Today, we’re sharing an episode of the podcast Lever Time with David Sirota from our friends at the investigative news site The Lever. David sits down with prominent investigative journalist Leslie Kean , who earlier this month published a blockbuster report about a potential secret government UFO effort. According to Kean and her co-author, a former U.S. intelligence official-turned-whistleblower recently gave Congress classified information about covert programs that he says ...
Jun 19, 2023•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., says he’s leaving his options open when asked about a presidential run. No Labels, a centrist political organization, is looking to run a split ticket between one Republican and one Democrat. Manchin is considered the likeliest candidate and has dropped increasing hints that he is considering it. This week on Deconstructed, Daniel Boguslaw, politics reporter at The Intercept, interviews Manchin's former political operative and right-hand man, Scott Sears, about the sen...
Jun 16, 2023•34 min•Ep 23•Transcript available on Metacast Imran Khan became Pakistan’s prime minister through a most unusual route. As he explained in an interview on Sunday night, Khan was for decades the nation’s most famous cricketer, before transitioning into the world of philanthropy, building hospitals and supporting universities. From there, he moved into politics, founding a party — the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI — and sweeping into power in 2018. But he had a slim majority, and was ousted in a no-confidence vote by 2022. S...
Jun 06, 2023•30 min•Ep 22•Transcript available on Metacast Why is “fund the police” a losing message for Democrats? That’s the question and type of messaging Deconstructed is exploring this week with Anat Shenker-Osorio, the founder of ASO Communications and host of the podcast “Words to Win By.” Grim and Shenker-Osorio discuss why certain messages do well and others fail, why reframing the debate is essential, and how to craft messages that resonate and win. They also revisit Grim’s recent conversation with political strategist Dmitri Mehlhorn and unpa...
Jun 02, 2023•52 min•Ep 21•Transcript available on Metacast Ever since Congress created a federal debt limit, it has managed to raise it before U.S. borrowing reached the limit. For the first time, it looks as though that may not happen, and the government could conceivably default on its obligations. Today on Deconstructed, Jon Schwarz is joined by the economist Stephanie Kelton to talk about the history that brought us to this moment, why both political parties may take us over this ridiculous and dangerous brink together, and what it all means for now...
May 26, 2023•58 min•Ep 20•Transcript available on Metacast On Sunday, as the first round of Turkish elections were underway, the government expelled a team of international election observers. The delegation, including members of Spain’s parliament, was invited by a leading Kurdish party to observe the elections. This week on Deconstructed, Ryan Grim is joined by Ismael Cortés, one of the election observers who was expelled. Cortés is a member of the left-wing Podemos party in Spain and a representative in Spain’s Congress of Deputies. Cortés tells how,...
May 18, 2023•16 min•Ep 19•Transcript available on Metacast On Sunday, Turkey’s presidential election could unseat Recep Tayyip Erdogan. This week on Deconstructed, Ryan Grim has a wide-ranging conversation with guests, covering Turkey's election, the arrest of the former prime minister of Pakistan, and ongoing struggles in Palestine. Selim Koru, an analyst at the Ankara-based Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey talks about the political climate in the country ahead of the election . Pakistani journalist Waqas Ahmed breaks down the a...
May 12, 2023•51 min•Ep 18•Transcript available on Metacast This week on Deconstructed, Ryan Grim is joined by Dmitri Mehlhorn, a tech executive who has emerged as one of the most powerful financiers in the Democratic Party and a strategist who often takes direct aim, with millions of dollars, at the party's left flank. He was in the news this week for helping finance E. Jean Carroll's defamation suit against Donald Trump. Mehlhorn and Grim discuss their competing views on political strategy, the best way to challenge Republicans, and the way forward for...
May 06, 2023•57 min•Ep 17•Transcript available on Metacast The media world over the last few week has been rocked by major disruptions: Fox ousts Tucker Carlson, CNN fires Don Lemon, BuzzFeed News is shutting down, Twitter has become a less reliable resource , and Vice Media shutters its flagship program “Vice News Tonight.” Over the last two decades, the media landscape has transformed with the advent of social media, and signs of another evolution are surfacing. This week on Deconstructed, Ryan Grim is jo...
Apr 28, 2023•35 min•Ep 16•Transcript available on Metacast Recently, peculiar skirmishes have broken out in the U.S. over our history. In Louisiana , Florida , North Carolina , and many other places , conservatives have made efforts to sanitize the teaching of what exactly happened in America’s past. But it’s important to keep in mind this is just part of a much longer war — and, in fact, those who want to misrepresent history have won many victories. This is evidenced by the fact that the conventional wisdom about the past...
Apr 21, 2023•50 min•Ep 15•Transcript available on Metacast If engagement on TikTok is any indication, a Democratic primary held today among people under 50 would result in a landslide for Marianne Williamson. Williamson has only posted 63 videos but has drawn more than 10 million views, according to a TikTok data counter . This week on Deconstructed, Ryan Grim speaks with Williamson about her growing popularity with Gen Z, why her message focusing on the economic hardships Americans are facing resonates , and what the Democra...
Apr 14, 2023•43 min•Ep 14•Transcript available on Metacast Last month, the United Auto Workers took part in a historic election. Shawn Fain was elected president of the union, who represents a reform group, looking to give more power to its workers. At the same time, DHL workers have been engaged in a unionizing push, at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky airport; the Teamsters, a union with a rollercoaster of a history, are trying to organize the DHL workers. This week on Deconstructed, Ryan Grim is joined by Brandi Dale and Steve Fightmaster, two DHL wo...
Apr 07, 2023•1 hr 17 min•Ep 13•Transcript available on Metacast Bridge International is the largest for-profit education chain in the world, serving upward of 750,000 children in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Liberia, and India. The founders, two Harvard graduates, developed an attractive business model for investors. With centrally-produced curriculum and bare-bone standardized schoolhouses, Bridge offered a vision of making a profit while doing good. But then rumors started to swirl about the dark side of the company . This week on Deconstructed: Jour...
Mar 28, 2023•46 min•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast In a matter of a few days, Silicon Valley Bank collapsed when a panic set in, causing a run on deposits . “The blue chip VCs suggested something, then that leaked to other ones, then other ones — we had all our investors calling us and basically demanding we pull our cash,” one source told Ryan Grim. This week on Deconstructed, Grim is joined by Damon Silvers, who has been involved in trying to prevent financial fraud and crisis for more than 20 years. He was the deputy chair of the ...
Mar 17, 2023•35 min•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast This week, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., brought forward a war powers resolution, backed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, that would bring U.S. troops home from Syria. On Wednesday night, the resolution was rejected by Democrats and Republicans alike. During the debate, some advocated for an endless occupation, while their arguments unwittingly made the point that the U.S. government may not be the best group to solve the crisis. This week on Deconstructed, Ryan Grim is joined by Robert Ford,...
Mar 10, 2023•35 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast Mehdi Hasan’s debates tend to go viral, like those against John Bolton, Erik Prince, or a Saudi ambassador. Hasan wipes the floor during debates and interviews. But it’s not an easy process; as Hasan says, it requires a lot of preparation. In “Win Every Argument: The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking,” Hasan outlines the best ways to win debates against all sorts of opponents. This week on Deconstructed, Ryan Grim is joined by Hasan, where they discuss some of his greatest viral d...
Mar 03, 2023•46 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast This week on Deconstructed, host Ryan Grim revisits his reporting on how the Democratic Majority for Israel, Mainstream Democrats PAC, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee spent so much money on the politics of Israel that the question of Israel-Palestine now dominates Democratic primaries. If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference. And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so...
Feb 26, 2023•1 hr 18 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast In 2019, residents of The Villages, an iconic retirement community in Florida, were suddenly hit with a 25 percent hike in their property taxes. In the master-planned community of 130,000 across the state’s Sumter, Lake, and Marion counties, many residents are on fixed incomes. The tax hikes were intended to subsidize new developments south of the community, rather than cover new amenities or upgrades for current residents. The entity known locally either as “the de...
Feb 18, 2023•34 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast As the racial justice movement was heating up in 2020, a new “activist” arrived on the scene in Denver, Colorado. The man, who looks like a biker, is named Michael Adam Windecker II. He was able to make his way into the Denver racial justice activists’ inner circle and eventually began helping organize protests. He also attempted to involve some of the activists in criminal activity, like a plot to assassinate the state attorney general. But Windecker was not an activist; he was a fed. This week...
Feb 10, 2023•42 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast “White Supremacy Culture,” an article by Tema Okun, was first written to outline and analyze how white supremacy operates in organizations. But in the past few years, with renewed attention on the racial justice movement, the short article has been used as a weapon within progressive organizations and by the right. As organizational infighting continues, many have used the article as a way to claim that basic elements of organizational life — editing, performance reviews, deadlines, urgency, the...
Feb 03, 2023•45 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast President Joe Biden is naming Jeff Zients to be his next chief of staff. Zients, a corporate Democrat, was previously in the White House helping steer its pandemic response and leading vaccination efforts. Previously, Zients helped oversee two health care companies embroiled in Medicare and Medicaid fraud allegations, which they paid tens of millions to settle. This week on Deconstructed, Intercept reporter Daniel Boguslaw and The American Prospect’s Robert Kuttner join Ryan Grim to discuss Zien...
Jan 24, 2023•19 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast Russia brokered a cease-fire agreement in 2020 between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The two were engaged in a bloody six-week war, the deadliest in the region in decades. Conflict between the two countries has recently escalated again. Azerbaijan set up a blockade of the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region, causing a shortage in food, medicine, and energy. The roughly 120,000 people who live there are at increasing risk of famine. To break down the situation, Ryan Grim is joined by freelance journalist...
Jan 20, 2023•33 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast Ten years ago this week, Aaron Swartz, a key figure in the fight for an open internet, died by suicide. This week we also learned of the tragic death of New York Times journalist Blake Hounshell, whose death is being investigated by police as a suicide. His family said in a statement, “It is with great sorrow that we have to inform you that Blake has suddenly died this morning after a long and courageous battle with depression.” A gofundme has been set up for Blake’s wife and two...
Jan 13, 2023•42 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast Last week Israel inaugurated the most right-wing government in its history, with the country’s longest-serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, at the helm once again. Avner Gvaryahu of the group Breaking the Silence, which collects testimonies of Israeli soldiers about their experiences in the occupied territories, joins Ryan Grim to discuss his country’s latest political turn. https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jan 06, 2023•39 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast Last week, the Biden administration declassified a trove of documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. While this action brings the government closer to the full disclosure of relevant files mandated by a 1992 law, it still keeps the most sensitive records secret. Jefferson Morley, author and editor of the "JFK Facts" Substack, joins Ryan Grim to discuss the latest disclosures. https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more info...
Dec 22, 2022•29 min•Ep 48•Transcript available on Metacast The new documentary “To the End” takes viewers behind the nationwide organizing efforts that culminated in the landmark climate provisions of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The film focuses on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, activist Varshini Prakash, climate policy writer Rhiana Gunn-Wright, and political strategist Alexandra Rojas as they push to keep climate at the top of the national agenda. Ryan Grim talks with the film’s director, Rachel Lears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for ...
Dec 13, 2022•29 min•Ep 47•Transcript available on Metacast This week’s Georgia Senate runoff gives Democrats a 51-49 majority in the upper chamber. Raphael Warnock raised a staggering $175 million this cycle to take on former football star Herschel Walker, all of which translated into a relatively slim 3 percentage point victory on election day. Georgia Republican political operative Brian Robinson and Intercept contributor George Chidi join Ryan Grim to discuss the election. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Dec 08, 2022•34 min•Ep 46•Transcript available on Metacast Earlier this month, the Pennsylvania state House voted to impeach Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, citing the “catastrophic consequences” of his reform-minded approach to the office. The Intercept’s Akela Lacy spoke with Krasner about the impeachment, the state of crime and criminal justice in the city, and his record as district attorney. https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Nov 29, 2022•38 min•Ep 45•Transcript available on Metacast How is it that Democrats were able to buck historical trends and avoid the kind of midterms massacre traditionally suffered by the party in power? And why did so many election forecasts miss the mark? Ryan Grim talks with Tom Bonier of Democratic data firm TargetSmart about what the media got wrong in 2022. https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Nov 24, 2022•42 min•Ep 44•Transcript available on Metacast This week Elon Musk gave Twitter employees an ultimatum: commit to a new, “hardcore” workplace culture of “long hours at high intensity,” or get out. Jon Schwarz talks with Bloomberg reporter Mike Leonard about how Musk is trying to squeeze profit out of the company and whether he’s likely to succeed. Then, Jon and fellow Intercept reporter Ken Klippenstein discuss how Twitter has enriched their journalistic lives. https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy f...
Nov 18, 2022•44 min•Ep 43•Transcript available on Metacast 
