Over the past year, the Trump administration has been eliminating policies aimed at slowing down climate change – and now, it may go even further. This week, the Environmental Protection Agency plans to repeal the “endangerment finding” that has been the scientific basis of rules limiting greenhouse gas emissions since 2009. To talk more about this endangerment finding and where the fight against climate change goes from here, we spoke to Leah Stokes. She’s an associate professor at UC Santa Bar...
Feb 11, 2026•20 min
Getting justice for Epstein survivors seems impossible in the United States. But in the United Kingdom, the Epstein files could bring down the British government . Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing calls to resign after admitting he knew the UK's former Ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson, had ties to Epstein when he appointed him in 2024. To unpack how the United Kingdom is reckoning with Epstein, we spoke to Coco Khan, co-host of Crooked Media’s Pod Save the UK . And in headli...
Feb 10, 2026•24 min
Sunday was the Super Bowl, which means betting. A lot of betting . And even if you're not a gambler– and even if you don't particularly care about sports, you've probably noticed that in the last few years, sports betting has gone from obscure to nearly omnipresent. But that's not necessarily for the better. According to a 2025 Pew Research Center survey , "43% of U.S. adults say the fact that sports betting is now legal in much of the country is a bad thing for society." So, we spoke with Hanna...
Feb 09, 2026•25 min
We're just one week into February, and a lot has happened already — from the fallout over the Department of Justice's Epstein file dump, to President Trump's claims the U.S. should "nationalize" elections , to the decision to pull 700 federal immigration agents out of Minnesota on Wednesday. It's been a lot to follow — so we spoke to Tim Miller. He's writer-at-large at The Bulwark and host of The Bulwark Podcast . And in headlines, lawmakers are nowhere near an agreement to fund the Department o...
Feb 06, 2026•23 min
The economy is in pretty much the same weird place it’s been for the past few months. Hiring is down , the cost of living is up , and no one really knows what's coming next. That uncertainty is partially thanks to AI, which is supposed to change work as we know it . It’s making everyone – from stock traders to white-collar workers – very, very nervous. On this episode, we talk to Stacey Vanek Smith. She’s a reporter for Bloomberg Businessweek and co-host of the Bloomberg podcast, Everybody's Bus...
Feb 05, 2026•22 min
If you haven't been following conservative media for a long time, you might not know that there have actually been many eras of Tucker Carlson. He launched his career in print journalism before landing under the bright lights of Fox News in 2009. That's where he developed his super power – giving his audience exactly what they want, and feeding some of their worst impulses again and again under the glossy veneer of respectability. New Yorker staff writer Jason Zengerle first met Carlson back in ...
Feb 04, 2026•29 min
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced Monday that all federal officers in Minneapolis will now wear body cameras. She also said the program would expand nationwide "as funding is available." The push for body cameras is a key Democratic demand to end the partial government shutdown . It also comes on the heels of major concerns over DHS immigration tactics. In January alone, two U.S. citizens were shot and killed by federal immigration agents in Minnesota. Radley Balko ...
Feb 03, 2026•23 min
President Trump is still not over the fact that he lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden, which might be why last Wednesday, the FBI executed a search warrant on an election facility in Fulton County, Georgia. Agents seized hundreds of boxes containing ballots and other documents related to the 2020 election . But this raid is just one of many ways the President has challenged the American election system since taking office a year ago. With the midterms just months away, we spoke wit...
Feb 02, 2026•27 min•Ep. 1540
Senate Democrats were ready to shut down the government Friday night in order to get much-needed reforms to ICE and Border Patrol — but they didn’t need to. On Thursday, they made a deal with Republicans and the White House to fund most of the federal government for the rest of the fiscal year. The Department of Homeland Security, however, will only be funded for two weeks while Senators negotiate some guardrails for ICE. So what happens now? To find out, we spoke with Virginia Democratic Senato...
Jan 30, 2026•24 min
Minneapolis is still under ICE’s thumb — and contrary to the Trump Administration and some media reports, ICE has not “ de-escalated ” in the Twin Cities . Multiple media outlets have reported no real change in Department of Homeland Security activity — but the communities in Minneapolis are still standing up to the Trump Administration, using every peaceful tool at their disposal to do so. For more, we spoke to Alex Wagner, host of Crooked’s Runaway Country podcast, who is reporting from Minnea...
Jan 29, 2026•26 min
U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio is expected to publicly testify Wednesday about what exactly the U.S. has planned for Venezuela . But the next potential target of the Trump administration’s imperialist adventuring might be even closer to home. Ending Cuba’s communist regime — which has controlled the island since 1959 — is the dream of thousands of Cuban-Americans. And now, thanks in part to Rubio , it’s a serious goal of the White House. So, to talk more about ...
Jan 28, 2026•28 min
There’s a massive funding package making its way through Congress this week. It includes funding for the Department of Homeland Security, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, and must pass by Friday for the government to remain fully open. But that’s looking less and less likely. After the killing of Alex Pretti, Senate Democrats and their allies are saying that they are willing to risk a government shutdown to get policy changes. To talk more about Homeland Security,...
Jan 27, 2026•29 min
On Saturday, Alex Pretti – a 37-year-old registered nurse at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Minneapolis – was shot and killed by Border Patrol agents . It’s the third shooting in three weeks by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis. And as violence from federal law enforcement becomes increasingly more common, it begs the question – who is joining these agencies? A few months ago, freelance journalist Laura Jedeed applied for a job with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And she got a ...
Jan 26, 2026•26 min
Former special counsel Jack Smith testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday about the steps President Donald Trump and his allies took to overturn the 2020 election and to foment the January 6th insurrection. Smith did this knowing that he is already at the top of Trump’s enemies list — which the President is increasingly using the Department of Justice to prosecute. For more on the Trump administration’s latest investigations, we spoke with Ken White. He’s a former federal pros...
Jan 23, 2026•24 min
After meeting with NATO allies in Davos, Switzerland, President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to announce “the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region.” He also said he would not be imposing the tariffs he threatened against eight European countries less than a week ago — which is probably good, because Americans did not want him to mess with Greenland . But that’s not the President’s only unpopular stance. We're one year into Trump’s secon...
Jan 22, 2026•23 min
President Donald Trump’s obsession with Greenland isn’t new. Back in 2019, he made an offer to buy the island , but was told by Denmark and Greenland that it was not for sale. It still isn’t – as Denmark , France, the United Kingdom , and the good people of Greenland itself keep making incredibly clear . But Trump is not the first U.S. President to express interest in the island. So how did we get here? For more on our long, weird relationship with Greenland, we spoke to Ronald Doel. He’s a prof...
Jan 21, 2026•24 min
Today marks a year since President Donald Trump took office for a second time, and a lot has happened. Amidst all the threats to take over Greenland, the Liberation Day tariffs, and the crackdown on education, artificial intelligence development has continued to accelerate — and it's only getting faster. Over the last few months, you may have heard about Claude Code – a product of Anthropic – that makes coding incredibly easy. But the thing about Claude Code that's really cool is that it might b...
Jan 20, 2026•25 min
Immigration and Customs Enforcement isn't some storied government agency from the 19th century. ICE was invented back in 2003 — but now it has a multi-billion-dollar budget and many officers who are undertrained at best. So, how did we get here? To find out, we spoke to Garrett Graff. He's a historian and journalist who has covered federal law enforcement for 20 years. And in headlines, President Donald Trump threatens fresh tariffs on America's NATO allies over Greenland, the Pentagon ordered 1...
Jan 19, 2026•24 min
President Trump is declining in popularity with voters, but his rhetoric and that of the Trump Administration is only growing more extreme . But to understand how we got here, in this place, we have to go back to the 1980s — when right-wing academics and thinkers worked together to create a counter-revolution to mainstream conservative institutions. For more, we spoke to writer and political theorist Laura K. Field . She wrote a book on the modern conservative movement titled “Furious Minds: The...
Jan 16, 2026•26 min
The great city of Minneapolis is under siege by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and we have all seen the videos to prove it… which may be why the popularity of ICE has dropped like a rock over the last year, from +16 in January 2025 to -14 now, according to polling by YouGov. In short, a lot of Americans think what ICE is doing is bad, and they do not like it. But what can state and local authorities do about it? To find out, we spoke to Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. Earlier thi...
Jan 15, 2026•22 min
In Iran, weeks of protests against the ruling regime have resulted in the deaths of thousands of protestors at the hands of the government. The Trump Administration has voiced its full-throated support for the protestors, with President Trump even claiming , “help is on its way.” Meanwhile, in Greenland, Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen joined Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in a joint news conference to say, again, Greenland does not want to be a part of the United States . But, ...
Jan 14, 2026•24 min
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell struck back on Sunday night after the Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation into his handling of renovations to the Fed’s DC headquarters. Whether or not he lied to Congress about them, this is all happening as the Supreme Court is set to debate another one of Trump’s efforts to take control of the Fed – by getting rid of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. So to talk more about Jerome Powell, the Supreme Court, and Donald Trump’s various attem...
Jan 13, 2026•27 min
The United States Coast Guard seized another oil tanker, the Olina, on Friday. It is the fifth Venezuela-linked tanker seized by US forces under President Trump, and the third since the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Earlier last week, the US seized a vessel near Iceland following a slow chase across the Atlantic Ocean. That ship, the Bella 1, was renamed the Marinera and started flying the Russian flag after US forces first tried to board it back in December . So, what’s...
Jan 12, 2026•21 min
On Thursday, protestors continued to gather in Minnesota’s largest city to stand up to Immigration and Customs Enforcement after an officer fatally shot a woman on Wednesday. The victim’s name was Renee Good. She was a US citizen, a parent, and a recent transplant to Minnesota. She is being remembered as a deeply loving person – her mother telling The Minnesota Star Tribune she was “one of the kindest people I’ve ever known.” But none of that has mattered to the White House, which has been sland...
Jan 09, 2026•25 min
There are 435 members of the House of Representatives — and after the resignation of Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and the passing of California Representative Doug LaMalfa , the GOP’s majority is down to 218. It’s thin, even without discussing the number of Republicans that are going to leave office to retire, run for other positions, or just get away because being in Congress sucks right now. At the same time, Congress is struggling to get much done — whether it’s about healthc...
Jan 08, 2026•26 min
It’s been a strange 12 months for Trump. He won the 2024 election on a wave of economic discontent, and responded by blowing up a wing of the White House, decimating foreign aid, and attempting to deport undocumented immigrants and political dissidents alike , before deciding that what his second term really needed was military adventurism in South America. But since last summer, his poll numbers have declined and Democrats have been notching electoral victories in states like Florida, New York,...
Jan 07, 2026•23 min
Five years ago today, supporters of President Trump, emboldened by his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, stormed the Capitol. Now, with Trump back in the Oval Office, it feels like the January 6th insurrectionists got everything they could have wanted – but did they? On his first day back in office, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 of the rioters. But dozens of those pardoned went on to commit more crimes – and others are furious that they haven’t received restitution for so-called “...
Jan 06, 2026•23 min
Late Friday evening, President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. military operation that led to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. After his capture, Maduro was taken by warship to the United States and then flown to New York, where he will face federal drug trafficking and weapons charges. There are a ton of questions around how this operation happened and what, if any, legal authority the United States had to capture Maduro in the first place. But most i...
Jan 05, 2026•24 min
On Thursday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to reclassify marijuana from a Schedule I substance to a Schedule III substance. Trump's order continues an effort begun by former President Joe Biden to change how the federal government views marijuana. Previously, under the U.S. Controlled Substances Act, marijuana had the same classification as LSD and peyote – drugs that the federal government argues have no accepted medical use and a high pot...
Dec 19, 2025•22 min
President Trump has made multiple xenophobic comments about Somali immigrants over the past few weeks, following the findings of an investigation into social services fraud in Minnesota . Many of those arrested were of Somali origin or background — but since the President just pardoned a CEO convicted for fraud, it ’ s hard to believe he ’ s really concerned about the, you know, fraud . His remarks really indicate he’s much more interested in being racist – especially towards Minnesota Democrati...
Dec 18, 2025•20 min
