Our old friend Brett Di Resta, a longtime national political consultant, and all around funny guy, joins us to talk Kamala! That's a good portion of the show, but we also get into the latest on the Coronavirus and overall election chatter. Enjoy. This is one of our premium episodes. You can listen to 30 minutes of the show for free, and then if the spirit moves you, and you'd like to support our work, please become a subscriber over at Patreon, thanks. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/pri...
Aug 13, 2020•32 min•Ep. 305
In today's show, Cliff and I discuss Biden's convention, the veepstakes (before it was announced), the Republican running for Congress who appears to have an affinity for Hitler, and a bit more on the Coronavirus latest. This is one of our free episodes. To hear the rest of our shows, and support our podcast, please become a subscriber over at Patreon, thanks. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Aug 11, 2020•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 304
Longtime GOP strategist Stuart Stevens -- who was the chief strategist for Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign, and now is a member of the Lincoln Project -- joins us for a fascinating discussion about his new book, "It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump." Stevens doesn't hold back with his assessment of both Donald Trump ("I'm very comfortable calling Donald Trump a traitor because he’s actively trying to destroy America") and the Republican party ("courage is the ...
Aug 07, 2020•29 min•Ep. 303
Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell of California joins me to discuss Donald Trump, the Coronavirus, the economy, Bill Barr, the fall election, and his own presidential run. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Aug 05, 2020•37 min•Ep. 302
Our good friend Ilyse Hogue, the President of NARAL Pro-Choice America, joins us today to talk about the state of women in America, from abortion to contraception to Biden's VP pick, and about her new book about the far-right, "The Lie that Binds." Enjoy! (This is a 22-minute excerpt - to hear the entire show, and support our work, please become a subscriber over at Patreon, thanks.) See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not...
Jul 30, 2020•22 min•Ep. 302
Mary Trump, the niece of Donald Trump, joins the UnPresidented podcast to talk about her new book: "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man." Over the course of an hour, Mary explains why she believes Donald Trump is a "psychologically deeply damaged man," and must be defeated in November. This is a free episode. To hear the rest of our shows, and support our work, please become a subscriber over at Patreon, thanks. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/...
Jul 28, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 301
National Security expert Malcolm Nance joins us to talk about his latest book, "The Plot to Betray America: How Team Trump Embraced Our Enemies, Compromised Our Security, and How We Can Fix It." We also get into what Joe Biden needs to do to fix the Russia problem, should he win in November. This is one of our free episodes. To hear the rest of our archive, and support our podcast, please become a subscriber over at Patreon, thanks. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California ...
Jul 24, 2020•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 300
Former Democratic congressional staffer, campaign manager, and blogger Matt Robison joins us to talk about the latest 2020 election news. Is Donald Trump in a political death spiral or can he come back? Should Democrats invite Republicans to endorse Biden at the convention? And why the hell are we even thinking of sending kids back to school right now? All that and more in today's episode of the UnPresidented podcast. You can listen to the first half hour for free, then the rest of the show is a...
Jul 21, 2020•32 min•Ep. 299
Center for American Progress president Neera Tanden joins us to talk about Trump, Covid, and the election. (Neera is a former senior advisor to both President Obama and First Lady, and then Senator, Clinton.) We start with a discussion about Neera's own personal run-in with the Coronavirus -- she was sick for six weeks -- then we branch out into how Trump is mishandling the crisis, how that will affect the economy and the election, then a more general election-oriented discussion about the presi...
Jul 17, 2020•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 297
Today's guest is double Pulitzer-prize-winning political cartoonist Mike Luckovich, whose hilarious and biting political criticism has been a staple at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution since 1989. Mike talks to us about politics today, his love of Trump (kidding - he loathes Trump), how political cartooning works as a profession, whether it's harder to be in the political cartoon business in an age when people are more sensitive about stereotypes, and whether there's a future for it in the new w...
Jul 14, 2020•32 min•Ep. 297
In today's episode, we talk Election 2020 with David Pepper, Chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party and author of the new political thriller, “The Voter File." We talk to David about: how suburban voters have once again made Ohio a swing state; the latest polling in other key swing states, including Red states that shouldn't be swing states at all, but are!; the importance of rejecting Trumpism at all levels to undo gerrymandering; the negative-political effects of monopoly power; and how a then ...
Jul 09, 2020•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 296
In today's episode, we interview an old friend, prolific author and former editor of Editor & Publisher magazine Greg Mitchell, here to talk about his new book: “The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood―and America―Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” The book is a look back at how the US government colluded with Hollywood to sell the atom bomb to the American people. We use Greg's book to delve into the history of the bomb, the politics and ethics of its use in World War II, and what...
Jul 07, 2020•34 min•Ep. 295
Princeton professor Julian Zelizer joins us to talk about his new book, "Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich, the Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party." Zelizer's premise for the book, and our discussion today, is that you have to know the history of former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich in order to understand how we got Trump: "President Trump practices the kind of anti-establishment, take-no-prisoners partisanship that Gingrich brought to Washington in t...
Jul 03, 2020•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 294
Not that it's news, but this week it's confirmed yet again that Donald Trump is a traitor. In today's subscriber-only episode, Cliff and I talk about the latest breaking news about Russia having put a bounty on US troops in Afghanistan, and Trump having done nothing about it even though several US service members reportedly were killed as a result. We also get into the latest on the Coronavirus, and have a good talk about the latest election polls as well. This is an excerpt of our hour-long sho...
Jun 30, 2020•36 min•Ep. 293
Today's guest, Mark Godsey, was a prosecutor with the famous SDNY office, mentored Preet Bharara, then moved back to Cincinnati and became an Innocence Project devotee who is now a leader not only of the Ohio Innocence Project, but across the country in the Innocence Movement. We talk to Mark about criminal justice reform -- what's the problem, and how do we fix it. This is one of our free episodes. To hear all our shows, and support our work, please become a subscriber over at Patreon, thanks. ...
Jun 19, 2020•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 292
Democratic messaging expert John Neffinger joins us to talk messaging strategy around the anti-racism protests, the Coronavirus, and the 2020 elections, and of course this includes a larger discussion about why messaging matters at all, and whether the Republicans really are better at this than the Democrats. This is one of our free episodes. To hear all our shows, and support our podcast, please become a contributor over at Patreon, thanks. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and Ca...
Jun 16, 2020•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 291
Fordham Law Professor Jed Shugerman explains the Supreme Court's sweeping and historic LGBT rights decision making employment discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people illegal across the United States. This is a 43-minute excerpt of the 90-minute interview, to hear the rest of the show, and support our work, please become a subscriber over at Patreon, thanks. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-n...
Jun 15, 2020•43 min•Ep. 289
In today's UnPresidented Podcast, author and "Never-Trumper" David Frum discusses his new book, "Trumpocalypse: Restoring American Democracy." The overall topic of discussion is how America returns to any sense of normalcy after Trump is hopefully defeated in November, including whether Trump should be pardoned, or jailed, after leaving office. But also, how we restore all the institutions of government that Trump has broken (or shown to be far more vulnerable to corruption than we'd ever imagin...
Jun 09, 2020•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 288
Today we talk about the anti-racism protests with Dr. Tom Sugrue, Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis and History at NYU. Tom helps us put the current protests in the larger perspective of historical protest movements, we talk about Trump's likelihood of using the protests to help his re-election (and whether it will work), and we also talk a good deal about Obama (whom Tom also wrote a book about). It's a good, albeit somewhat long, episode. This is a 40-minute snippet of the hour-and-a-h...
Jun 08, 2020•39 min•Ep. 288
Former Republican Kurt Bardella joins us talk about the growing protests, Trump's growing authoritarianism, and how Democrats will fare in the 2020 elections this November. To hear the rest of our episodes, please become a supporter and subscriber over at Patreon. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Jun 02, 2020•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 287
On today's podcast, we have the famed impersonator of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, comedienne Maria DeCotis, talking about her hilarious portrayal of Cuomo, and more generally what it's like being a female comic in the year 2020. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
May 29, 2020•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 286
The Coronavirus pandemic, and the fact that America is now approaching 100,000 official dead (we likely have many more), is starting to freak Trump out, so he's busy responding as he always does: Lies and diversion. While the rest of us are busy worrying about COVID-19, Trump spent Memorial Day accusing Joe Scarborough of murder, and making fun of Joe Biden wearing a mask. The problem for Trump is that his poll numbers aren't that great -- even sycophant pollster Rasmussen, which typically claim...
May 26, 2020•1 hr 40 min•Ep. 285
Media Matters' Fox-watching guru Matt Gertz (not to be confused with crazy far-right congressman Matt Gaetz -- Matt receives a lot of hate tweets directed at the other guy, and talks to us about it) joins us to talk about.... Fox News! And the GOP propaganda machine more generally. This is a 45-minute snippet of the hour-and-a-half show -- to hear the rest of it, and support our work, please become a subscriber over at Patreon, thanks! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and Californ...
May 22, 2020•43 min•Ep. 284
In today's free episode, Cliff and I spoke at length with Vox's Aaron Rupar, a true viral video guru (if you don't follow him on Twitter, you should). We talked to Aaron about what it’s like to watch Trump so often -- Aaron has to clip videos of the man all day long -- and how he does it w/out losing his mind. We also talked about how reopening the economy might go, what the election numbers are currently looking like, and how Glenn Greenwald started calling Aaron a "stalker" for taping and post...
May 21, 2020•1 hr 36 min•Ep. 283
Author, political analyst, and host of the Muckrake podcast, joins us to talk about faux populism (his expertise) and how it applies to the Coronavirus madness on the right, and more generally, how what we're going through fits into the larger history of fascist movements. It's a really interesting discussion with Jared, and a long episode -- going on 1 hour 40 minutes. We get into the issue of people refusing to wear masks, the possible postponement of the election, and more. A really enjoyable...
May 15, 2020•36 min•Ep. 282
In today's free episode, guest Greg Pinelo chats with us about whether Biden should -- and will -- prosecute and/or pardon Trump and his collaborators if Biden wins in November. We also talk about the Supreme Court case over Trump's taxes, yesterday's racist press conference, and Trump losing it over sinking poll numbers. To hear the rest of our shows, and support our work, please become a subscriber over at Patreon, thanks. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy ...
May 12, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 280
Chicago Tribune humor columnist Rex Huppke joins us again for a hilarious discussion about death, corruption and economic decay. That is what we talked about, but it was actually really fun. See for yourselves. This is one of our premium episodes, you can hear a good half-hour here, but to hear the entire show please consider becoming a subscriber over at Patreon, thanks. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-inf...
May 08, 2020•35 min•Ep. 280
Today's guest is uber-conservative former GOP congressman Joe Walsh, who was a Trump booster in 2016, and now is one of Trump's harshest critics. Cliff and John talk with Joe about why the change of heart (at least on Trump), and whether there's anything disgruntled Republicans can do to save the Republican party, and save the rest of us from them. This is one of our free episodes. To hear all of our shows, and support our work, please become a subscriber over at Patreon, thanks. See Privacy Pol...
May 05, 2020•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 279
Dr. Rachel Bitecofer is back to talk about the latest polling for 2020 (presidential and congressional races); Justin Amash's decision to consider a run for the presidency as a libertarian, and whether Amash helps Biden, Trump or neither; and Rachel talks with us about the polling of the Coronavirus, and how the pandemic is affecting Trump's numbers, but also how you poll in a pandemic when it's not clear who going to actually be voting if Covid-19 comes back right before the November elections....
Apr 30, 2020•25 min•Ep. 278
In today's free episode, it's a bit of a potpourri, ranging from the weirdness of virtual funerals, Trump requiring graduating West Pointers to come back to school just so he can give a self-important speech, and then we do a bit of a deep dive into how Biden is faring (well, in fact) considering he's not getting nearly as much TV time as Trump in these trying times. Then we close with the news that Diamond & Silk got kicked off Fox News for spreading Covid conspiracy theories, and a few mor...
Apr 28, 2020•58 min•Ep. 277