s 4th congressional district – say something on TV that I feel I see our politicians say all the time and I never believe: Call me.Rep. Jordan was reacting to something that had been written about him, something he said was flat out wrong. If you want to know what I think, he said, just ask me.So I did. And Rep. Jordan kept his word… this podcast is the result. Specifically, I wanted to ask the Freedom Caucus Congressman abou...
Oct 04, 2017•20 min
So this is tough one. I just finished speaking with former Congressman Jason Altmire. He has written a new book that I really hope you read. It captures exactly what most of us hope for, but also seems like a ridiculous long shot at the moment: That somehow our divided country will come together around policy and politics. Congressman Altmire’s new book is "Dead Center: How Political Polarization Divided America, and What We Can Do About It." Some background: From 2007-13, Altmire represented PA...
Oct 03, 2017•42 min
It turns out the key to a great conversation: Book a comedy-writing presidential speechwriter as your guest. That’s what we have for you today. David Litt worked in the Barack Obama White House as Special Assistant to the President and senior presidential speechwriter. Those are awfully formal titles, and David seems like he’s anything but awfully formal. What he is is awfully funny. And smart. He wrote many of President Obama’s funniest bits – from Correspondent Dinner speeches to his Happy 90t...
Sep 20, 2017•29 min
If you’re going to read one book on politics this summer vacation, the word is out: Devil’s Bargain – Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency is the one. The book is by Josh Green, Senior National Correspondent for Bloomberg Businessweek, and if you believe what Politico reports, the book has President Trump livid. To be clear, as you’ll hear, Josh is just fine with that. You’ll love this conversation. Josh is a great storyteller and a funny guy – Back stories on Steve Ban...
Jul 22, 2017•26 min
That’s the provocative, timely, and somewhat scary question posed by one of America’s great authorities on international affairs: Harvard’s Graham Allison. Allison looks at the rising tensions between the two global competitors through a 2500-year lens in his new, important book: “Destined for War: Can America and China escape Thucydides’s Trap.” Don’t worry, Allison explains it very clearly, but it’s centered on a central principal that has resulted in 12 wars over the last 500 years: Situation...
Jul 21, 2017•34 min
So where do you start a conversation with U.S. Senator Al Franken? There’s so much to discuss. Russia investigations? President Trump? Congressional Hearings? Health Care? Which is why we started with the obvious: The Grateful Dead. He’s a big fan. But don’t worry. We quickly moved off the Dead and to the policies and politics that matter today. As Sen. Franken makes clear: That’s why he says this is the best job he’s ever had. You surely know some or all of Sen. Franken’s biography. You know he...
Jun 08, 2017•34 min
I just finished talking with Sidney Blumenthal, and I know, depending on which cable network you prefer, he’s someone you already likely either love or hate. But I’m telling you, regardless of where you fall, you’re really going to like this conversation. We spoke because Sidney has a new book, and it’s excellent – It’s “Wrestling With His Angel: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. II, 1849-1856.” He has two more volumes to go, and wait until you hear about his process. It was not what I ...
May 20, 2017•33 min
Today Tom Walker is going to set you straight on politics, liberalism, free speech, and more. Who’s Tom Walker? You might know him better as Jonathan Pie, the liberal British “newscaster” – and that’s in quotes – who keeps getting surreptitiously filmed talking off-camera to his producer Tim, who’s back at the studio. Here’s the YouTube video he posted 2 days after the Trump election. By Walker’s count it’s been shown in various formats more than 100MM times. A quick warning: This Jonathan Pie l...
Apr 11, 2017•48 min
What went on – and is going on – with Russia and the U.S., or more specifically, Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump? DNC hacking; the President’s continually positive characterizations of Putin; former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn; new questions around Attorney General Jeff Sessions – and calls for him to recuse himself from any investigations… the list goes on. And while the facts continue to trickle out, the overall context becomes increasingly relevant – including Russia’s ...
Mar 03, 2017•43 min
It feels like every day we reach a new point of “well, this has never happened before” in American politics. And I’m not just talking about the Tweets. Ok, the tweets are something. Incredible, really. We can and will have a conversation on when to ignore and when to react to them. But let’s get past the Tweetstorms for a moment. I’m talking about actual questions about democracy and the Constitution and even America itself. Questions that take more than 140 characters to answer. Like this one: ...
Jan 19, 2017•34 min
The Electoral College has voted. The next cabinet is essentially filled. And with the holiday season here, and our focus is turning to the little things like peace on earth and good will towards men. And yet, even with the time passing, even with the new challenges – Russia hacking our democracy, Congress promising to hack healthcare, Navy drones in the South China Sea – nearly every Democrat I talk with still has the same singular question: What happened? We know all the theories: The Democrats...
Dec 24, 2016•31 min
We’re down to the numbers game, folks. Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll still have the name calling, threats, promises, rallies, commercials and more – I didn’t say the campaign is over – but all focus now turns to a single number: 270. What’s the best path for both candidates to get there? And what’s it like inside the campaigns in the final days. Few would know better than Neil Newhouse; because he’s been there. Neil was lead pollster four years ago for Mitt Romney’s 2012 Presidential campaign. He ...
Nov 04, 2016•39 min
It’s so hard to talk politics and not have the whole conversation be about Donald Trump. And with all of the coverage – even ours – seemingly centered on the Presidential race, it might be hard to remember that there’s another branch of government where the November 8 vote matters as well. We didn’t forget, though. So today, let’s talk about the House. You know the basics – the Republicans control it. And most people think Democrats would have to run a clean sweep of the so-called contested race...
Oct 26, 2016•26 min
I wanted to step away from the daily politics today and take a bit of a longer view, because maybe you’re wondering the same thing I am: What’s going on with the Republican Party? Everywhere you turn there’s another layer of erosion, whether from politicians or party elders or longtime political donors. Regardless of who wins the Presidency, something big has changed within the Republican Party. And I don’t care which party you belong to, if either of them looks like it’s disintegrating before o...
Oct 17, 2016•37 min
I just finished talking with Dan Drezner, Professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Stay with me now… because Drezner is most definitely not your parents’ poli sci professor. For one, you’ve got to follow him on Twitter. He’s funny, topical, and as likely to tweet a goofy video as he is to include a scatter-plot graph. He’s also not above using a curse word every now and then. He also seems, on Twitter, like a guy you’d want to hang out ...
Sep 28, 2016•38 min
So I just finished talking with Jim Messina, Barack Obama’s winning 2012 campaign manager. Boy this guy knows politics. He knows the numbers. He knows the states. He knows the strategies. He knows the personalities. And he offers this great mix of numbers and narrative – he’s a walking master class. The data doesn’t matter without the story, and if you’ve got a campaign message but no numbers to get to 270 votes, well that doesn’t matter much either. For background in case you don’t know, before...
Sep 24, 2016•32 min
So if this campaign is part psychological drama, part comical farce – a matchup of personalities that would be case studies 1 and 1a for any Psych 101 class… is there anyone better to talk to than Maureen Dowd? Of course there isn’t. Which is why I was really looking forward to this conversation. Maureen Dowd, as you know, is the Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times columnist. She’s a best selling author, and her latest book – just published – is “The Year of Voting Dangerously: The Derangement...
Sep 16, 2016•28 min
So I just finished talking with Robert Costa, the Washington Post National Political Reporter and political analyst for NBC and MSNBC. The call was perfectly timed, as just this morning, a bunch of publications – including the Washington Post and Bob Costa – were taken off the Trump blacklist. So I had a newly freed Bob Costa, ready to talk about Trump and the Republican Party and Congress and more. And he did. As you likely know, Bob is basically the pre-eminent political reporter on the Republ...
Sep 08, 2016•35 min
Where does Stuart Stevens find the time? He is a founding partner of Strategic Partners & Media, the political consulting firm. He’s a Daily Beast contributor. He was the lead political strategist for the 2012 Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney. And he just released his 7th book – this one is a novel – titled “The Innocent Have Nothing to Fear.” It’s an excellent read whose narrative is also weirdly close to the plotlines of our current presidential campaign. Speaking of the preside...
Aug 27, 2016•53 min
Jim Lehrer, the Dean of debate moderators, as Bernie Shaw once called him, joins us on Political Wire Conversations. Moderator of 12 U.S. Presidential debates. He’s also a current member of the Board of Directors for the Commission on Presidential Debates, the group that organizes and runs the general election debates – three with Trump and Clinton and one for the Vice Presidential candidates Pence and Kaine, assuming, of course, they all take place. Maybe Jim hasn’t seen it all, but he surely h...
Aug 03, 2016•32 min
The 2016 presidential campaign is shaping up as Hillary Clinton's race to lose -- unless everything we know about politics is wrong. Clinton is leading Donald Trump in the national polls and most state polls as well. Nearly every forecast at this point show s landslide in the Electoral College. She has put together a better national campaign. She's running way more television ads. But can she win? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bon...
Jul 13, 2016•30 min
We’re in the middle of a political campaign that everyone says is unprecedented. There’s never been a candidate like Donald Trump. There’s never been a candidate like Hillary Clinton. There’s never been a campaign like this one. Never more negative. Never more disorganized. Never more off the cuff. Never, never, never. Well, how truly “never before” is this campaign? Are we really in totally unchartered territory? His history in fact no guide at all? Does context matter? John Dickerson just migh...
Jul 08, 2016•45 min
So as you know, because you can hardly turn on the television without seeing him, Van Jones is a political commentator on CNN. But as you’ll hear, he’s got so much else going on. He is President of Dream Corps and Rebuild the Dream, and you’ll hear about that. As opposed to so many of the people we see and hear on TV and talk radio, this guy is out there getting it done. You may not agree with Van on every issue, but you’ll have to agree there’s substance there. More biography: Van was President...
Jun 02, 2016•40 min
Chris Riback talks to Josh King about his new book, An Advance Man’s Guide to White House Stagecraft, Campaign Spectacle, and Political Suicide, and the 2016 presidential campaign. King, a veteran of Bill Clinton's White House, leads readers through an entertaining and illuminating journey through the Hall of Infamy of some of the most catastrophic examples of political theater of the last quarter century. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get acce...
May 11, 2016•38 min
If you really want to know how good the Cook Political Report is, you’ll want to listen up – because we’ve got the real thing! Charlie Cook is Editor and Publisher of the eponymous Cook Political Report. He is also a National Journal columnist, and it’s only a slight exaggeration that there is nothing in the political world that Charlie can’t analyze, clarify or explain. Which is good news, because we’ve got plenty to cover: On the Republican side: Are votes enough? Donald Trump keeps winning th...
Apr 21, 2016•29 min
The candidates may be riding the subway in New York. Perhaps they’re thinking about Pennsylvania – Even California. But all political eyes are on Cleveland. While polls show Donald Trump crushing in the Big Apple, Ted Cruz was the Big Cheese in Wisconsin. Cruz’ double-digit win there significantly increased the chances of a contested Republican Convention. 538’s panel of experts estimates Trump will fall short of the magic 1,237 delegates. As The University of Virginia Center for Politics told t...
Apr 12, 2016•33 min
Many of us look at this extraordinary, ridiculous, seemingly-unprecedented political season and wonder: How is this possible? The anger perhaps we understand. The feeling that the system is so corrupted that the only effective approach will be to kick over the table and figure out later how to rebuild it? Even those who don’t agree the problem is that dire can get their heads around the idea. But fear-mongering, name-calling, locker-room-talk-mimicking as the path the White House? What is going ...
Apr 01, 2016•38 min
