President Biden and Donald Trump are set to hold their first debate, after Trump and his allies spent weeks mocking Biden’s age with doctored videos and dumb jokes about Biden’s supposed plan to rely on performance-enhancing drugs. Is all that agitprop just chum for the MAGA masses, or does it reflect a genuine belief that Biden actually is so deep into his dotage that he can’t possibly be a worthy debate adversary? We talked to veteran reporter Marc Caputo of The Bulwark, who has a good new rep...
Jun 27, 2024•26 min
This week, Judge Aileen Cannon gave Donald Trump two more big assists. She agreed to hold a multi-day hearing on the constitutionality of the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith. And she appeared skeptical of Smith’s demand for a gag order on one of Trump’s most deranged attacks on law enforcement yet. We talked to law professor Corey Brettschneider, author of a new book called The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It. He...
Jun 26, 2024•24 min
In recent days, Donald Trump’s spinners have worked hard to build up images of his supposed political invincibility. But what if it’s all smoke and mirrors? In an important new piece, Politico reports that behind the scenes, many Republicans are suddenly feeling quite uncertain about Trump’s chances. We talked to Never Trump conservative Mona Charen, an editor and columnist at The Bulwark who has written shrewdly about the GOP tendency to overestimate Biden’s weaknesses, about what’s really driv...
Jun 25, 2024•30 min
At two speeches over the weekend, Donald Trump ramped up the dangerous language about migrants, floating the idea of Ultimate Fighting Championship matches between migrants and native born Americans. This comes as Trump and MAGA are escalating their propaganda tactic of highlighting isolated murders to smear migrants as dangerous criminals. We talked to Brian Beutler, who argues regularly on his Substack that this sort of shameless, degenerate politics is itself a big story, about how the press ...
Jun 24, 2024•31 min
This week, Donald Trump raged at a Fox News poll finding behind, and lashed out at Fox for featuring a guest who dared criticize him. Trump regularly unloads on Fox when it doesn’t follow his script, which is remarkable, given that Fox is usually committed to deceiving its viewers on his behalf. Both Trump and Fox draw on a long history, in which grift and scams have been deeply intertwined with the American right for over a half century. We talked to journalist Joe Conason, author of a new book...
Jun 21, 2024•33 min
Any day now, the Supreme Court will rule on Donald Trump’s demand for immunity from prosecution for alleged insurrection-related crimes. Depending on how the court rules, it’s still possible Trump’s trial will begin before the election. But what if the damage is already done? Veteran labor strategist Michael Podhorzer has an important new piece on his Substack arguing that the MAGA-friendy justices and the court have already interfered in the election by delaying the trial to the degree it has—a...
Jun 20, 2024•30 min
MAGA deception seems to have gone nuclear. Fox News’s Sean Hannity is floating strange new theories about President Biden’s upcoming debate with Donald Trump. Republicans dishonestly doctored numerous videos to make Biden look befuddled and senile. And we learned that the Sinclair media apparatus is blaring out all that deception to huge audiences. We talked to well-known writer and podcaster Thom Hartmann, author of a New Republic piece, “From the Border to Bump Stocks, the MAGA Lie Machine Is ...
Jun 19, 2024•28 min
This week, Politico released a new poll with some pretty big surprises: A larger-than-expected percentage of Americans say Donald Trump’s criminal conviction in Manhattan makes them less likely to vote for him. The finding is even more striking among independents. The poll also took the innovative step of trying to gauge how important Trump’s conviction is to voters. And the answer is: Pretty important! We talked to Ankush Khardori, a senior writer for Politico Magazine who oversaw this poll, wh...
Jun 18, 2024•28 min
This week, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s new book comes out, and it contains a disturbing chapter about Donald Trump’s ignorance, explosive rage and megalomania during the coronavirus pandemic. We think this should be covered as a loud, clanging alarm bell about the dangers of a second Trump term. So we talked to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who has written a series of columns on voter amnesia about Trump’s 2020 performance, about the horrors unleashed on the country by his unfitness for the pre...
Jun 17, 2024•38 min
New reports are emerging about Donald Trump’s tightening grip on the GOP, and the upshot is this: It’s crazier and more dangerous than you thought. First we learned that Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson privately schemed over how to sabotage ongoing prosecutions of Trump. Then Trump met with Republicans and reportedly unleashed numerous strange rants, calling the Justice Department “dirty no good bastards” and spinning out a wild tale about Nancy Pelosi’s daughter. We talked with A.B. Stodda...
Jun 14, 2024•31 min
An influential group called the True Texas Project is hosting a conference in July that will actively promote Christian Nationalism and the racist great replacement theory, the Texas Tribune reports. The group, which subscribes to the idea of a “war on white America,” has ties to many Texas GOP officials, the report says, including Senator Ted Cruz and Attorney General Ken Paxton, a major supporter of Donald Trump. We talked to Sarah Posner, author of several books on the religious right, who sh...
Jun 13, 2024•30 min
Donald Trump is now leveling his authoritarian threats right out in the open. He appears supremely confident that none of it will alienate swing voters. Now NBC News reports that the Biden campaign hopes to draw out this side of Trump at their upcoming debate—but if Trump doesn’t see these things as liabilities, he may advertise them all over again when voters are paying attention. We talked to Slate legal writer Dahlia Lithwick, author of an excellent new piece outlining how Trump is running on...
Jun 12, 2024•33 min
In the wake of Donald Trump’s criminal conviction, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Republicans are ramping up with sordid new efforts to use their congressional powers to protect Trump from other ongoing prosecutions. This gives Democrats an opening to hammer Republicans for aiding and abetting Trump’s nonstop quest to place himself above the law. Yet some Democrats seem reluctant to engage this fight. We talked to California Representative Eric Swalwell, who breaks down the absurdity of the GOP’...
Jun 11, 2024•22 min
Some Republicans are reportedly worried that Donald Trump’s ongoing public attacks on his criminal conviction show that he’s overly focused on lathering up his base, and refuses to grasp that the verdict will likely alienate swing voters. We think this highlights a deeper truth about Trump and the MAGA movement itself: They cannot acknowledge that such Trump-centrict obsessions might be unpopular with the broader electorate, as this would constitute showing weakness. We talked to Washington Post...
Jun 10, 2024•30 min
A judge just ordered longtime Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon to surrender to prison on July 1st after his conviction for defying the Jan. 6th committee’s subpoena. Not surprisingly, Trump and MAGA have already exploded in rage. Making this worse, Bannon is one of the leading pro-Trump figures calling on Trump to jail Democrats without cause if he wins the White House—and Bannon’s jail time will only fuel that mania. We talked to Eric Columbus, a lawyer who represented the Jan. 6th committee, ...
Jun 07, 2024•25 min
On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal published a dodgy hit piece about President Biden’s age. Then something unusual happened: Democratic lawmakers went nuclear on the piece, going on record to forcefully undermine its core assertions. This deserves some discussion: Could Dems better “work the refs” the way Republicans do? When liberals do criticize coverage, why do newsroom leaders shrug it off? Why do editors insult our intelligence with phony justifications for the overemphasis on Biden’s ag...
Jun 06, 2024•29 min
MAGA loyalists have been relentlessly pushing a silly talking point: The American people are in full scale revolt against the criminal conviction of Donald Trump. Guess what? The polls are telling a different story, finding majority support for the verdict. One of these, from the progressive firm Data for Progress, finds that this is also true among swing voters. We chatted with Data for Progress’s executive director, Danielle Deiseroth, about what all these numbers are really telling us, most (...
Jun 05, 2024•25 min
In the wake of Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, Republican anger at the verdict is getting darker, with GOP leaders talking about holding hearings and even defunding other prosecutions of Trump. But Democrats are not engaging this debate nearly as intensively, and appear divided over how to proceed. This is puzzling: The furious GOP defense of Trump is deranged and reckless, and would almost certainly be deeply unpopular—if voters are made to understand it. We talked to veteran Dem...
Jun 04, 2024•24 min
The other day on CNN, prominent Never Trump lawyer George Conway did something you rarely see in Washington. He dressed down a GOP commentator for lying his ass off about Donald Trump—and then, right on the air, he asked why CNN was paying this Republican to spread lies on Trump’s behalf. We think this episode illustrates a deep problem with the media’s handling of pro-Trump propaganda. So we chatted with Conway about why he unloaded—and in the process, he revealed some interesting things about ...
Jun 03, 2024•36 min
Earlier this week, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito refused to recuse himself from hearing Jan. 6-related cases amid controversy over an upside-down U.S. flag outside Alito’s home that’s associated with Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” effort. Then, on Thursday, Chief Justice John Roberts denied Democrats’ demand for a meeting, adding to the imperiousness around the conservative justices and making the Alito scandal look worse. We talked to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a senior member of the Jud...
May 31, 2024•32 min
Donald Trump recently said he’s “looking at” imposing restrictions on contraception if he is elected president, and even promised a concrete policy. Then he quickly walked it back. But certain constituencies on the right have not given up—far from it. We chatted with Politico reporter Alice Miranda Ollstein, co-author of a great new piece detailing the blueprint that Trump’s MAGA allies are developing for him to restrict birth control through executive action, about how far this could get if he ...
May 30, 2024•27 min
On Tuesday, Judge Aileen Cannon temporarily denied special counsel Jack Smith’s latest request for a gag order on Donald Trump’s lie that the FBI was set to use lethal force on Trump at Mar-a-Lago. In keeping with a shady pattern of favoritism to Trump, Cannon said No, but she may feel pressure to grant the gag order later, lest Smith seek her removal. We talked to legal scholar Matthew Seligman, who has done great work road-mapping Trump’s legal travails, about why Cannon’s move may not help Tr...
May 29, 2024•31 min
Donald Trump and his media propagandists have been preposterously suggesting the FBI under President Biden was set to use “lethal force” against Trump when it searched Mar-a-Lago. This fabrication was summoned into existence by Fox News and the right wing media. We talked with media reporter Brian Stelter, author of a great new piece on Trump in The New Republic’s “American Fascism” issue, who put all this in its larger context, explaining what the right wing media has become under Trump, and ho...
May 28, 2024•26 min
On Thursday, Donald Trump tweeted that Vladimir Putin will release Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter detained in Russia, after the election—“for me,” meaning for Trump. In other words, elect Trump president, and Putin will release him. We think this saga gets at a larger story about Trump’s approach to politics and foreign policy. So we talked to Nicholas Grossman, a professor of international relations who writes about Trump’s Putinist inclinations. He explains how Trump may be...
May 24, 2024•30 min
Trump and MAGA Republicans are floating the crackpot idea that President Biden’s FBI was ready to target Trump with lethal force when it searched Mar-a-Lago. This is based on a wildly absurd reading of FBI policy, but beyond this, we think this saga says something larger about the fascistic politics of Trump and his MAGA allies. We talked to Federico Finchelstein, an expert on fascist movements and author of a new piece in The New Republic’s issue on “American Fascism,” who explains why Trump is...
May 23, 2024•24 min
On Monday, the prosecution rested its case in Donald Trump’s hush money trial in Manhattan. This comes after Trump’s defense team concluded their efforts to destroy former Trump fixer Michael Cohen’s credibility as one of the chief witnesses against Trump. So has the prosecution proven its case? We talked to New York Law School professor Rebecca Roiphe, who has prosecuted cases like these in New York, about why she thinks a conviction is now likely—even as it still remains very possible that Tru...
May 21, 2024•26 min
The GOP’s embrace of Donald Trump’s authoritarianism is growing more blatant. Republicans have joined him in attacking his criminal trials as illegitimate. Those angling to be his running mate say they wouldn’t have certified his 2020 loss. And many Republicans are echoing his refusal to say he’ll respect the 2024 outcome. We talked to Tom Nichols, a leading Never Trump conservative and staff writer at The Atlantic about why he is now arguing that his former party’s support for Trump has driven ...
May 20, 2024•34 min
This week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s running mate, Nicole Shanahan, dropped a bomb: She announced a donation of another $8 million to his campaign. That’s substantially more than her initial $2 million, and suggests much more is coming. Which is a reminder: It’s still very plausible that RFK Jr. will get on the ballot in many of the swing states that will decide the election. We talked to veteran Democratic strategist Stephanie Schriock, who explains why Shanahan’s wealth suggests it’s time to tak...
May 17, 2024•28 min
Earlier this month, Donald Trump refused to commit to accepting the outcome of the 2024 election, shamelessly declaring he’d only do so “if everything’s honest.” Translation: He’ll only treat the outcome as valid if he wins. Infuriatingly, Trump has crucial backing for this project: Fox News and other MAGA propaganda outlets are already laying the groundwork to treat the outcome as illegitimate, should he lose. We talked to Matt Gertz of Media Matters, author of a new piece detailing how these r...
May 16, 2024•28 min
On Tuesday, when Michael Cohen testified against Donald Trump, the former president’s lawyers reminded jurors that Cohen was once slavishly devoted to Trump and used to lie relentlessly on his behalf—before Cohen turned on him. Cohen responded by admitting it: Yes, he was once a member of the Trump “cult.” Which is apt: Again and again, Trump’s own lawyers have seemingly designed their strategy around flattering Trump as much as serving his legal needs. We talked to Ankush Khardori, a former fed...
May 15, 2024•35 min
