Iran Has (Allegedly) Entered The Chat
On Monday, The FBI confirmed it's investigating claims that Iran hacked the Trump campaign. The agency did not publicly release additional information. However, according to The Washington Post, the agency has been investigating suspected Iranian phishing attempts that targeted both U.S. presidential campaigns since June. Sam Sabin, cybersecurity reporter at Axios, explains the growing risks of...
17m Aug 13, 2024
17m
How Black Voters Matter Is Organizing For Harris
Vice President Kamala Harris is well on her way to shoring up the kind of historic support from Black voters that was starting to slip away from President Biden before he dropped out of the presidential race. In addition to recent polls that show Harris faring significantly better with Black voters than Trump, there’s also been considerable energy among groups of Black organizers who have set u...
21m Aug 12, 2024
21m
Tim Walz's Progressive Realism, Explained
In front of a crowd of thousands at a rally in Philadelphia this week, Vice President Kamala Harris made her first appearance with her newly-minted running mate: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Aside from popularizing the withering “weird” insult against Republicans, the two-term Midwest governor has a reputation that straddles the moderate/progressive divide within the Democratic Party. During his de...
28m Aug 10, 2024
28m
Trump Is Getting Nervous
Today marks one decade since 18-year-old Michael Brown Jr. was killed in Ferguson, Missouri. Brown's death at the hands of a white law enforcement officer ignited social unrest worldwide and led countless activists to demand an end to police violence. Former President Donald Trump held his first news conference since Vice President Harris announced Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running ma...
16m Aug 09, 2024
16m
Harris-Walz Centers Reproductive Choice
Reproductive choice is on the ballot in 2024, and Vice President Kamala Harris is making it a central issue in her presidential campaign. Harris has been on the front lines of this fight, and since the start of 2024, she's been crisscrossing the country on a reproductive freedoms tour, emphasizing personal stories of people impacted by abortion bans. Meanwhile, Republicans have attempted to avo...
16m Aug 08, 2024
16m
Governor Walz Comes Out Swinging
After much deliberation, Vice President Kamala Harris announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate on Tuesday. The two debuted together later that evening at a joint rally in Pennsylvania. Walz, who’s nearing the end of his second term as Minnesota’s governor, describes himself as moderate. But during his time in office, he’s signed some major progressive legislation into law, like pro...
17m Aug 07, 2024
17m
Missouri Congresswoman Cori Bush Is Fighting To Keep Her Seat
St. Louis, Missouri, residents will vote on Tuesday in one of the most expensive Democratic primaries of the 2024 election cycle. The Congresswoman who represents the city, Cori Bush, has been a harsh critic of Israel's response to the Hamas attacks on October 7 and the U.S. government's support for Israeli military operations. Her stance has led the pro-Israel group AIPAC to spend millions of ...
16m Aug 05, 2024
16m
Kamala Harris' Time As DA: Cop or Progressive?
When then-Sen. Kamala Harris ran for president in the 2020 election, progressive activists quickly labeled her a “cop,” a reference to her time as the district attorney of San Francisco. Activists argued that being a D.A. was an inherently pro-police, pro-prisons job — a charge Harris hasn’t always shied away from in her political career. To get a sense of how Harris’ past has shaped the politi...
31m Aug 03, 2024
31m
Who Will Silicon Valley Support In 2024?
Silicon Valley leaders have been weighing in loudly on the upcoming presidential race. Over four hundred venture capitalists and other tech executives recently signed a pledge to support Vice President Kamala Harris, while some prominent holdouts like Tesla CEO Elon Musk are backing former President Donald Trump. To learn more about the tech figures getting involved in this election and precise...
18m Aug 02, 2024
18m
Misogynoir Takes Center Stage During Q&A With Trump At NABJ
Former President and convicted felon Donald Trump took to the main stage at the National Association of Black Journalists' annual convention in Chicago for a question and answer session. The decision of event organizers to feature Trump was highly divisive, leading one of the association's co-chairs to step down and multiple featured speakers to cancel their appearances. When the interview bega...
20m Aug 01, 2024
20m
All The Vice President's White Men
Vice President Kamala Harris took the stage on Tuesday at a campaign rally in Atlanta in front of a crowd of thousands. She was joined by some celebrity heavy hitters, including rappers Quavo and Megan Thee Stallion. The rally underscores the surge of voter enthusiasm we've seen since Harris stepped into the presidential race. Her next major task is picking a running mate, a decision she's expe...
18m Jul 31, 2024
18m
Democrats Get Serious About Court Reform
On Monday, President Joe Biden announced an ambitious three-part plan to reform the Supreme Court. He’s calling for term limits, a binding ethics code, and a constitutional amendment to limit presidential immunity from prosecution. Biden’s proposals have little chance of making it through a divided Congress. However, Melissa Murray, co-host of Crooked’s legal podcast ‘Strict Scrutiny,’ says it ...
18m Jul 30, 2024
18m
"Smart On Crime": How VP Harris's Record As Prosecutor Could Impact The 2024 Race
Almost as soon as Vice President Kamala Harris jumped into the 2024 presidential race, she found a message to set her apart from former President Donald Trump: her record as a prosecutor. It’s a compelling narrative, especially given Trump’s status as a convicted felon. But when she ran for president in 2020, then-candidate Harris aligned herself with the recent wave of “progressive prosecutors...
17m Jul 29, 2024
17m
Here's The Best Clue We Have on Kamala Harris' Foreign Policy
Vice President Kamala Harris is hitting the campaign trail, but her talking points don’t shed much light on her approach to foreign policy. With wars in Gaza and Ukraine—not to mention increasingly hostile relations with China and Russia—foreign policy could easily define a potential Harris Administration. To get a sense of how Harris might approach world affairs, Josie and Max take a closer lo...
28m Jul 27, 2024
28m
The Paris Olympics Gets Political
The Paris Summer Olympics holds opening ceremonies today, officially kicking off 16 days of elite athletic competition. USA gymnastics legend Simone Biles will return to the mat, while fans will return to the stadiums, after COVID restrictions kept them away at the last Summer and Winter Games. There's a political context at this year's contests, too, and demonstrations have already begun in Pa...
22m Jul 26, 2024
22m
Voters Outside The Democratic Base Weigh In On VP Harris
On Wednesday, President Biden addressed the nation in an Oval Office speech — three days after he announced his decision to end his re-election bid and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris. Since the president announced he was stepping aside, the Harris campaign has reported a major influx of donations. As of Wednesday, it had received more than 126 million dollars. But with the election quickl...
24m Jul 25, 2024
24m
Will Vice President Harris Follow Biden's Lead on Middle East Policy?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington, D.C., today to address a joint session of Congress. On Tuesday, hundreds of demonstrators opposed to the war in Gaza staged a sit-in at a congressional office building. Thousands more are expected to demonstrate today during Netanyahu’s speech. Inside the Capitol, nearly two dozen Democratic lawmakers say they will not attend the joint...
20m Jul 24, 2024
20m
Why Democrats Aren't Afraid of GOP Legal Challenges to VP Harris's Candidacy
With Vice President Kamala Harris in position to receive the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, Republicans like House Speaker Mike Johnson are raising the possibility of legal challenges to keep a new nominee off the ballot. Experts say these challenges will go nowhere. Republicans have also suggested they will try to block Harris from accessing the 96 million dollars Biden’s campaign...
15m Jul 23, 2024
15m
Biden Exits The Race, Kamala Harris Races To Replace Him
President Joe Biden announced Sunday he is ending his re-election bid and is throwing his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris to be the Democratic Party’s nominee in November. It’s the latest bombshell shakeup to this year’s presidential race. Biden said in a statement, “I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilli...
22m Jul 22, 2024
22m
Will the Trump Assassination Attempt Change the 2024 Race?
Since the moment someone shot Donald Trump last weekend, we’ve been hearing the same thing: this election’s over, and it’s going to Trump. But the course of this race—and American politics more broadly—will probably change less than you think. Tre’vell and Max take a look at past assassination attempts in the U.S. and abroad to explain why surviving violent attacks does not guarantee an electio...
32m Jul 20, 2024
32m
RNC 2024: Same Old Trump
Former President Donald Trump wrapped up this week’s Republican National Convention on Thursday night with the longest speech in convention history. He started with a first-person account of the attempted assassination against him last weekend. But his promised message of unity fell apart quickly as he embraced autocrats, doubled down on false claims the 2020 election was stolen, and promised t...
28m Jul 19, 2024
28m
Three Weeks After The Debate, More Dems Call For Biden To Step Down
Wednesday was jam-packed with new developments on and around the Democratic campaign trail. The White House announced that President Biden tested positive for COVID. Biden also appeared to give himself room to exit the presidential race, saying in an interview with BET News he’d reconsider running if “some medical condition” emerged. However, Biden remained defiant and said he had no plans to d...
18m Jul 18, 2024
18m
Breaking Down Project 2025
On the outskirts of this week's Republican National Convention, the ultra-conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation held a "Policy Fest" to discuss its plans for the next Republican administration. One of the big talking points during the event was Project 2025, a nearly 1,000-page policy blueprint for the next Republican administration to dramatically remake the federal government at alm...
23m Jul 17, 2024
23m
From Foe to Bro: JD Vance is Trump's VP
Former President Donald Trump chose Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate on Monday, just as Republicans kicked off their national convention in Milwaukee. Vance, who rose to fame in 2016 with his memoir ‘Hillbilly Elegy,’ has undergone a radical political transformation in the years since. Once an outspoken critic of Trump, Vance is now one of the former president’s biggest supporters in Co...
20m Jul 16, 2024
20m
A Call For Unity After Trump Assassination Attempt
On Saturday, a gunman attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump at one of his campaign rallies in Pennsylvania. While Trump was not seriously injured, he said on social media that one of the bullets did graze his ear. President Biden addressed the nation on Sunday evening, acknowledging one of the more shocking instances of political violence in recent history. This all happened ju...
14m Jul 15, 2024
14m
How Democrats Lost The Power to Remove Biden
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 extrem...
35m Jul 13, 2024
35m
Biden's NATO Presser Leaves Democrats Still Divided
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...
23m Jul 12, 2024
23m
Polls Show Biden's Narrowing Path To Victory
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 N...
17m Jul 11, 2024
17m
The Anti-Abortion Agenda Hiding In The GOP's Platform
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 o...
18m Jul 10, 2024
18m
Biden Says He's Isn't Going Anywhere
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 “elite...
27m Jul 09, 2024
27m
Biden Defies Calls To Exit The Presidential Race
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...
19m Jul 08, 2024
19m
Dems Change Their Tune About Biden For President
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. S...
18m Jul 03, 2024
18m
Supreme Court Grants Trump Some Immunity From Prosecution
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 "...
20m Jul 02, 2024
20m
Could Biden Be Replaced?
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 Dem...
24m Jul 01, 2024
24m
The Origins of America's Toxic Obsession With Lawns
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 ...
25m Jun 29, 2024
25m
Debate Night: What A Disaster
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...
29m Jun 28, 2024
29m
Ready, Set, Debate!
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-ho...
17m Jun 27, 2024
17m
Republicans Turn To Cheap Fakes In The Presidential Election
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 write...
20m Jun 26, 2024
20m
Progressives and Centrists Spar In Major NY Democratic Primary
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 chie...
17m Jun 25, 2024
17m
The State of Abortion Access Two Years After Roe
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...
19m Jun 24, 2024
19m
Is This Progressive Answer to Crime Working?
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 c...
27m Jun 22, 2024
27m
Congress Weighs Drafting Women To Military
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...
16m Jun 21, 2024
16m
The Push For Federal Action On Extreme Heat
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 ...
20m Jun 20, 2024
20m
A Georgia Man's Life Mission To Preserve Black History
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 s...
18m Jun 19, 2024
18m
Netanyahu Dissolves Israel’s War Cabinet
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 l...
18m Jun 18, 2024
18m
Trump's Odds Of Getting Conviction Reversed
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 possibl...
13m Jun 17, 2024
13m
The Real Story Behind the Far-Right's Rise in Europe
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 h...
33m Jun 15, 2024
33m
SCOTUS Maintains Access to Abortion Drug...For Now
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...
21m Jun 14, 2024
21m
Rep. Jamie Raskin On Project 2025
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, r...
19m Jun 13, 2024
19m
Hunter Biden's Guilty Verdict
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 co...
20m Jun 12, 2024
20m