We’re getting closer and closer to the election. And a lot of weird stuff has been happening. Our guest this week points out that Trump has been going “all in” for the “weird vote,” by choosing JD Vance as his running mate and elevating figures like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Dave Weigel covers politics and writes the “Americana” newsletter for Semafor. He’s written about how the Trump-Vance coalition has aimed to cobble together contrarians, dissidents, conspiracy theorists and people who are distru...
Sep 24, 2024•57 min•Ep. 240923
This week’s episode is a bit of a crossover. We’re sharing the fourth and final episode of MSNBC’s “The Threat of Project 2025” special series for the How to Win podcast. In this episode, Chris speaks with Grist climate reporter Zoya Teirstein for her take on Project 2025’s impact on climate and the environment, especially in communities already suffering from climate-related catastrophes. Then, Dr. Vernon Morris, a professor of chemistry and atmospheric sciences at Arizona State University, sha...
Sep 17, 2024•44 min•Ep. 240917
We’re thrilled to share a mashup of our MSNBC Live: Democracy 2024 event that we recently held at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The whole day was a celebration of you, our viewers and listeners. It was the first of its kind in-person, interactive experience. We so enjoyed meeting so many of you. But if you couldn’t join us in person, you’re in luck – we’re sharing key conversations in this episode. For more, be sure to check out our TV special airing Saturday, September 14th at 9 p.m. ET. For y...
Sep 11, 2024•2 hr 47 min
North Carolina is one of the most interesting swing states in this election. Democrats have not won the Tar Heel state at the presidential level since 2008 when Barack Obama won it. It was a close race in 2020 and recent polling has shown Harris and Trump neck and neck in the state. There’s a lot to unpack about what’s going on. Anderson Clayton is the chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party. Elected at 25 years old, she is the youngest chair of a state Democratic Party in the U.S. Clayton ...
Sep 10, 2024•44 min•Ep. 240910
During this year’s DNC, President Biden reflected on numerous accomplishments and discussed his track record. One of the signature pieces of legislation of the Biden presidency, and of Democrats in this era, is the Inflation Reduction Act, also known as the IRA. This August marked the 2-year anniversary of the landmark federal law. Our guest this week teamed up with his students to track the cumulative effects of the implementation of the IRA. Jay Turner is the Wiliam R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of ...
Sep 03, 2024•57 min•Ep. 240903
The Democratic national convention was a whole vibe this year. History was made during the electric four-day convention, which culminated with Vice President Harris accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination, the first black woman and person of South Asian decent to do so. Lucky for us, our own Alex Wagner, host of “Alex Wagner Tonight” on MSNBC, joined us fresh off her flight from Chicago to unpack what the “whirlwind” experience was like. Wagner also discusses the people who were there and wh...
Aug 27, 2024•46 min•Ep. 240827
Could the answer to building a more just society lie in 50-year-old ideas? Our guest this week points to the ideas of John Rawls, one of the greatest political philosophers, as a blueprint of sorts for building a more equitable society. Daniel Chandler is the research director of the Programme on Cohesive Capitalism at the London School of Economics. He’s also an economist, philosopher and author of “Free and Equal: A Manifesto for a Just Society.” He joins WITHpod to discuss how we might overco...
Aug 20, 2024•51 min•Ep. 240820
Chris just got back from vacation. It just so happened that he was way during one of the most remarkable periods in American presidential political history. There’s a lot to unpack with our guest this week. Heather McGhee is a New York Times bestselling author of “The Sum of Us” and the board chair at Color of Change, the nation’s largest online racial justice group. She joins WITHpod to discuss the most seismic recent political developments, vibes within the Democratic Party and more....
Aug 13, 2024•48 min•Ep. 240813
We’ve seen a wave of campaigns in school districts and municipalities across the country to ban literary works over the past few years. One instance of this is the subject of MSNBC Films’ "To Be Destroyed," the latest installment of "The Turning Point" documentary series from Executive Producer Trevor Noah. The feature documentary explores a South Dakota community's fight against book banning after five books – including one by best-selling author Dave Eggers – were pulled from the shelves. Egge...
Aug 06, 2024•49 min•Ep. 240806
There’s a lot of unprecedented things going on nowadays. And with everything going on, it can be tempting to distort the moment we’re in and to view things as totally new and completely abrupt. Our guest this week has written about the source of historical continuity, particularly in the 1990s, that has brought us to our current moment. John Ganz is the author of “When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s.” He joins WITHpod to discuss his thesis ...
Jul 30, 2024•57 min
Why does it seem so hard to build big things nowadays? Our guest this week points out that no one project embodies that cynicism quite like Boston’s Big Dig. Boston’s Central Artery/Tunnel Project, commonly known as the Big Dig, was the most complex and technically challenging highway project in American history. Ian Coss is host and creator of “The Big Dig” podcast, produced by GBH, which unpacks why the endeavor was so difficult and what it represented more broadly about ambitious efforts like...
Jul 23, 2024•55 min
The Democratic Party coalition is a complicated one to say the least. A growing number of Democrats have called on President Joe Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential election in recent weeks. Those encouraging him to step aside have cited concerns about his fitness for office and ability to win reelection. Jamelle Bouie is a New York Times opinion columnist and is a co-host of the Unclear and Present Danger podcast. He joins WITHpod to discuss the lack of mechanisms to force an incumbent...
Jul 16, 2024•53 min
Another year, another pretty wild Supreme Court term. SCOTUS recently ended its term with a number of big decisions including ruling that former president Donald Trump is immune from prosecution for his “official acts” in office. And it also overturned the Chevron doctrine, reversing a 40-year-old precedent that afforded federal agencies a degree of discretion in interpreting ambiguous laws. As always, there’s a lot to unpack and we’re excited to share our third crossover episode with the hosts ...
Jul 09, 2024•1 hr 3 min
Could the future of libraries as we’ve known them be completely different? Our guests this week say so. Megapublishers are suing the Internet Archive, perhaps best known for its Wayback Machine, to redefine e-books as legally different from paper books. A difference in how they are classified would mean sweeping changes for the way libraries operate. Brewster Kahle is a digital librarian at the Internet Archive. Kyle Courtney is a lawyer, librarian, director of copyright and information policy f...
Jul 02, 2024•58 min
Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project, is a collection of policy proposals from The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. The group’s 920-page “Mandate for Leadership” is an extremely granular playbook that includes sweeping policy changes aimed at reshaping and dismantling American government. It’s pretty alarming. With so much at stake, we thought it would be good to do a deep dive into what the document contains and what it could portend for a possible Trum...
Jun 25, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett is one of the most interesting figures in Congress. You may have been introduced to her in recent weeks following a House committee during which Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene insulted her appearance. The verbal spat between the two took the internet by storm and became a viral moment. But that exchange, and her clapback, is only one part of her story as a rising star within the Democratic Party. She joins WITHpod to discuss the impetus for her political ...
Jun 18, 2024•55 min
We’re sharing another episode in our WITHpod 2024: The Stakes series, in which we choose specific areas of policy and talk to an expert about Trump and Biden’s records on the topic. We couldn’t think of a better person than our guest this week to help unpack the two candidates’ stances on antitrust. Timothy Wu is the Julius Silver professor of law, science and technology at Columbia University. He’s known as the "architect" of the Biden administration's competition and antitrust policies. Wu joi...
Jun 11, 2024•45 min
One of the most pressing challenges for candidates and campaigns today is how to win in a world where disinformation is so pervasive. Why is the information environment in this election year so hard to parse? Our guest this week has written about the keys to winning campaigns for more than a decade. Sasha Issenberg is a journalist and author of numerous books including his latest, “The Lie Detectives: In Search of a Playbook for Winning Elections in the Disinformation Age.” He joins WITHpod to d...
Jun 04, 2024•51 min
Its been four years since the murder of George Floyd at the hands Minneapolis police officers and the unrest that was unleashed in the wake of his death. And now we’re in a moment where another global protest movement is flourishing in denouncement of the Israeli war in Gaza. This week, we’re taking a look at the historical lineage and efficacy of protests, as well as ways we might rethink mobilization. Our guest this week has spent decades researching and writing about the dynamic nature and ef...
May 28, 2024•53 min
We’re back with another episode of our WITHpod 2024: The Stakes series, in which we choose specific areas of policy and talk to an expert about Trump and Biden’s records on the topic. This week, we’re discussing what’s at stake for an area of top salience: climate and energy. There’s a lot to unpack. David Roberts is the founder of the Volts podcast, newsletter and community. He joins WITHpod to discuss the Biden administration’s record action on climate, rollbacks that would be likely during a ...
May 21, 2024•52 min
This week, we’re sharing a recording of an event hosted at the Center for Brooklyn History where Chris interviewed author Ari Berman. Berman is the national voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones and has written numerous books including his latest, “Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People—and the Fight to Resist It,” which is the subject of this conversation. They discuss parallels between founding fathers’ ideologies and contemporary figures, threats to our democrac...
May 14, 2024•1 hr
We’re sharing another episode in our WITHpod 2024: The Stakes series, in which we choose specific areas of policy and talk to an expert about Trump and Biden’s records on the topic. This week, we’re discussing the seismic changes to reproductive rights over the past few years and both candidates’ stances. Jessica Valenti is an author and the founder of abortioneveryday.com. She joins WITHpod to discuss Trump creating the conditions for Roe v. Wade to be overturned during Biden’s term and what th...
May 07, 2024•53 min
If you’ve been following the news at all, you’re aware that former president Donald Trump is on trial in a New York criminal court and is facing 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. And there’s a lot to unpack. Our guest this week has been in the courthouse for this criminal trial and has been closely following the ins and outs of the case. Lisa Rubin is the MSNBC legal correspondent and a former litigator. She joins WITHpod to discuss the backstory of the trial, flaws in the legal s...
Apr 30, 2024•53 min
It’s been a wild last year or so in tech. We’ve seen a marked rise in the development of artificial intelligence, large language models and prolific growth of augmented reality systems. At the same time, it can feel like we’re moving backwards as concerns continue to rise about user privacy and the methods by which personal data is collected and monetized. Our guest this week points out that protecting privacy requires tech companies to ditch traditional business models that monetize user survei...
Apr 23, 2024•56 min
We’re thrilled to share the second episode in our WITHpod 2024: The Stakes series, in which we choose specific areas of policy and talk to an expert about Trump and Biden’s records on the topic. This week, we discuss the candidates’ stances and records on one of the most important and contested topics: tax policy. Kimberly Clausing is the Eric M. Zolt Chair in Tax Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law. Before that, she was the deputy assistant secretary for tax analysis in the U.S. Department...
Apr 16, 2024•39 min
We’re excited to share the first conversation in our WITHpod 2024: The Stakes series. For the first time since 1892, we have an election in which both candidates have presidential records, which provides a unique opportunity to cut through messaging and rhetoric and culture war flotsam and actually take a hard look at what each man has actually done as president. On The Stakes, WITHPod will choose specific areas of policy -- immigration, taxes, climate -- and talk to an expert about the two cand...
Apr 09, 2024•1 hr 5 min
Our guest this week was thrown in jail and fired from his job after social media posts he made about Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7th. Meir Baruchin, 62, is an Israeli history and civics teacher who was held in solitary confinement for four days after posts he made denouncing the war in Gaza. There was an adjudicated process in which he was later found to be wrongly fired from his job in the central Israeli city of Petah Tikv. He was later reinstated. Baruchin joins WITHpod to discuss the ...
Apr 02, 2024•51 min
There’s so much discourse about polling and it seems like there’s a poll for nearly every political issue. At the same time, polls often don’t successfully help us to predict the future, including election outcomes. What contributes to the mismatch between what we expect of them and what they actually deliver? Nate Cohn is the chief political analyst at the New York Times where he created the Times/Siena poll. Cohn points out that, among many things, polling plays a “central role in the way we u...
Mar 26, 2024•52 min
Why have attacks on gender become so pervasive, especially within right-wing movements? Our guest this week points out that “the question of gender is fundamentally linked with the future of our democratic world.” Judith Butler is a philosopher, gender theorist and cultural critic. They are also a distinguished professor in the graduate school at the University of California at Berkeley. Butler is the author of numerous books, including their latest, “Who’s Afraid of Gender?” They join WITHpod t...
Mar 19, 2024•51 min
If you’ve been following the news, you’ve seen that this week the House passed a bill designed to force the sale of TikTok from its Chinese parent company. If you’re confused about the ins and outs of this issue, we did an extensive exploration of it with NBC News technology correspondent Jacob Ward last year. So, we thought it would be good to re-share this TikTok 101. This conversation was originally recorded in April 2023. From the original description: TikTok is one of the fastest growing so...
Mar 15, 2024•1 hr 1 min
