Welp. That happened. Former President Donald Trump declared victory in the presidential race in the early hours of Wednesday morning. As of 3 am Wednesday, The Associated Press had not officially called the race, but it had declared Trump the winner of three crucial swing states: North Carolina, Georgia and Pennsylvania, effectively cutting off any path to victory for Vice President Kamala Harris. Democrats did see a few wins down ballot. Erin Ryan, co-host of the Crooked podcast ‘Hysteria,’ joi...
Nov 06, 2024•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast Happy Election Day! Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump spent their final full day on the campaign trail converging on the must-win state of Pennsylvania. Harris spent her entire day in the Keystone State, making direct appeals to Latino voters and young voters. For Trump, Pennsylvania was one of three swing states he stumped in Monday, continuing to muddle his closing message all along the way. Alyssa Mastromonaco, former White House deputy chief of staff under Presid...
Nov 05, 2024•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast Election Day is tomorrow! More than 75 million people have already voted. And a slew of new polls released over the weekend show good news for Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign. Naturally, former President Donald Trump responded by railing against the polls at his rallies, even though polls aren’t predictions, and both candidates have a good shot at winning Tuesday. Nate Silver, polling guru and author of the Substack newsletter “Silver Bulletin,” stops by to tell us what the polls are — an...
Nov 04, 2024•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast If Trump wins the presidential election, Project 2025 gives us an inkling of what his next term might look like. But due to a power struggle within the far-right, there could be another plan that’s just as threatening. On this week’s “How We Got Here,” Max and Erin hear from New York Times reporter Ken Bensinger about the America First Policy Institute and its political goals with a second Trump term.
Nov 02, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump spent their Thursdays courting voters in the Southwest. Trump started his day in New Mexico, a state that Democrats are expected to easily win, before heading to events in Nevada and Arizona. Harris also spent her day in the two Western swing states, wrapping up the night at a rally with pop megastar Jennifer Lopez. With just four days left until Election Day, Alex Wagner of MSNBC's ‘Alex Wagner Tonight’ joins us to talk about what s...
Nov 01, 2024•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the wake of former President Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally Sunday, Major Puerto Rican stars with tens of millions of social media followers have been throwing their support behind Vice President Kamala Harris. On Wednesday, singer Nicky Jam, who endorsed Trump last month, renounced his support for the former president in a video to his supporters, citing the joke a comedian made at the rally about Puerto Rico being an ‘island of garbage.’ Adrian Carrasquillo, a national political...
Oct 31, 2024•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast Vice President Kamala Harris delivered her closing arguments in a speech at the Ellipse in Washington D.C. — where then-President Donald Trump encouraged a mob of his supporters to march to the Capitol – to try to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Stef Kight, political reporter for Axios, breaks down the pitch Harris is making to voters in the final week of the presidential race. The fallout from Trump’s anti-Puerto Rican remarks in Madison Square Garden continues. The chairman of the P...
Oct 30, 2024•23 min•Transcript available on Metacast With one week left until Election Day, Vice President Kamala Harris plans to deliver her closing arguments today with a speech at the Ellipse in Washington D.C. It’s the same place where nearly four years ago, then-President Trump incited a violent mob to march toward the Capitol in an attempt to steal the election. For Trump’s part, he’ll end his day with a rally in Allentown, Pa., a politically purple area in one of the most important swing states this election cycle. As we head into the final...
Oct 29, 2024•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast Former President Donald Trump made his closing pitch to voters Sunday at a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City. His speech leaned heavily on the dehumanizing anti-immigrant rhetoric that’s defined his third run for the presidency. Even his warm-up speakers sank to new xenophobic lows, with one calling Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage.” Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris spent her Sunday campaigning in Philadelphia after blockbuster rallies with Michelle Obama and Beyonc...
Oct 28, 2024•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast Trump is winning the presidential race according to some polls. But others say Harris is ahead. What’s the point of following the polls if they contradict each other and, at times, seem outright broken? On this week’s “How We Got Here,” Max and Erin talk with Crooked’s Dan Pfeiffer to explain how Trump, the pandemic, iPhones and more messed with the reliability of presidential election polls.
Oct 26, 2024•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are preparing to make their closing pitches to voters ahead of Election Day. The Harris Campaign announced she’ll make her final arguments to the American people next week in a speech at the Ellipse in D.C., the exact same spot where nearly four years ago, then-President Donald Trump incited a mob of his supporters to march toward the Capitol. The Harris campaign said the decision to have the vice president speak at the Ellipse is me...
Oct 25, 2024•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Last night, Vice President Kamala Harris was in the Philadelphia suburbs for a CNN Town Hall with Anderson Cooper and an audience of what the network called “undecided and persuadable voters.” Harris fielded questions about whether former President Donald Trump is a fascist, and was asked by audience members what she’d do about the price of groceries. There’s a reason the CNN town hall was in Pennsylvania. It’s the state both campaigns have visited the most – and where they’ve spent the most mon...
Oct 24, 2024•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast Roughly 20 million people have already voted in the upcoming election, either by mail or in person. And as the ballots keep pouring in, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are running around the country, trying to sway as many voters as they can ahead of what’s shaping up to be a historically close election. On Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris sat down for interviews with NBC and Telemundo, while former President Barack Obama and rapper Eminem rallied for her in M...
Oct 23, 2024•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast It's officially two weeks until Election Day, and SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk wants you to vote — for former President Donald Trump, obviously. In fact, Musk wants you to vote so badly that he says he’s giving out $1 million a day to people in swing states who sign his petition supporting the rights to free speech and to bear arms. It’s part of an effort to get more Republicans registered to vote. Except legal experts we spoke with — like Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin and UCLA electio...
Oct 22, 2024•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast In-person early voting kicked off this weekend in Nevada, one of the key swing states that will decide the upcoming election. Like all the other major battlegrounds, polling averages show the race there between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is a statistical dead heat. Four years ago, President Joe Biden won Nevada’s six electoral votes by about 2.5 points. But Nevada is also a state where Republicans could chip away at the Democrat Party’s historical advantage wi...
Oct 21, 2024•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast Buying a home is already so expensive in America, but climate change is poised to make it much worse—even if you don’t live in the path of a hurricane. This week on How We Got Here, Max and Erin take a look at Florida to understand the thorny problem of insuring a home in a warming world. They break down how the insurance system is trying to account for ever-increasing risk, and explain why people keep moving to the places that are hardest hit by climate change.
Oct 19, 2024•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the aftermath of increasingly destructive natural disasters like Hurricanes Helene and Milton, politicians on both sides of the aisle have politicized the recovery effort. What fewer people are making political is the reason those storms were so destructive: warmer oceans caused by climate change. Bill Nye, the Science Guy, joins us to talk about why people should vote with the environment in mind this November. And in headlines: Former President Donald Trump blames Ukrainian President Volody...
Oct 18, 2024•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast Polls have shown that former President Donald Trump is increasingly weak when it comes to support from women. Recent Wall Street Journal polling found that Vice President Kamala Harris has a 13 point lead over Trump among women. In an attempt to reverse those trends, Trump went on Fox News to speak to a crowd of all women where he called himself the “father of IVF.” Erin Ryan, host of Crooked’s Hysteria and the weekend edition of What A Day, joins us to debrief. And in headlines: Democratic Repr...
Oct 17, 2024•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast In a Presidential race that will be decided on the margins – there’s evidence that Vice President Kamala Harris is losing support among Black Voters and Latino Voters. Both groups still overwhelmingly support Harris, just less overwhelmingly than Democrats in the past. Journalist Paola Ramos has spent the last few years trying to understand why a growing number of Latinos seem drawn to former President Donald Trump and his far-right, nativist message. She spoke with insurrectionists, border vigi...
Oct 16, 2024•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump are working hard to earn the support of a key voting bloc this election: union voters. While most major unions have kept up the tradition of backing Democrats by endorsing Harris, two of the country’s biggest unions — the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the International Association of Fire Fighters — opted not to endorse either candidate, citing internal divisions among their ranks. April Verrett, president of the Service...
Oct 15, 2024•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz will spend this week barnstorming through the so-called “Blue Wall” states: Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Between now and Saturday, the two have more than a dozen campaign events planned in the three states. While the ‘Blue Wall’ offers Democrats the best shot at winning the White House, the Harris campaign’s slate of stops there this week also reflects the party’s growing unease as the presidential race tightens. All three stat...
Oct 14, 2024•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast Jill Stein may not be polling high, but in several states she’s poised to bring in more votes than the margin of error between Harris and Trump. Her campaign events tout that they could cost Harris key states like Michigan, and thus the election. Is this what she wants? A closer look at Stein’s 20 years in politics reveals the Green Party candidate has had little success in elevating left-wing positions, and many of her stances—including a ceasefire in Gaza—aren’t nearly as clear cut as they see...
Oct 12, 2024•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast People in Florida are assessing the damage caused by Hurricane Milton. The storm made landfall late Wednesday as a Category 3 storm just south of Tampa, dropping up to 18 inches of rain overnight. As of late Thursday, around 3 million people in the state were still without power. At least 12 people died, though that number is expected to increase as rescue efforts continue. Hurricane recovery — both from Milton and Helene — is happening right alongside the 2024 election, conspiracy theories and ...
Oct 11, 2024•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast Hurricane Milton made landfall Wednesday night along Florida’s Gulf Coast as a Category 3 storm. It’s expected to be one of the most powerful hurricanes to hit the U.S. in more than 100 years, with sustained winds of over 120 miles an hour. As Milton moved closer to shore Wednesday, strong inland winds triggered tornado warnings across parts of Florida, and at least one tornado was reported near Fort Myers. WAD’s own Josie Duffy Rice got in contact with two friends who evacuated from western Flo...
Oct 10, 2024•23 min•Transcript available on Metacast In Texas, Democratic Congressman Colin Allred is making Republican Ted Cruz work hard to keep his Senate seat, with polls showing the race within three percentage points. Cruz’s campaign seems to think the best strategy for winning re-election is to lean into anti-trans messaging. Semafor politics reporter Dave Weigel joins us from the campaign trail in Texas to talk about how Cruz and other Republicans are leaning into anti-trans fearmongering this election cycle. Later, Grace Panetta, politica...
Oct 09, 2024•23 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Supreme Court kicked off its new term Monday by opting not take up two cases that could have major implications for reproductive rights. In one decision, the court rejected an appeal from an Alabama fertility clinic seeking to avoid a wrongful death lawsuit over the destruction of a couple’s embryos. The other case it rejected was an appeal from the Biden administration over emergency abortions in Texas. With issues like trans rights, ghost guns and the potential for more election cases on t...
Oct 08, 2024•15 min•Transcript available on Metacast Donald Trump rallied with Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania, at the same site where a lone gunman attempted to assassinate the former president earlier this year. Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris was in North Carolina over the weekend helping with the ongoing recovery efforts from Hurricane Helene. She’s scheduled to do a series of sit-down interviews this week with a slew of different outlets, from ’60 Minutes’ to ‘Howard Stern.’ Today also marks one year si...
Oct 07, 2024•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast Iran launched ballistic missiles at Israel this week, in the latest escalation between the two Middle Eastern powers. But would you believe that 40 years ago the two nations enjoyed a quiet diplomacy? What happened here? And why is the rest of the Middle East once more getting sucked into the rivalry? This week on How We Got Here, Max and Erin explain why “ancient hatred” isn’t to blame, what role Lebanon and Hezbollah play, and how Donald Trump has made—and could still make—all of this much, mu...
Oct 05, 2024•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast While Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are vying for the White House, neither will be able to make good on their campaign promises if they don’t also get some help from their respective parties in Congress. Control of both the Senate and the House are up for grabs this election cycle. And right now, Democrats’ quickest path to victory in the House runs through two unlikely states: California and New York. California Democratic Rep. Mike Levin talks about his experie...
Oct 04, 2024•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast Fighting in the Middle East between Israel, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, and Iran dramatically ramped up this week. On Tuesday, Iran launched around 200 missiles at Israel in response to the assassination of longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah last week. With the help of the U.S., Israel was able to defend against most of the Iranian airstrikes and prevent significant damage. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to retaliate, while Iranian officials have warned of more ai...
Oct 03, 2024•20 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
