Harry talks to Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill, whose extensive experience includes a long stint in the Navy as a helicopter pilot and Russian policy officer, a stretch in the US Attorney’s office, and a current candidacy for New Jersey governor. Sherrill’s cross-cutting resume position her to discuss a series of worrisome maneuvers by the new administration, beginning with the party line budget vote and its immediate and grave implications for New Jersey. The two also discuss the state of morale a...
Mar 13, 2025•24 min•Ep. 362
Our monthly all-contrarian episode with Norm Eisen, Jen Rubin, & Katie Phang first analyzes Trump’s address to Congress, which clocked in at about 2 hours and featured a series of lies and low blows. We then take up to the Supreme Court’s narrow affirmance of the district court order to walk back the USAID withdrawal before moving to the series of cases, many litigated personally by Norm, in which courts for the main part are calling the Administration out for ignoring the commands of Congre...
Mar 10, 2025•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 361
Harry talks with Max Boot about his latest article, “US soft power took decades to build. Trump is dismantling it in weeks.” Boot explains the critical source of U.S. influence in the world, more than military might, is “soft power,” foreign aid and other far-seeing acts of altruism for people around the world. Soft power is the key to the country’s diplomatic, commercial, and cultural success. It was built up painstakingly over decades with programs like the Marshall Plan and in 3 short weeks T...
Mar 06, 2025•27 min•Ep. 360
The Administration and congressional republicans continued to wreak havoc with the federal workforce, international relations, limited executive power, and the constitution, not necessarily in that order. Tara Setmayer, Bob Shrum, and Jacob Weisberg join Harry to analyze the party-line House budget that seems DOA in the Senate; tension within the Executive Branch over Elon Musk; growing popular opposition to the Administration and especially to Musk’s untethered and unaccounted role; and more. S...
Mar 03, 2025•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 359
Harry talks once again with constitutional patriot and House Oversight Committee member Jamie Raskin about the tight spot we are in after just one month of Trump rule. Harry presses the Congressman for thoughts about communicating to the country the perils to the rule of law and constitutional scheme themselves. Raskin sets out a short range, mid-range, and long-range agenda for clawing the country back and restoring the rule of law. They go over the most promising and the most worrisome of the ...
Feb 27, 2025•30 min•Ep. 358
It’s time for our periodic episode on foreign policy, in fact the nick of time, b/c while we’ve been chiefly focused on the damage Trump has done to domestic constitutional rules, he’s been taking as big a sledgehammer to longstanding foreign policy relationships. A superb panel of Anne Applebaum, Michael McFaul, & Stephen Sestanovich breaks it all down and, with special focus on Ukraine, Russia, Europe, & China, details the enormous risks for the country and the world of Trump’s abrupt ...
Feb 24, 2025•57 min•Ep. 357
Harry talks with Rich Cordray, the first director of the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau, about the Bureau’s achievements for American consumers and the concerns that its functions now may slow dramatically or even stop. Trump recently fired the Bureau’s director and appointed a new director who ordered a halt to all Bureau actions; a new acting Director later instructed all staff to cease work. Cordray sketches out the Bureau’s general achievements in the mortgage, credit card, and banking...
Feb 20, 2025•28 min•Ep. 356
It’s our regular mash-up with none other than Molly Jong-Fast, in which Molly fires legal question that have been occupying her at Harry, and Harry reciprocates with political questions for Molly. This mash-up is in the middle of the burgeoning Department of Justice scandal over the Eric Adams prosecution, and Harry presses Molly on whether the scandal will have political legs. Molly meanwhile seeks to understand whether some of Musk’s crazier antics are legal and how they could be challenged. A...
Feb 19, 2025•32 min•Ep. 355
Trump continued to bend the political system to his will, but the courts and his own Dept of Justice pushed back. Alisyn Camerota, Norm Ornstein, & Jacob Weisberg join Harry to assess Trump’s checkered week. A series of federal courts temporarily froze some of Trump’s more brazen power grabs, and a cascade of DOJ prosecutors resigned rather than comply with a lawless order to dismiss well-supported charges. But Trump was able to push through cabinet nominees whose prospects had been in doubt...
Feb 17, 2025•56 min•Ep. 354
Harry talks to Kristy Greenberg, former Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division in the Southern District of New York, about the burgeoning scandal involving the resignation of the acting United States Attorney and multiple other officials in her office and at Main Justice. The resignations all come in response to an improper command by the acting deputy Attorney General, Emile Bove, to dismiss charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams, notwithstanding that there is no question about the righteousn...
Feb 14, 2025•26 min•Ep. 353
In the latest conversation in the Talking San Diego series, Harry sits down with Chris Hayes before a live San Diego audience on the evening when Hayes’s new book, “The Sirens’ Call,” was named to the top position on the New York Times’s Bestseller List. Hayes’s focus is attention – how it has become our scarcest resource and the constant bombardment from different forces vying for it and leaving us all a little insane. Be sure to catch the “lightning round” towards the end of the discussion whe...
Feb 13, 2025•58 min•Ep. 352
Harry sits down with Jeff Toobin on the day of the publication of Toobin’s latest book, “The Pardon: The Politics of Presidential Mercy.” Toobin’s work spans the history of controversial pardons over the last 50 years, with a ground-setting, detailed focus on President Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon. The conventional wisdom about that pardon has come to be that it was a salutary statesmanlike gesture to put the national turmoil of Watergate behind us. Toobin has a contrary take: he is har...
Feb 11, 2025•24 min•Ep. 351
An all-contrarian roundtable—Paul Krugman, Norm Eisen, and Jen Rubin—chronicles the first signs of pushback against Trump’s constitutional assaults and analyzes the vacuous tariffs initiatives. Norm provides some dispatches from the litigation front, which has secured multiple injunctions against Trump’s lawless, harmful policies. Paul proceeds to explain how tariffs work and why they are at best counter-productive before considering Elon Musk’s strange role through the prism of economics. See P...
Feb 10, 2025•46 min•Ep. 350
Harry talks with Andrea Pitzer, who has reported extensively on democratic decline in countries such as Chile, Russia, and Hungary, and has written extensively about historical examples especially Nazi Germany. She discusses signal developments in authoritarian democracy that degraded into authoritarian rule, bringing the illustrations back to compare and contrast with Trump’s first few days of rule and the landscape ahead. The two discuss the most important developments that signify dramatic so...
Feb 06, 2025•56 min•Ep. 349
The worst assault by a president on constitutional norms of any week in history, save possibly only last week. A great panel stocked with political experience & law enforcement experience—Asha Rangappa, Stuart Stevens & Rick Wilson—join Harry to analyze the dregs of Trump’s nominees, whose prospects for confirmation cannot be counted out given Trump’s vice grip on Senate Rs. They then take up other of the weeks follies, including Trump’s blaming the terrible plane accident on Dems’ DEI p...
Feb 03, 2025•56 min•Ep. 348
Harry talks with federal courts and constitutional law expert Steve Vladeck about the hailstorm of Trump executive orders in the first week. Professor Vladeck explains in general terms what executive orders can accomplish and what they can’t. The two then zero in on the orders concerning birthright citizenship, TikTok, and immigration. They finish with some up-to-the-minute accounts of the harrowing goings-on in the Department of Justice, where new political appointees are issuing orders for DOJ...
Jan 30, 2025•33 min•Ep. 346
Trump’s anticipated reprisal campaign against the DOJ began with a series of moves aimed at punishing professionals involved in his prosecutions while simultaneously destabilizing the department as a whole. In this special emergency episode, some of the most outstanding and experienced DOJ alumni—Paul Fishman, Amy Jeffress, Mimi Rocah—take stock of the damage inflicted and assess the department’s ability to recover after enduring the chaos of Trump’s rule. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com...
Jan 30, 2025•56 min•Ep. 347
No need to mince words: it was the most damaging week for the constitution, and the Founders’ carefully calibrated system of checks & balances, since at least the Civil War. Trump put into place a series of executive orders & actions that if upheld will expand his power enormously and cut out the legs from most opposition. A great roundtable of Susan Glasser, David Jolly, and Bill Kristol joins Harry to assess the damage and what it portends for degradations of American law, politics, an...
Jan 27, 2025•56 min•Ep. 345
Harry talks with Mark Greenblatt, one of the Inspectors General fired suddenly in the “Friday night purge” of the vast majority of Senate-confirmed IG’s. They discuss the origin, function, and nature of Inspectors General, who have saved taxpayers nearly $700 billion. Greenblatt talks about his own 20-year + service in the IG community, during which he rotated through several agencies and was elected by his peers to lead the IGs’ council. Then they zero in on Friday night and exactly what happen...
Jan 26, 2025•56 min•Ep. 344
There is understandable frustration at the failure to release volume 2 of the Smith Report dealing with the Mar-A-Lago documents case, but we are able to construct strong surmises about what is in that volume based on already available material. Harry checks in again with Marcy Wheeler, whose blog, emptywheel.net, consistently presents the most in-depth and comprehensive accounts of the public record. Through a methodical scrutiny of documents that have come to light in various ways – including ...
Jan 23, 2025•49 min•Ep. 343
Published on the day of Trump’s inauguration, this episode takes brief stock of Biden’s unusual farewell address before pivoting to the perilous future. A great roundtable of Talking Feds stalwarts--Jonathan Alter, Norm Eisen, & Jen Rubin--assesses the confirmation hearings & what they suggest about the nature of Trump rule, as well as the prospects for the most controversial nominees, especially Kash Patel. We end with a set of open-ended reflections about what to expect in the next few...
Jan 20, 2025•51 min•Ep. 342
Harry speaks again with Marc Elias, the nation’s most important election-law lawyer, about some of the sharpest challenges on the current landscape and that he anticipates will come our way once Trump takes office. There is a battle being waged in North Carolina, where the Democratic candidate won an election, verified by two recounts, but the Republican party is looking retroactively to invalidate some 60,000 votes. That contest should be receiving more attention than it has, both in its own ri...
Jan 16, 2025•34 min•Ep. 341
After six weeks of special episodes to prepare for Trump 2.0, Talking Feds returns to its normal format of 3 stellar commentators—Jason Kander, Charlie Sykes, & Ali Vitali—working through the big news. Trump was sentenced, becoming the first-felon President, though the Supreme Court nearly saved him. Trump fought publication of the Jack Smith report, but at least volume 1 probably will be made public. January 6 came and went. Trump gave a semi-incoherent press conference. It’s déjà vu all ov...
Jan 13, 2025•59 min•Ep. 340
Harry sits down with Representative Ro Khanna, who from his perch in the heart of Silicon Valley has become a national leader on issues of artificial intelligence and economic innovation. Rep. Khanna is bullish on new technology but keenly aware of its risks. Harry and Rep. Khanna discuss the marketing of AI products; AI’s contribution to social misinformation and how to regulate it; and antitrust protections against undue aggregation of market power by one or two platforms. Along the way, they ...
Jan 09, 2025•28 min•Ep. 339
Continuing with our series of subject-specific episodes to gear up for Trump 2.0, a great panel of healthcare policy experts—Dan Diamond, Ezekiel Emanuel, and Kavita Patel—sizes up the critical series of issues about to confront the country. RFK Jr’s potential confirmation to head HHS is an issue in itself, given the huge challenges of the $2 trillion agency. Then there are a serious of potential overhauls in different medical areas to consider, especially vaccines but also ACA, abortion, more. ...
Jan 06, 2025•51 min•Ep. 338
Harry sits down with Greg Casar, the youngest member of the Texas delegation in Congress and an unapologetic progressive in the some-time hostile landscape of Texas (albeit the famous enclave of Austin). A charismatic campaigner, Casar made his mark in Congress by leading a nine-hour thirst strike in 2023 to advocate for workers’ protections from extreme heat. Cesar discusses his against-the-tide electoral success and his work in Congress for immigrant rights, abortion rights, worker’s rights, v...
Jan 02, 2025•29 min•Ep. 337
Continuing with our series of subject-specific episodes to gear up for Trump 2.0, we take up a wild-card element in the upcoming battles: the prospective pushback from blue states advancing their own sovereign interests and those of their residents. A great roundtable of former state AG’s and senior federal officials—Rich Cordray, Heidi Heitkamp, and Phil Weiser—explain the formidable tools that the states can deploy to parry aggressive federal policies within their own borders. See Privacy Poli...
Dec 30, 2024•56 min•Ep. 336
The latest entry in the Harry-Molly mix-it-up—the first since the election—with Molly peppering Harry with legal questions while Harry parries with political ones for her. Molly picks Harry’s brain on executive orders, Kash Patel's enemies list, and Harry's exit from the LA Times. Harry returns fire with questions about sounding the alarm on Trump’s authoritarian moves, what’s in the future for the Musk-Trump bromance, and the American mood that gives rise to lionizing Luigi Mangione, who shot a...
Dec 26, 2024•30 min•Ep. 335
No area represents a more stark and violent shift in U.S. policy in Trump 2.0 then immigration, where the country is bracing for the possibility of wholesale roundups of illegal aliens. Three experts in immigration policy and governmental oversight—Doris Meissner, Kristie De Pena, and Leon Rodriguez—join Harry for a preview of what’s coming and the mobilization of state governments and the private sector to push back. Core issues not just of law but of national identity hang in the balance. See ...
Dec 23, 2024•57 min•Ep. 334
Harry talks with law professor and former prosecutor, Kim Wehle, one of the country’s foremost experts on the pardon power. They begin with some historical precedent to situate the pardon power and its contours within the American justice system. From there, they move onto the controversy involving Hunter Biden’s pardon, which Professor Wehle and Harry see as an overall conventional use of the power given that no one has contradicted that Hunter Biden was singled out for harsher treatment based ...
Dec 19, 2024•44 min•Ep. 333
