H.R.1, also known as the For The People Act, is a sweeping reform bill that aims to make voting easier, gerrymandering harder, and to generally rein in the out-of-control minoritarianism that has come to characterize American democracy. Does it have a chance of becoming law? Congressman John Sarbanes, political scientist Jacob Hacker, and the Intercept’s Jon Schwarz join Ryan Grim to discuss. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Feb 01, 2021•50 min•Ep 24•Transcript available on Metacast In February, House Democrats will be re-introducing legislation to create a universal, single-payer healthcare system in the United States. Leading the effort will be Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington. Ryan Grim talks to Jayapal about her strategy and, to Jasmine Ruddy of National Nurses United about the organizing taking place outside of congress. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jan 29, 2021•33 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast On January 13th, the Cambridge Democratic City Committee met to discuss a resolution calling for the resignation of Massachusetts state party chair Gus Bickford. The resolution was an attempt to reckon with the party’s complicity last summer in the release of allegations against Holyoke mayor and congressional candidate Alex Morse pertaining to his time as an adjunct professor at UMass Amherst. The allegations were vague and did not include any behavior that violated the law or UMass policy, mer...
Jan 22, 2021•41 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast When a mob attacked the Capitol building on January 6th in an attempt to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, found herself like many other lawmakers forced to flee the chamber and take cover. While congress was locked down, several Republicans refused to wear masks. Three Democratic lawmakers, Jayapal among them, later tested positive for Covid-19. Ryan Grim talks to the Congresswoman about her ordeal an...
Jan 15, 2021•27 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast On Wednesday afternoon supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol building, overwhelming police and forcing the representatives inside into hiding just as they prepared to certify Joe Biden's election victory. Matt Fuller of Huffpost and Jon Farina of Status Coup, who were at the capitol as events unfolded, join Ryan Grim to discuss. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jan 07, 2021•23 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast One year ago, the U.S. government assassinated Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani by drone strike near the Baghdad International Airport. Is it possible that Donald Trump, now entering the final weeks of his presidency, might have further plans for Iran before he leaves office? Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft joins Ryan Grim to discuss. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jan 05, 2021•24 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast On election day last month, 52% of Puerto Rican voters answered “yes” to the following question: Should Puerto Rico be admitted immediately into the Union as a State? But the result of the non-binding referendum has gotten little attention in Washington since then. After all, it’s hardly the first time a statehood vote on the island has been answered in the affirmative. Is this time any different? On this week’s show, guest host Vanessa A. Bee talks to Julio Ricardo Varela, the founder of Latino...
Dec 18, 2020•42 min•Ep 18•Transcript available on Metacast On Tuesday Joe Biden held a zoom call with civil rights leaders from across the country to discuss matters of policy and his cabinet selections. The call was private, but Deconstructed obtained the audio. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Dec 10, 2020•15 min•Ep 17•Transcript available on Metacast With runoff elections in Georgia next month poised to determine control of the US Senate, national media have turned their eyes south. To help you digest the coming avalanche of Georgia coverage, Ryan Grim sits down with Intercept contributor George Chidi to discuss his state’s raucous political history. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Dec 04, 2020•59 min•Ep 16•Transcript available on Metacast Come 2021 the Democrats are likely to find themselves in control of the Presidency and the House but not the Senate — meaning Mitch McConnell will be in a position to block any ambitious legislation from the new administration. But as Trump has shown us, there’s a lot a president can do without congress. Robert Hockett and Demond Drummer from New Consensus and Dave Dayen from the American Prospect join Ryan Grim to discuss just how much Biden can do on his own. Hosted on Acast. See acast.co...
Nov 20, 2020•57 min•Ep 15•Transcript available on Metacast The circular firing squad over the Democrats’ underperformance in congressional races has already begun. Party leaders are blaming “the squad” and other left-wing figures for their talk of “defunding the police.” Meanwhile, progressives blame the establishment for refusing to adopt a more ambitious platform. Chuck Rocha, the head of Solidarity Strategies, and Jonathan Smucker, founder of Pennsylvania Stands Up, join Ryan Grim to discuss the debate. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more...
Nov 13, 2020•1 hr 7 min•Ep 14•Transcript available on Metacast November 3rd, 2020 was supposed to be the Democrats’ moment of glory: polls predicted a comfortable victory for former Vice President Joe Biden, as well as gains in both the House and Senate. Instead, Biden seems set to eke out a narrow win while his party loses House seats and fails to gain control of the upper chamber. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and Texas Democratic House candidate Mike Siegel discuss what happened. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Nov 06, 2020•45 min•Ep 13•Transcript available on Metacast Women across the U.S. found themselves suddenly drawn to politics after the shock election of Donald Trump four years ago. On this week’s podcast, Ryan Grim speaks to three such women: Candace Valenzuela and Julie Oliver in Texas, and Annie Weaver in Pennsylvania, about how that day changed their lives and the course it set them on over the last four years. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Oct 30, 2020•49 min•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast Donald Trump and Joe Biden met for their final debate before the 2020 election on Thursday night. Trump continued his recent attacks on Biden’s son Hunter and his foreign business dealings, while Biden went after Trump’s mismanagement of the Covid-19 pandemic. Who got the best of the encounter? Rising host Krystal Ball and former Deconstructed host Mehdi Hasan join the show to break down the debate. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Oct 23, 2020•33 min•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast Republicans appear set to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Ryan Grim talks to Ilyse Hogue of NARAL Pro-Choice America about the last 50 years of right-wing legal activism. Then Luther Lowe, Senior Vice President for Public Policy at Yelp, breaks down what could become the biggest antitrust case since Microsoft. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Oct 17, 2020•53 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast When President Trump abruptly reversed an order penalizing the Chinese telecom company ZTE for selling to North Korea and Iran in 2018, it confused almost everyone. Why was the get-tough-on-China-president suddenly caving to their demands? As The Intercept’s Lee Fang and Mara Hvistendahl found out, the story behind Trump’s move on ZTE sheds new light on the role of lobbyists and foreign interests at the highest levels of his administration’s decision-making. And it involves a figure most America...
Oct 16, 2020•26 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast Wordpress entry text: A Georgia senator compares herself to Attila the Hun. An Alaska senate challenger brags about fighting a bear. While the president’s Covid diagnosis has dominated the headlines, local and state races have been getting interesting, and on this week’s podcast DC Bureau Chief Ryan Grim breaks them down with the Washington Post’s Dave Weigel. Then, Pennsylvania’s Lieutenant Governor, John Fetterman, clears up some myths about mail-in voting. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/priva...
Oct 09, 2020•34 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast A special message from Deconstructed host Mehdi Hasan. Mehdi talks to Intercept DC Bureau Chief Ryan Grim about where he's headed and what's next for the podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 02, 2020•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast Julian Assange's impending extradition to the United States could set a dangerous new precedent in international law by allowing powerful governments to demand the handing-over of foreign journalists who publish information they deem damaging to their interests. Ryan Grim discusses the Assange case with Kevin Gosztola of Shadowproof. Then, Dana Gottesfeld describes the plight of her husband Martin, a hacker and human rights activist currently serving time at a prison in Indiana, similar to the o...
Oct 02, 2020•34 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast Fears are growing, stoked by the president’s own comments, that he will refuse to peacefully leave office should he lose the election in November. How concerned should we be, and what can we do to make sure we’re prepared? Joshua Geltzer, Georgetown law professor and a former member of President Obama’s National Security Council, joins Mehdi Hasan to discuss. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Sep 25, 2020•29 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast As the US economy was spiralling out of control in 2008 and 2009, economist James Galbraith predicted that an insufficiently large stimulus would lead to a prolonged recession. He was right, and today he has a different set of economic prescriptions to address the economic crisis brought on by Covid-19. If Biden wins, will he listen? Senior politics editor Nausicaa Renner talks to Galbraith about his recent piece for The Intercept . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Sep 17, 2020•18 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast Progressive candidates won big in this week’s Rhode Island primaries, thanks in large part to an array of left-wing organising groups that have sprung up there in the last few years to promote candidates for state and local office. One of the week’s winners was Cynthia Mendes, who defeated the State Senate Finance Chair. Ryan Grim talks to Mendes about her victory. Then, Daniel Denvir of Reclaim Rhode Island explains the organising strategies that made it happen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/p...
Sep 11, 2020•24 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast This week all eyes were on a pair of hard-fought Democratic primaries in Massachusetts. Senator Ed Markey staved off a primary challenge from Joe Kennedy III, while the progressive mayor of Holyoke, Alex Morse, lost his bid to replace Congressman Richard Neal. Morse was dogged by allegations of sexual misconduct levelled at him by the Massachusetts College Democrats, which he was unable to shake off even after they were shown by The Intercept to be an unfounded smear campaign. Markey and Morse w...
Sep 03, 2020•25 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast QAnon is a far-ranging conspiracy theory that alleges, among other things, that a patriotic Trump supporter (or supporters) embedded in the highest levels of the U.S. government has been using internet forums to send coded messages to the American public about a secret plan to arrest and/or execute a global cabal of child-torturing, blood-drinking, satan-worshipping pedophiles. Despite its self-evident implausibility, the mantle of QAnon has been taken up by a huge number of mostly right-wing Am...
Aug 28, 2020•34 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast This week, The Democrats broadcast their nominating convention from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic it was a largely virtual affair, with generally well-reviewed speeches from leading party figures like Barack and Michelle Obama, the Clintons, and Elizabeth Warren. Other than a speech by Bernie Sanders and a 1-minute cameo by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, though, the party’s left wing was largely shut out. Missouri congressional candidate Cori Bush and Pod Save America co-...
Aug 21, 2020•37 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast It’s been two years since the peak of public outcry over the Trump administration’s decision to begin separating the children of unauthorized migrant families from their parents. Yet the massive crisis that policy spawned remains arguably the darkest chapter in Donald Trump’s very dark presidency. MSNBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff has been back and forth from the border and central America covering the family separation saga since it began, a story he chronicles in his new book Separated . Host...
Jul 09, 2020•39 min•Ep 26•Transcript available on Metacast Deep down, are humans really selfish, brutal, and cruel? For much of the last century the most famous experiments in social science, from the Stanford prison experiment to the Stanley Milgram electric shock study have purported to prove that we all have a monster lurking just behind a carefully crafted social veneer. In his new book Humankind: A Hopeful History, Dutch historian and author Rutger Bregman aims to shed new light on this idea by examining the latest social science research, knocking...
Jul 02, 2020•47 min•Ep 25•Transcript available on Metacast This week’s Democratic primaries in Kentucky, New York, and Virginia saw a number of progressive challengers defeating moderate or establishment rivals. Of particular note were the victories of two insurgent candidates in New York: Jamaal Bowman, who defeated 16-term incumbent Eliot Engel, and Mondaire Jones, who triumphed over a crowded field in the 17th district to become one of the first openly gay black men ever elected to congress. Jones joins Mehdi Hasan to discuss his victory. Then, Inter...
Jun 25, 2020•36 min•Ep 24•Transcript available on Metacast The United States has by far the world’s largest military budget, accounting for 15% of all federal spending, and nearly half of all discretionary spending. Presidents of both parties have repeatedly failed to bring the Pentagon budget under control. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has been one of the loudest voices in congress arguing for substantial cuts; his senior foreign policy adviser, Matt Duss, joins Mehdi Hasan to make the case for defunding the Pentagon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.co...
Jun 18, 2020•34 min•Ep 23•Transcript available on Metacast In the wake of global protests over the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, a movement to redirect public resources away from traditional policing and towards community-oriented systems of public safety has taken hold around the country. What are advocates of “defunding the police” really arguing for, and could it work? Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors joins Mehdi Hasan to discuss the future of policing in the United States. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/priva...
Jun 11, 2020•30 min•Ep 22•Transcript available on Metacast 
