Politix

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fmThis week, a close look at two troubling authoritarian provocations from the Trump administration: Friday’s dawn FBI raid of John Bolton’s house in Maryland, and Monday’s purported firing of Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. We discuss:* How Matt managed to leave his microphone in Maine.* What Trump seemingly hopes to accomplish by making an example out of Bolton.* Whether opposing the retributive prosecution of a crank like B...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fmDonald Trump’s federal occupation of the capital continues, but the context has worsened. It now unfolds alongside Trump’s seemingly related efforts to: 1) gerrymander as many red states as possible; 2) unconstitutionally void and rerun the Census in a manner that would benefit Republicans; and 3) assert unconstitutional control over the time, place, and manner of elections. In this episode we’ll discuss:* To what extent is Trump’s desire to subjugate the residents of blue cities related to his l...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fmDonald Trump has commandeered Washington DC’s police force and deployed federal agents and national guardsmen to patrol DC streets, on plainly pretextual grounds. In this episode we’ll discuss:* What makes this affront to DC sovereignty unusually offensive;* Trump’s stated reasons for seizing power, and how to see through them;* What, if anything, elected Democrats should say and do to defend district residentsThen, behind the paywall, there’s good rea...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fmThis week, we’re reassessing both the resiliency of the economy, and the health of U.S. democracy.Why? Because recent data suggests Donald Trump’s reactionary policy blitz (global tariffs, mass deportation) has caused the economy to seize up; and Trump has responded by trying to kill the messengers. In this episode you’ll hear all about:* What the recent jobs numbers actually say, and how do they gel with other recent data;* Sy...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fmDonald Trump is trying desperately to bury the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. In this episode, Matt and Brian explore all the distractions Trump has attempted—implicitly and explicitly—to knock the Epstein files out of the news, why Trump is so desperate and why are his usual tactics failing.* Should we at this point suspect this is a coverup of damning evidence of Trump’s conduct specifically?* If the story is just that Epstein conspiracy theories are al...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fmThe new Superman is a critical hit and box-office smash—despite conspicuous Republican efforts to discourage people from seeing it. It’s the GOP vs. truth, justice, and the American way!In this episode, Matt and Brian explore all the reasons the modern right might have been put off by this movie, and Superman’s longer-running themes:* To what extent are right-wing critics really just evincing old, philosophical conservative misgivings about liberal empathy and compassion?* Are to...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fmThe race is on between Donald Trump, who’s desperately trying to put down the raging scandal surrounding his Jeffrey Epstein lies (whatever they happen to be) and Democrats who are finally engaged, and trying to pry the truth loose. Who’s gonna win?In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:* How has the Epstein scandal developed over the past week?* Why have Democrats been uninterested in all matters Epstein, both recently and over many year...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fmThe Trump administration suddenly wants you to stop asking questions about Jeffrey Epstein. Case closed. Nothing to see here. That client list we promised to release? It doesn’t exist. In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:* What is the Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy theory, and why has it persisted so long?* Why are Epstein’s old, wide-ranging associations distinct from all the other rich guys who hobnob with politicians and powerbrokers?* How should Demo...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fmMinutes after recording this episode, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) provided the decisive vote for GOP legislation to kick 15-20 million people off their health insurance and give rich people a trillion dollar tax cut, along with many other horrors.Now it’s back to the House, where hope, which springs eternal, goes to die!In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:* What more could have been done to stop this?* By whom?...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fmWelcome to hell, because we’ve reached the hot war phase of the second Trump presidency. Or have we? In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:* What has actually happened, both since 2018, and just in the past couple weeks, and why it’s so unlikely to have left the U.S. and the world better off.* Is there any upside to Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu using and playing each other in a way that unde...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fmDonald Trump may not always chicken out, but his on again/off again, advance-retreat dance does seem to insulate him from lasting blowback. It seems the only way to drag Trump’s popularity down low enough to really hem him in is for his supporters to find out the hard way.In this episode, Matt and Brian tackle the questions:* Does the hyperbolic claim that “Trump Always Chickens Out” serve to insulate him from public backlash, while also p...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fmSince last week’s episode, Donald Trump and Elon Musk had a bitter falling out, Republicans encountered new obstacles to enacting their top priorities (cutting rich people’s taxes and poor people’s Medicaid) and Trump ordered a federal siege of Los Angeles.Also, Brian got his first taste of sweet, sweet European health care. What do these things have to do with one another? Arguably not much, arguably quite a lot. If safety nets weren’t valuable...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fmBrian’s European Vacation continues as Matt is joined by special guest Jane Flegal of the Blue Horizon Foundation to break down the energy provisions of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill. The energy cuts have attracted less attention than the health care provisions in part because they were made much more severe at the last minute. Jane breaks down how the Inflation Reduction Act changed America’s approach to clean energy subsidies — making them more durable, more flexible, and more inc...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fmBrian is on vacation, so special guest McKenzie Wilson joins Matt to talk about Blue Rose Research’s retrospective on the 2024 election and their work on message-testing. McKenzie came to Blue Rose after working in the private sector, working for Jamal Bowman, and working in the Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services — she believes in progressive values and she wants to win elections. In this episode, Matt and McKenzie discuss: * The central role of the co...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fmBy the time you listen to this episode, the Republican bill to give rich people trillions in tax cuts, and throw millions of people off of Medicaid will be…somewhere. It could be on the glide path to passage in the House, or on life support, or somewhere in between. But the basic shape of what Republicans want to do, and what Donald Trump wants them to do, is clear.In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:* Ho...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fmDonald Trump blinked, as many people suspected he would. This week, he reduced the embargo-level tariffs he imposed on China a month ago, and did so unilaterally. So in exchange for a month-long crisis, a still-looming supply shortage, lost jobs, and lost wealth, we got nothing! But Trump’s supporters are all too ready to cover for him. In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:* What does Trump’s reversal mean for the economy in the near and...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fmThey won’t come right out and say it this time, the way they did in 2017. But Republicans are still hellbent on repealing the Affordable Care Act—or at least the half of the ACA that expanded Medicaid coverage to millions more poor and disabled Americans.In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:* What do Republican pronouncements about their aspirational health care cuts actually mean?* Will cuts to a program that benefits millions of Trump supp...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fmOn Donald Trump’s hundredth day in office—the day we taped this podcast—he was historically unpopular, driving the country into recession, and responding to the loss of confidence in his administration by escalating his authoritarian threats against the public. In this special episode, Paul Krugman joins Brian to discuss:* What Trump has done to the U.S. economy in just the past 100 days.* Why it’s too late for him to fix some of the m...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fmRight-wing religious fanatics want women to have more children with bread-winning men. Donald Trump views masculinity as synonymous with physical toughness. The synthesis: instead of using prosperity to make family formation more appealing, what if we just crushed female employment and made most jobs manual labor? In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:* How Trump’s economic policy and disdain for white-collar professionalism might actually drive men into blue-collar work, and women into the kitchen.* Wh...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fmTwo weeks into his trade war, Donald Trump has made at least a few tactical retreats, and markets have stabilized a bit as a result. Are we just in the eye of the storm? Or is it possible the economic fallout from the trade war won’t be as severe as we feared on LIBERATION DAY?In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:* Why did markets recover significantly (though not entirely) from the big sell off after Tr...