Why isn’t there a way for party leaders to get together—in a back room, ideally somewhere dark and smokey—and just give Biden the boot? As it turns out, that’s the way things used to get done. Max and Tre’vell explain how back room dealings originated, and why they fell out of favor. Why did the Vietnam War force Democrats to change the process? Did the switch make political parties more extreme? Were there benefits to having a cabal? Listen to this week’s How We Got Here to find out.
Jul 13, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast President Joe Biden on Thursday wrapped up this week’s NATO summit in Washington by giving his first solo press conference since November. Despite more defections from House Democrats earlier in the day, Biden gave no indication that he would drop out of the presidential race. Some also praised Biden for his command of foreign policy issues during the one-hour Q&A session with reporters, though he did stumble a few times. Political reporter Abigail Tracy breaks down the reaction to Biden’s perfo...
Jul 12, 2024•23 min•Transcript available on Metacast Lawmakers continue to weigh in on the fate of President Biden’s re-election campaign. Vermont’s Peter Welch on Wednesday became the first Democratic senator to call on Biden to step aside. However, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on MSNBC that her fellow Democratic lawmakers should “hold off” on publicly debating the issue until after this week. Meanwhile, actor George Clooney penned a New York Times op-ed to describe a recent fundraiser he co-hosted for Biden and said the president was, ...
Jul 11, 2024•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast Republicans appeared to soften their stance on abortion ahead of next week’s party convention and adopted a policy platform this week that didn’t include a call for a federal ban. They did so at the direct request of former President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly tried to downplay the issue during the campaign while also taking credit for ending Roe v. Wade. But the 16-page policy document opens the door to establishing fetal personhood, which would threaten access to abortion and IVF. Shefal...
Jul 10, 2024•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast President Biden continued to aggressively push back on the idea that he would drop out of the presidential race. He started Monday morning by sending a letter to all Congressional Democrats that said he is “firmly committed to staying in this race,” and that it was time for speculation about it to end. He followed that up by calling into MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” where he blamed the party’s “elites” for trying to push him out of the race. Tara Palmeri, senior political correspondent for Puck News a...
Jul 09, 2024•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast President Joe Biden spent the long July Fourth weekend trying to save his re-election bid after his disastrous debate performance more than a week ago. On the campaign trail and in his first post-debate interview with ABC, the president was adamant that he would not leave the race. But Biden’s publicity blitz did little to assure panicked Democrats in Washington, with some top lawmakers in both the House and Senate privately voicing hopes that the president will drop out. Alex Thompson, national...
Jul 08, 2024•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast We may be starting to see a seismic shift in how the Democratic Party publicly talks about whether President Joe Biden should remain the party’s presumptive nominee for president. On Tuesday, Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett became the first sitting Democratic lawmaker to call for Biden to leave the race after his devastating debate performance last week. Longtime Illinois Rep. Mike Quigley and Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Peter Welch of Vermont were also among those voicing harsh critic...
Jul 03, 2024•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Supreme Court's conservative majority handed former President Donald Trump a major win on Monday, granting him broad — though not full — immunity from charges he tried to overturn the 2020 election. The decision effectively kicks Trump's federal election interference case back down to a lower court judge to parse out which of his actions that day, and leading up to it, could be considered "unofficial acts," for which he could still be prosecuted. It makes the likelihood of a trial before Nov...
Jul 02, 2024•20 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Biden campaign spent the weekend trying to contain the damage from the president’s devastating performance in Thursday night’s presidential debate. Biden acknowledged his lackluster showing during a campaign event in North Carolina on Friday. Still, it didn’t do much to end the sheer panic that has overtaken the Democratic Party and quiet the calls for him to leave the race ahead of the Democratic National Convention. Colby Itkowitz, national reporter for The Washington Post, explains what w...
Jul 01, 2024•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast Why is America so obsessed with lawns and order? Max and Erin get into the weeds of how the founding fathers made cultivating grass an American pastime, why our lawn mania is a creation of corporate marketing, and how it all feeds class anxiety. Why is it so bad for our environment? Does milkweed bring all the bees to the yard? And how much do lawns and instagram face have in common? Listen to this week’s How We Got Here to find out. SOURCES The History of the American Lawn The rise and fall of ...
Jun 29, 2024•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast Well… that happened. In the first presidential debate of the 2024 election cycle, President Biden failed to ease concerns about his age, igniting panic among Democrats. Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump blustered his way through lie after lie with little pushback and once again refused to say whether he would accept the election results. Grace Panetta, politics reporter for The 19th, and Gerren Keith Gaynor, White House correspondent and managing editor of politics at The Grio, join Tre’v...
Jun 28, 2024•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are set to square off tonight in their first debate of the presidential election — and the first debate in history between a sitting and former president. Whether you've been waiting for it or dreading it, the debate is expected to draw millions of viewers, even though Election Day is still months away. Friend of the pod and 'Hysteria' co-host Alyssa Mastromonaco served as the deputy chief of staff under President Barack Obama. She explains w...
Jun 27, 2024•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ready or not, tomorrow is debate day. And both President Joe Biden, 81, and former President Donald Trump, 78, are under a lot of pressure to show they're fit for re-election. While Biden hunkers down at Camp David to prepare, Trump has been getting an assist from his supporters sharing selectively edited "cheap fake" videos that pray on voter concerns over Biden's age. Tom Nichols, staff writer at The Atlantic, joins us to talk about why Republicans are resorting to spreading these easily debun...
Jun 26, 2024•20 min•Transcript available on Metacast In today’s New York primary elections, voters in the state’s 16th Congressional District will decide what’s become the most expensive House primary race in American history. It pits incumbent Rep. Jamaal Bowman against Westchester County Executive George Latimer, and it epitomizes the divisions within the Democratic Party between the progressive left and the centrist mainstream. Politico’s chief Washington correspondent Ryan Lizza breaks down that race and others worth keeping an eye on tonight....
Jun 25, 2024•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today marks two years since the U.S. Supreme Court's conservative majority overturned Roe vs. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that for decades guaranteed the right to an abortion. Since then, conservative lawmakers in roughly half the states have either banned or significantly restricted access to abortion, while the other half has expanded or protected access. The nexus of the debate over abortion is now our current presidential election, with both the Biden and Trump campaigns center...
Jun 24, 2024•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast Is there a way to send fewer people to prison while lowering crime rates? This week’s How We Got Here unpacks the progressive prosecutor movement—the left’s antidote to tough on crime policies. How have progressive prosecutors fared since the movement began a few years back? How are red states responding? How does the whole debate over progressive prosecutors misunderstand the fundamentals of crime? Max and Josie hold court to figure it all out.
Jun 22, 2024•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast Congress is weighing proposals to update mandatory military conscription policies — aka the draft — including whether to expand it to include women. It’s an idea that’s been debated for a while, especially since women started serving in combat roles nearly a decade ago. This month, a proposal to require women to register for the draft was included in a big Pentagon policy bill passed out of the Senate Armed Services Committee. However, it’s unlikely to win final approval. Katherine Kuzminski, a ...
Jun 21, 2024•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast Tens of millions of Americans in the Northeast and Midwest are sweating through their first major heatwave of the year. Heat is the deadliest of all natural disasters, according to the National Weather Service, killing more Americans on average each year than floods, tornados and hurricanes combined. This week, a coalition of environmental, labor, and healthcare groups filed a petition to push the Federal Emergency Management Agency to start recognizing both extreme heat and wildfire smoke as ma...
Jun 20, 2024•20 min•Transcript available on Metacast Speaking at a Juneteenth event at the White House this month, President Joe Biden warned about the “old ghosts in new garments” trying to erase the nation’s Black history by banning books and restricting diversity programs. But across the country, people are also working hard to preserve that history in the face of Republican opposition. So, on a special Juneteenth episode of “What A Day,” we speak to an organization doing just that: The Jack Hadley Black History Museum in Thomasville, Georgia. ...
Jun 19, 2024•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday dissolved his war cabinet that’s overseen the country’s fighting in Gaza. The move was expected, but it came after two centrist members of the cabinet resigned in frustration over Netanyahu’s handling of the war. Meanwhile, representatives from dozens of nations left a weekend conference in Switzerland aimed at ending the war in Ukraine with little to show for it. Ben Rhodes, former U.S. deputy national security advisor and co-host of ‘Pod Save...
Jun 18, 2024•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast Former President Donald Trump has vowed to appeal his criminal conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records to sway the 2016 election. His sentencing is scheduled for July 11, just a few days before the Republican National Convention. Trump and his attorneys claim that the case was impermissibly flawed and that his constitutional rights were violated. Legal experts have raised possible issues for appeal, which run the gamut and include the charging scheme, the case venue, jury instruct...
Jun 17, 2024•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’ve been hearing that the far-right is on the rise in Europe for a decade now. And yet, with a few exceptions, these parties are nowhere near taking power. Even in the EU Parliament, where the far-right made gains for the third election in a row this week, nationalist parties are STILL expected to end up marginalized and powerless. What's driving them and what's stopping them? Max and guest host Josie Duffy Rice take a look at the rise of the German far-right AfD party to illustrate what’s goi...
Jun 15, 2024•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast In a unanimous decision on Thursday, the Supreme Court preserved broad access to the abortion drug mifepristone — at least for now. The justices dismissed the case on a technicality, ruling that the anti-abortion groups and doctors who brought it didn't have a legal right to sue. But the court's decision isn't a solid win for abortion access. The justices didn't weigh in on the substance of the case, meaning it could end up back in front of the court. Already, three Republican-led states are try...
Jun 14, 2024•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast House Democrats on Tuesday launched an official task force to take on the far-right agenda Republicans envision under a second Trump presidency. The group of Democrats aims to directly counter the plans outlined in “Project 2025,” a 1,000 page policy blueprint floated by the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation that calls for eliminating federal agencies like the FBI and Justice Department, restricting access to contraception, and concentrating more power in the presidency. Maryland Democratic...
Jun 13, 2024•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast A Delaware jury on Tuesday convicted Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son, on three federal felony gun charges. The verdict makes Biden the first member of a sitting president’s immediate family to be convicted of a crime. A sentencing date hasn’t been set yet, but the president’s son is facing up to 25 years in prison. Alex Thompson, national political correspondent for Axios, was in the courtroom during the trial. He breaks down the verdict and the reactions in Washington. And in headlines:...
Jun 12, 2024•20 min•Transcript available on Metacast On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court asked the Justice Department to weigh in on two cases that deal with whether cities and states can hold fossil fuel companies responsible for the effects of climate change. While we wait to see what happens, one thing is abundantly clear: climate change is already affecting our health. Vox Media, Grist and The 19th News teamed up for a series on how our changing climate is reshaping the reproductive cycle from menstruation to menopause. Lead reporter Zoya Teirst...
Jun 11, 2024•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast Benny Gantz, a key member of Israel’s war cabinet, resigned from his post on Sunday. His announcement came one day after Israeli forces rescued four hostages held by Hamas in an operation that killed scores of Palestinians. Gantz, who’s also Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief political rival, said Netanyahu is “preventing us from reaching real victory” and called for new elections. President Joe Biden wrapped up a five-day visit to France on Sunday. While the trip was nominally ab...
Jun 10, 2024•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast Until recently, many people—and colleges—rejected the SAT as a racist and classist metric that perpetuated social divides. But now it’s being championed as a tool for closing some of those same gaps! This week on How We Got Here: why does public opinion on the SAT keep flip-flopping? Who does the test privilege? And is it really the best metric we’ve got for college admissions? With Erin on maternity leave, “What A Day” all-star Priyanka Aribindi joins Max to assess the racist roots of the SAT, ...
Jun 08, 2024•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast Thursday was a bit of a letdown for Supreme Court watchers. The justices issued opinions in three smaller cases, but we’re still waiting for decisions in more than two dozen others with just a few weeks left of the term. Some of those cases could be hugely consequential, touching on everything from reproductive rights and presidential immunity to social media and guns. Melissa Murray, co-host of Crooked’s legal podcast ‘Strict Scrutiny,’ says we should brace ourselves for a wild June. And in hea...
Jun 07, 2024•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast Former President Donald Trump’s campaign rode his felony conviction to a banner fundraising day last week, raking in more than 50 million dollars within 24 hours of the verdict, according to aides. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are in California this week to court big donors to grow their campaign war chests with the November election less than six months away. Meanwhile, both campaigns have reportedly seen a significant decline in small-dollar contributions during this election cycle. ...
Jun 06, 2024•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
