This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm Brian is on vacation, so special guest McKenzie Wilson joins Matt to talk about Blue Rose Research’s retrospective on the 2024 election and their work on message-testing. McKenzie came to Blue Rose after working in the private sector, working for Jamal Bowman, and working in the Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services — she believes in progressive values and she wants to win elections. In this epi...
May 28, 2025•37 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm By the time you listen to this episode, the Republican bill to give rich people trillions in tax cuts, and throw millions of people off of Medicaid will be…somewhere. It could be on the glide path to passage in the House, or on life support, or somewhere in between. But the basic shape of what Republicans want to do, and what Donald Trump wants them to do, is clear. In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss: * How this te...
May 21, 2025•41 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm Donald Trump blinked, as many people suspected he would. This week, he reduced the embargo-level tariffs he imposed on China a month ago, and did so unilaterally. So in exchange for a month-long crisis, a still-looming supply shortage, lost jobs, and lost wealth, we got nothing! But Trump’s supporters are all too ready to cover for him. In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss: * What does Trump’s reversal mean for the e...
May 14, 2025•47 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm They won’t come right out and say it this time, the way they did in 2017. But Republicans are still hellbent on repealing the Affordable Care Act—or at least the half of the ACA that expanded Medicaid coverage to millions more poor and disabled Americans. In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss: * What do Republican pronouncements about their aspirational health care cuts actually mean? * Will cuts to a program that ben...
May 07, 2025•45 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm On Donald Trump’s hundredth day in office—the day we taped this podcast—he was historically unpopular, driving the country into recession, and responding to the loss of confidence in his administration by escalating his authoritarian threats against the public. In this special episode, Paul Krugman joins Brian to discuss: * What Trump has done to the U.S. economy in just the past 100 days. * Why it’s too late for him to...
Apr 30, 2025•21 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm Right-wing religious fanatics want women to have more children with bread-winning men. Donald Trump views masculinity as synonymous with physical toughness. The synthesis: instead of using prosperity to make family formation more appealing, what if we just crushed female employment and made most jobs manual labor? In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss: * How Trump’s economic policy and disdain for white-collar profess...
Apr 23, 2025•33 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm Two weeks into his trade war, Donald Trump has made at least a few tactical retreats, and markets have stabilized a bit as a result. Are we just in the eye of the storm? Or is it possible the economic fallout from the trade war won’t be as severe as we feared on LIBERATION DAY? In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss: * Why did markets recover significantly (though not entirely) from the big sell off after Trump launche...
Apr 16, 2025•38 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm Last week, in one fell swoop, Donald Trump wiped out trillions of dollars in wealth, upended all of our trade relations, and poised the U.S. for a lengthy recession and higher prices. His big money backers are in freakout mode. He’s made himself politically vulnerable in dramatic fashion, but also undermined the foundations of the American age. In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss life with (and after?) Trump’s tarif...
Apr 09, 2025•36 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm There are signs of life in the Democratic Party, and if Republicans continue to badly underperform in special elections, the vibes could shift. But there are some things even a robust opposition can’t really stop, when a president claims autocratic power, and is insulated from normal political considerations After a brief discussion of Cory Booker’s filibuster, and the Supreme Court race in Wisconsin, Matt and Brian dis...
Apr 02, 2025•40 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats continue to catch hell from their own voters for caving in the government shutdown fight. But in the coming days, perhaps sooner than most people are expecting, Congress will have to increase the debt limit. And once again, Democrats will have to decide whether and how to use their votes to rein in an out-of-control GOP. After some quick observations about the Trump administration’s sn...
Mar 26, 2025•29 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm Donald Trump is becoming unpopular, but Democrats are more unpopular than they’ve ever been, reflecting not just Republican voter partisanship, but the fact that tens of millions of Democratic voters are fed up with their party’s conduct in the aftermath of the election. With partisan anger boiling over, calls for Chuck Schumer to resign from leadership, and constitutional crises on our doorstep, Matt and Brian discuss:...
Mar 19, 2025•34 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm By the time this episode runs, we’ll be two days from the deadline to fund the government. And if Republicans get there act together juuuust a bit, Democrats will have to decide if and how to wield their leverage to the end of forcing the Trump administration back into compliance with the rule of law. In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss: * Can Democrats hold out indefinitely, if Donald Trump refuses to faithfully ex...
Mar 12, 2025•32 min
Just six weeks into his presidency, Donald Trump has dragged the country to the brink of recession. He’s become unpopular, lost the public’s trust to handle the economy, and hollowed out the government in risky ways. So in his first speech to Congress, Trump: blamed all of it on Joe Biden, subjected Democrats to a torrent of abuse, lied about Social Security (among many other things), and redoubled his commitment to tariffs, even if they cause “disturbance.” In this free post-address episode, Ma...
Mar 05, 2025•51 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm Even in the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, most Americans thought Donald Trump was a good steward of the economy. This misplaced faith has been key to his political durability. But after just one month of indiscriminately firing federal workers, illegally reneging on federal spending commitments, and making erratic threats to tariff the bejesus out of our trading partners, his economic approval has fallen under w...
Feb 26, 2025•35 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm Explaining the GOP’s rapid slide into authoritarianism is complicated, but you can’t tell the story if you don’t understand that Republicans have been unwilling to abandon huge, unpopular tax cuts for the rich as an organizing principle. In their view of things, if popular majorities don’t support regressive tax cuts, then democracy has to go. So it’s no surprise that last week House Republicans published its blueprint ...
Feb 19, 2025•44 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm Donald Trump and Elon Musk are now on the receiving end of multiple court orders requiring them to rein in their constitutional crime spree: resume impounded payments, destroy improperly downloaded government data, restore regular government communications. Their response, as of this recording, has been to see how contemptuous they can be of the orders, and musing openly about outright defiance. In this episode, Matt an...
Feb 12, 2025•36 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm Prior to the election, Elon Musk warned non-billionaire Americans to brace for “temporary hardship” (approving) in the event of a second Donald Trump presidency. Over the weekend, after insisting he’d impose 25 percent tariffs on all Canadian and Mexican imports, Trump also acknowledged (perhaps for the first time) that his economic policies will cause “pain.” By Monday, he’d backed down from the tariffs, but Musk is st...
Feb 05, 2025•33 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm In just the past week, Donald Trump has illegally fired over a dozen federal anti-corruption watchdogs, installed Fox News weekend host Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense, and then claimed the power to arbitrarily withhold congressional appropriation—an unconstitutional maneuver called “impoundment.” In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss: * What are inspectors general, and why does Trump want to fire them? * How doe...
Jan 29, 2025•37 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm It’s the first Politix podcast of Donald Trump’s second presidency, and it began more or less how we expected: with a lot of bluster and bullshit, but also real demonstrations of lawlessness. Thanks John Roberts? In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss: * Trump’s immigration executive orders, with a special focus on his effort to unilaterally suspend the Constitution’s birthright citizenship guarantee; * Will Trump foll...
Jan 22, 2025•39 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm It’s the final Politix podcast of Joe Biden’s presidency! Soon Donald Trump will be inaugurated president for a second, non-consecutive term. Inflation and crime and border crossings will fall, wages will rise, and America will be great again. Except…all those things already happened. In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss: * Why did the Biden presidency end in political failure, given the rosy macro picture? * What co...
Jan 15, 2025•48 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm Multiple developments over the holiday break raise real questions about who will call the shots in Donald Trump’s still-forming administration. Elon Musk seemed to commandeer aspects of legislative strategy, immigration, and foreign policy. Republicans in Congress seemed to heed Musk over Trump, while leaving Trump wide berth to enrich himself and crack down on his enemies. In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss: * How...
Jan 08, 2025•29 min
The mailbag episode is here! Thanks to all who sent questions, and apologies to those who didn’t get answers. We hoped to get through more, but brevity isn’t our strong suit and we ran out of time. But the answers we DID deliver are choice, in our opinion. We touch on: * Ezra Klein’s terribly wrong ideas about the political impact of blue-state and blue-city misgovernance; * What Donald Trump’s attempt at an unconstitutional third term will look like IF he tries; * How Biden could go out with a ...
Dec 24, 2024•1 hr 13 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm The mailbag episode will have to wait, but for good reason! An opportunity arose for us to interview Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair (and DNC chair candidate) Ben Wikler. So we jumped on it—and warmly extend an invitation to other DNC chair candidates to join us in the new year. In this episode, Matt and Brian ask Ben: * What he thinks happened in the election, and whether the lessons are actionable for a DNC chairman;...
Dec 18, 2024•36 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm Last week, a big public uproar forced the health-insurance carrier Anthem to backtrack on a plan to cut reimbursements for anesthesia. Then, an assassin—suspected to be a 26 year old ivy league graduate named Luigi Mangiano—murdered Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare. In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss: * Why there such widespread progressive interest in both of these stories; * How the progressive backla...
Dec 11, 2024•33 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm Donald Trump and Joe Biden marked the weekend after thanksgiving with two big news developments that look a lot like chess moves in a high-stakes match between the revenge-obsessed far right and the outgoing liberal establishment. First, Trump nominated Kash Patel, an aggrieved loyalist with a literal enemies list, to run the FBI. Second, Biden pardoned his son Hunter. In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss: * Who is K...
Dec 04, 2024•43 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm A blustery Donald Trump statement threatening large tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports (plus increased tariffs on Chinese goods) raises the question of why the outgoing Biden administration, the lame-duck Congress, and the broader civil society have taken few proactive steps to create obstacles to coming Trump abuses. Matt and Brian discuss: * Is the opposition simply exhausted? * Do Democrats and Trump-wary Republ...
Nov 27, 2024•31 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm This week, Matt and Brian take stock of Matt Gaetz, Pete Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Tulsi Gabbard—Trump’s Fanatic Four nominees to head the Departments of Justice, Defense, Health and Human Services, and the national intelligence directorate. They discuss: * Why Hegseth’s personal mediocrity (C-list Fox News host) and depraved sexual conduct (pretty awful), combined with the complexity of running an organizati...
Nov 20, 2024•40 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm This week, Matt and Brian review the incoming Trump administration as it takes shape, and what if anything Democrats can do, without official power or a real media arm, to limit the damage. * Who has Trump nominated already, and who is he being gun-shy about, given that some of his loyalists would have a hard time getting confirmed by the incoming Senate? * Can Democrats quickly shift gears into productive opposition, w...
Nov 13, 2024•40 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm This week, Matt and Brian discuss the unexpected final (?) twist of the 2024 campaign: The immense backlash to Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden. * Why did a bad comedian’s offensive comments about Puerto Rico break through, when he and other speakers made equally racist comments about black people, Jews, Palestinians, and others? * After a campaign in which Democrats largely downplayed race politics in favo...
Oct 30, 2024•42 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm This week, Matt and Brian discuss the merits and drawbacks of field organizing, and why it’s worth knocking on doors or making calls if you care about the outcome of the election. They tackle questions including: * Can feel your own contribution to turnout, even if canvassing operations are expensive for the campaign? (Spoiler: Yes.) * Where to volunteer depending on your demographic traits. * How talking to real, margi...
Oct 23, 2024•42 min
