SEASON TWO: THE KINGMAKERS IS HERE
For early access to future episodes and exclusive bonus content, click here to upgrade to a paid subscription to The Lever.
Master Plan, the award-winning investigative podcast series from The Lever, reveals the hidden forces behind today’s biggest problems — and how small groups of powerful people engineered those problems to serve their own interests. We are exposing their schemes.
Narrated by David Sirota, an award-winning investigative journalist and Oscar nominee for his work on the film Don’t Look Up.
Master Plan has received the 2025 National Press Club Award for Audio Journalism, the New York Festivals Radio Award for Best Investigative Journalism Podcast, multiple Signal Awards for Best News & Politics Podcast and Best Writing. It was an Ambies finalist for Best Politics podcast and was named a Webby Awards Honoree.
Learn more at masterplanpodcast.com
Last refreshed: ⓘ
Follow this podcast in the Metacast mobile app to refresh it and see new episodes.
Don't just listen to podcasts. Learn from them with transcripts, summaries, and chapters for every episode. Skim, search, and bookmark insights. Learn more
This week, the Iran War will reach its official 60-day mark. That’s a critical deadline under the War Powers Resolution, a Nixon-era law created to limit presidential war-making. Under that law, President Donald Trump can claim a one-time, 30-day extension, so the Iran War will likely continue. But the War Powers Resolution also gives Congress a secret weapon to end this unpopular war — or any war — whenever it wants. So why has Congress never used it? In this special episode, David Sirota tells...
Rather than retreat from Iran-Contra and other scandals, conservative operatives inside the White House — led by Attorney General Edwin Meese — went on the offensive. Drawing on newly uncovered documents and exclusive interviews, we trace how Meese helped turn a fringe idea into doctrine: that all executive power belongs to the president alone. This is the origin story of the unitary executive theory. TRANSCRIPT & BONUS MATERIALS: Click here to read a transcript and to explore bonus archival...
Emboldened by a landslide election, the president’s men began to see themselves as 1980s action-movie heroes, willing to break the law to get what they want. The result was the Iran-Contra affair, a secret arms deal that ignited a constitutional crisis. Would Congress roll over and play dead — or actually do something? TRANSCRIPT & BONUS MATERIALS: Click here to read a transcript and to explore bonus archival documents related to the episode. Get Master Plan episodes early and ad-free by bec...
How did Project 2025 take control of the White House? It all began decades ago, when a beer-baron-backed think tank handed President Ronald Reagan an 1,100-page instruction manual for expanding presidential power. The next episode is available now for premium subscribers. Click here . TRANSCRIPT & BONUS MATERIALS: Click here to read a transcript and to explore bonus historical documents related to the episode. Get Master Plan episodes early and ad-free by becoming a paid subscriber. Enjoy bo...
Master Plan season two investigates the historical roots of the "imperial presidency," tracing how Richard Nixon's attempts to unilaterally control federal spending (impoundment) and secretly expand the Vietnam War into Cambodia provoked a significant constitutional crisis. The episode details Congress's robust, bipartisan pushback with the War Powers Resolution and the Budget and Impoundment Control Act. It concludes by showing how these reforms were ultimately undermined, leading to the resurgence of an all-powerful executive, enabled by the "unitary executive theory" and its interpretation of the Constitution's Vesting Clause, mirroring today's political landscape.
A new season of Master Plan debuts on March 16. For early access to new episodes and exclusive bonus content, click here to upgrade to a paid subscription to The Lever . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We’ve got big news — Master Plan is now a book! Master Plan: The Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America , co-authored by David Sirota and Jared Jacang Maher, is now available from all major booksellers. The 265-page book expands on the award-winning podcast with exclusive archival documents, new reporting, and never-before-seen photos. It tells the story of how corporate interests and political operatives spent decades reshaping American democracy — from Lewis Powell’s secret memo to Citi...
In a special Master Plan bonus episode, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse joins David Sirota to break down the impact of the Supreme Court’s’ 2010 Citizens United ruling on 2024's super PAC spending spree. The two dig into billionaires like Elon Musk openly backing candidates and the hidden power of dark money, and discuss current reforms efforts to bring transparency back to democracy. Plus, the Master Plan team answers audience questions. Binge the entire season of the award-winning Master Plan now. ...
We all live in the master planners’ world now, immersed in an ocean of corruption. The 2024 Republican presidential campaign is bankrolled by billionaires, while corporate interests’ power was in full display at the 2024 Democratic National Convention. What will it take to reclaim our democracy? Is there any hope of reversing the master plan? Get ad-free Master Plan episodes by becoming a paid subscriber. Enjoy bonus episodes, exclusive content, and support this show. Visit masterplanpodcast....
Unleashed by the Citizens United ruling, the master planners launch a three-part heist to crack the vault protecting democracy itself. First, the schemers take out the security cameras monitoring dark money. Then, they disarm the last campaign finance cops on the beat. Finally, they pull off a getaway so prosecutors can’t charge them as they run off with the loot. Get ad-free Master Plan episodes by becoming a paid subscriber. Enjoy bonus episodes, exclusive content , and support this show. Visi...
An anti-abortion legal activist starts using the federal courts to chip away at campaign finance restrictions, setting his sights on the Supreme Court. Indiana lawyer James Bopp Jr. engineers the Citizens United case and hand-tailors it for Justice Anthony Kennedy’s storied swing vote — setting him up for an explosive 5-4 ruling that would devastate campaign finance law. Get ad-free Master Plan episodes by becoming a paid subscriber. Enjoy bonus episodes, exclusive content , and support this sho...
As President George W. Bush declares “Mission Accomplished” in the Iraq War, his administration wages a different war with swing-state senators defying his judicial nominees. Operatives like Leonard Leo and Brett Kavanaugh seize the moment to try to dramatically shift the balance of the Supreme Court. But when Bush goes off script and nominates a trusted legal aide for a Supreme Court vacancy, the conservative legal movement launches an insurgency. This is part two of our story about the creatio...
After a series of setbacks in the push to legalize corruption, the master planners know they must take over the U.S. Supreme Court and halt the trend of Republican-appointed justices siding with campaign finance reformers. So in the early 2000s, they deploy their new judicial machine in an epic battle to try to permanently change the courts from the bottom up. This is part one of a two-part story about how the Roberts Court was built. Get ad-free Master Plan episodes by becoming a paid subscribe...
When five U.S. senators get caught pressuring a regulator on behalf of a financial magnate, they become known as the “Keating Five.” The public is predictably outraged. But what no one expects is that one of those senators will learn from his mistakes and become the staunchest campaign finance reformer in decades. Get ad-free Master Plan episodes by becoming a paid subscriber. Enjoy bonus episodes, exclusive content, and support this show. Visit masterplanpodcast.com Learn more about your ad cho...
You might remember Mitt Romney’s infamous line: “Corporations are people, my friend.” But where did this idea come from? In this episode : how the Ford Administration and the Powell Memo movement turned to the Supreme Court to establish the precedent that legalized corruption: money is speech, and corporations are entitled to First Amendment rights. Get ad-free Master Plan episodes by becoming a paid subscriber. Enjoy bonus episodes, score exclusive content, and support this show. Visit masterpl...
How did corporate executives and politicians turn Lewis Powell’s memo from a blueprint into a master plan — and begin executing it? In this episode, we uncover proof of a secret “Powell Memo Task Force,” as well as clandestine meetings involving America’s most powerful businessmen, a future president, and an ambitious young media consultant. The results would change history. Get ad-free Master Plan episodes by becoming a paid subscriber. Enjoy bonus episodes, exclusive content, and support this ...
A seemingly moderate corporate lawyer grows alarmed by anti-corruption reformers’ policy wins and writes a manifesto detailing how corporations and oligarchs can dominate American politics. Months later, he’s confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court by senators unaware that his manifesto is going viral among the business elite. View related materials here . Get ad-free Master Plan episodes by becoming a paid subscriber. Enjoy bonus episodes, exclusive content, and support this show. Visit masterplanp...
There’s a lost tale behind Watergate: corporate bagmen, suitcases of illegal cash, and Nixon circumventing the very campaign finance rules he’d just signed into law. Amid the blowback, Nixon leaves a ticking time bomb in the heart of Washington. Get ad-free Master Plan episodes by becoming a paid subscriber. Enjoy bonus episodes, exclusive content, and support this show. Visit masterplanpodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Ever wonder how America became so corrupt? It didn’t have to be this way. Our series begins in 1971, a time when hot pants were hot, bell bottoms were swinging, and campaign cash flowed like… milk. Get ad-free Master Plan episodes by becoming a paid subscriber. Enjoy bonus episodes, exclusive content and support this show. Visit masterplanpodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
A secret plot. A public theft. A democracy corrupted. Discover the truth. The first season of Master Plan , a new podcast from The Lever is avalable now wherever you get your podcasts. Listen early and ad-free at masterplanpodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
