Political Junkie Podcast

Thank you to everyone who tuned into the live video! This slightly edited version of show begins with Peter Magyar’s Tisza party, which won a resounding victory in Sunday’s national elections in Hungary, and will become Prime Minister with a more than 2/3 majority—enough to allow him to return that nation to liberal democratic governance. I brought in my friend and New School for Social Research colleague Julia Sonnevend, who is Associate Professor of Sociology and Communications and Co-Director of the Center for the American Experience, to talk to us about the significance of Magyar’s victory in the erosion of what has been a global populist movement. Born, raised and educated in Hungary, Sonnevend is a longstanding observer of Central European politics. She is the author of Charm: How Magnetic Personalities Shape Global Politics (Princeton, 2024), named one of The New Yorker’s Best Books of 2024, and Stories Without Borders: The Berlin Wall and the Making of a Global Iconic Event; and co-editor of Education and Social Media: Toward a Digital Future (Oxford, 2016.) Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Time, NPR, BBC Newshour, The Times Literary Supplement, Teen Vogue, Times Higher Education, and Bloomberg News. You can listen to an earlier conversation about Charm here. Today’s theme is The News Tonight by Shimmer. Two peas in a pod: President Donald Trump hosts a bilateral meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, November 7, 2025. Photo credit: The White House/Wikimedia Commons. Learn more about this turning point for Hungary and the future of democracy in the United States: * Luke Johnson, “Too Big to Rig: Hungary’s lessons for the U.S. midterms,” Public Sphere, April 13, 2026. * Michelle Goldberg, “What Orban’s Defeat Means for the Rest of the World,” New York Times, April 13, 2026. * Kellen Browning and Shane Goldmacher “MAGA Absorbs the Loss of Orban, a Kindred Spirit to Trump’s Movement,” New York Times, April 13, 2026. * Michael Birnbaum, “Orban’s defeat offers warning signs for Trump allies,” April 13, 2026. * Julia Sonnevend, “Viktor Orbán’s loss in Hungary shows how a strongman can be defeated,” MS NOW, April 13, 2026. * Editorial Board, “Hungarians Oust Viktor Orbán:The Putin-Trump ally loses in a landslide as statist policies fail,” Wall Street Journal, April 12, 2026. * Paul Hockenos, “Orbán Is a Loser: Hungary shows how to beat an autocrat at the ballot box,” The Nation, April 13, 2026. * Anne Applebaum, “Illiberalism Is Not Inevitable: If Viktor Orbán can lose, then his Russian and American admirers can lose too,” The Atlantic, April 12, 2026. * Lydia Polgreen, “It’s Not Trump. It’s America,” The New York Times, March 26, 2026. * Jamelle Bouie, “A Minor Strongman, Some Conservative Populists and Tucker Carlson Went to a Conference,” May 24, 2022. Political Junkie is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber—or converting your free subscription to paid! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit clairepotter.substack.com/subscribe

We begin with a 2020 clip, in which Paula White-Caine, President Donald Trump’s spiritual advisor and current Director of the White House Faith Office, explains how the Holy Spirit works through her. Today’s theme is Joyful Morning by Cast of Characters. Pastor Paula White-Cain speaks at the Young Women’s Leadership Summit hosted by Turning Point USA in Grapevine, Texas, June 11, 2021. Photo credit: Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons In the News: * On Monday in a Truth Social post, Donald Trump threatened Iran with annihilation. It was a shocking development and roundly rebuked—not just by Democrats and a few Republicans, but by Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Pope Leo XIV himself. “The threat of destroying a whole civilization and the intentional targeting of civilian infrastructure cannot be morally justified,” Cooley said. The Pope had already said in his Palm Sunday homily that the Lord “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.” On Easter, he condemned the "great thirst for death, for killing, we witness each day," and on the following day, called Trump’s demented Easter post “truly unacceptable.” Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby retaliated by summoning Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s U.S. representative, and appearing to threaten the Vatican with a military reprisal. * In the category of “even when Democrats lose, they win,” voters in GA-14 went to the polls on Tuesday to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene. Trump-backed Republican Clay Fuller won with 54% of the vote—normally not a squeaker, unless you consider the nine-point shift to Democrat Shawn Harris since he last ran in 2024, when it was a Trump +37 district. Republicans spent $1.5 million on a seat that is normally a gimme. Harris spent a similar sum, but has about $750 thousand cash on hand to try again in the fall. * In other election news, Wisconsin Democrats have snagged another State Supreme Court seat in a cakewalk. Chris Taylor’s 17-point victory gives liberals a solid 5-2 majority on the court, but part of the story is that the GOP basically waved the white flag, spending less than $1 million on a race that in the past has sucked down as much as $100 million. Then, there is Waukesha County: 86% white, wealthy and a traditional Republican bastion outside Milwaukee that Trump won by 20 points in 2024. But in a stunning reversal, Democrat Alicia Halvensleben slipped past incumbent Waukesha mayor Scott Allen with 51.2% of the vote. * Pam Bondi was subpoenaed to appear before the House Oversight Committee on April 14 to testify about the Epstein case, but since she is no longer Attorney General Barbie, the Department of Justice has notified the Committee that she won’t be coming. That isn’t how Congressional subpoenas work: the House Oversight Committee, including some Republicans, say she still has to show up. Committee chair James Comer (KY-01) says he doesn’t know how to withdraw a subpoena; Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche says it’s Comer’s problem, not his. Your hosts: Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller. Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024). In what has become an iconic image, faith leaders (including Paula White, far right) pray over President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, on March 19, 2025. Photo credit: Molly Riley/The White House/Wikimedia Commons News focus: What Pastor Paula...

We begin with a clip from November 27, 2025, in which a reporter on Air Force asks President Donald J. Trump who—other than himself—would be a good Republican nominee in 2028. Vice President JD Vance (left) and Secretary of State Marco Rubio at a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, February 28, 2025. Image credit: The White House/Wikimedia Commons In the News: * Last weekend was No Kings Part Three: Minneapolis and St. Paul saw a particularly robust turnout. The crowd was graced by special appearances from Jane Fonda and Joan Baez; Bruce Springsteen also sang his anthem to the city. Nationally, as 8 million citizens took part, with an enhanced number of young people who oppose Trump’s war on Iran. In Manhattan, the procession stretched for over a mile; in Washington D.C., the parade route went past Stephen Miller’s house as the crowd called for his removal. The National Republican Campaign Committee derided the events as “Hate America Rallies;” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson referred to them as “Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions” created by “leftist funding networks.” * In the department of “We didn’t see this one coming,” Kristi Noem’s husband Bryon was outed by the Daily Mail on Tuesday as a visitor to a cross-dressing fetish website devoted to “bimbofication.” You can read the allegations as printed by the New York Post here; a spokesperson for Noem says that “The family was blindsided by this, and they ask for privacy and prayers at the time;” and President Donald Trump expressed sympathy for the family. Bryon Noem is not speaking to the press, but his neighbors in Castlewood, South Dakota have responded with generosity and kindness. * Judge Gerald J. Pappert of Philadelphia’s Federal District Court has given the University of Pennsylvania 30 days to comply with the Trump administration’s demand for a list of Jewish faculty, staff and students. Penn is appealing the ruling, arguing that the university has an obligation to the privacy rights of its employees and does not maintain such lists. In fact, until the late 1960s Penn, and other universities did exactly that, and it was tied to antisemitic quotas and discriminatory housing practices on campus. * A Colorado law banning gay conversion therapy has been struck down by the Supreme Court, with all justices but Ketanji Brown Jackson voting in the affirmative. Kaley Chiles, a Christian therapist, said the law would prevent her from “consensual conversations” with people who believe that their feelings conflict with their religious values. The majority agreed that the law was not neutral because it did not ban speech that affirmed sexual or gender identity. Jackson’s dissent argued that states have the right to regulate medical treatment; she read her opinion from the bench, a signal about how strongly she felt about it. The ruling vacates existing or pending laws in 27 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Your hosts: Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller. Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024). Vance (left) and Rubio chat up U.S. athletes at the 2026 Olympics in Milan, Italy. Photo credit: The White House/Wikimedia Commons News focus: * Let’s start with the annual poll of young conservatives at CPAC last month: Vice President JD Vance won, with 53% (down from 61% last year), but Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was in single digits last year, rose to 35%. Other candidates—including re-runs Ron DeSantis, Ted Cruz and Tulsi Gabbard—were in the very low single digits. Rubio won...

Today’s episode begins with a February 6, 2026 press gaggle on Air Force One, in which Donald Trump discusses the lawsuit he filed against the Internal Revenue Service. It is unclear what he means when he says that the United States government gives $40 billion a year to charity: we can’t document that. Our theme for this episode is LFG by Divisioner--you can find their work, and all the talented artists we feature on these episodes, on Soundstripe. TPUSA CEO Erika Kirk delivers remarks during the memorial service for her husband Charlie in Glendale, Arizona on September 21, 2025. Recently, Kirk threatened to sue three different people for falsely implicating her in her husband, Charlie Kirk’s, murder. Photo credit: Daniel Torok/Wikimedia Commons In the News: * On Monday, a new front opened in the redistricting and election security wars: Riverside, CA County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican, seized more than 650,000 votes cast in California’s Prop 50 special election. Bianco claims that the final vote tally did not match the number of ballots cast. Both Republican and Democratic officials say this charge is baseless; however, it matches the Trump administration’s seizure of 2020 presidential election ballots last February in Fulton County, Georgia. * Florida is the gift that keeps on giving—to Democrats. This week, first-time candidate, Democrat Emily Gregory prevailed in a special election in HD-87. That’s Palm Beach County, and Gregory, a small business owner and military spouse won by 800 votes in a district that the previous Republican won by 19 points. She will now represent President Donald Trump in the Florida legislature. In West Tampa’s SD 14, another first-time candidate—union organizer, electrician and navy vet Brian Nathan—upset Republican State Representative Josie Tomkow by 408 votes; the previous Republican in that seat won by ten points. Meanwhile, former North Carolina Congressman Madison Cawthorn is running for Congress again—this time in Cape Coral’s ultra-MAGA Florida-19, formerly Byron Donald’s seat. According to the Cook Political Report, this is an R+14 district. * Last May, South Carolina Democratic pediatrician Annie Andrews announced she would run against four-term incumbent Lindsay Graham, who beat his last challenger by 10 points. The last Democrat to represent South Carolina was Fritz Hollings, who was defeated by Jim DeMint in 2004. But Andrews just released a new ad on Instagram that points to how the Democrats are positioning candidates running against Donald Trump’s allies. We feature a controversial ad Andrews dropped on Instagram. Your hosts: Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller. Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024. Image credit: AndriiiKoval/Shutterstock News focus: MAGA’s lawsuits * Turning Point USA CEO Erika Kirk has had it up to her waterproof mascara with accusations that she arranged the murder of her late husband Charlie Kirk. Her attorneys have sent a cease-and-desist order to Collin Scott Campbell, the Maryland-based figure behind Project Constitution, which has also alleged that Kirk procured underage girls for the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, and trafficked orphans from Romania. Influencers Candace Owens and Zach de Gregorio have received similar letters: all say that views they have expressed are their opinions, and fall under their right to free speech. The MAGA-sphere seems to be standing with Kirk, and directing most of its...

Last week, The New York Times published an investigation into legendary labor organizer Cesar Chavez (1927-1993) and his decades of alleged criminal conduct. Women, including Dolores Huerta, a key ally, have revealed what was rumored, and well-known in the movement’s inner circle: that he was a serial sexual abuser. Chavez, along with Huerta and other allies, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association. The NFWA later merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) to become the United Farm Workers (UFW). Chavez has had celebrations and spaces named for him, and President William Jefferson Clinton awarded him the Medal of Freedom on 1994. Chavez’s accomplishments were historic, and like many organizers of the period, he was a charismatic leader. However, that gave him an extraordinary amount of power in the movement, which we now know he used to selfish and cruel ends. While Chavez’s mercurial temperament and marital infidelities were well-known, his sexual abuse of women and young girls was not, in part because those in the movement who knew helped to conceal it by not calling him to account. A second painful revelation is that one of his victims was Dolores Huerta. In support of the other victims, she revealed that Chavez, a friend and comrade, raped her twice. I asked the University of Pittsburgh’s Eladio Bobadilla, to visit with Political Junkie on a Substack Live. A prize-winning historian, Bobadilla has a terrific new book coming out, Dangerous Migration: Mexican Labor and the Fight for Immigrant Rights (University of Illinois, 2025.) Eladio and I applaud all of these women for making their stories available to us, and wanted to put it in the context of Chavez and Huerta’s achievements. Cesar Chavez, guarded by two Chicano Brown Berets, speaks at Los Angeles peace rally, May 3, 1971. Photo credit: Los Angeles Times/Wikimedia Commons Catch me if you can: Image credit: Juice Flair/Shutterstock If you are in the vicinity of Boulder, Colorado on 4:00 tomorrow (Wednesday, March 25), stroll on over to Macky Auditorium at the Center for Humanities and Arts. I will be doing a star turn as the Cox Family Process Speaker—and reflecting on the inspiration for this newsletter, my 2020 book Political Junkies. If you come, bring your copy—I’ll sign it. What I’m watching: Vladímír, a limited series on Netflix, based on a 2020 fictional sendup of academic life of the same name written by Julia May Jonas (which my friend Laura Kipnis says is better.) It’s a dark comedy starring Rachel Weisz and John Slattery as an aging power couple in the English Department of a liberal arts college that could be Bard. Or not. It’s based on the novel of the same name by Julia May Jonas This pair has an “arrangement”—one that has, in the further past, landed Slattery (who also played a serial sexual harasser in Mad Men) in the beds of students. Empowered and inspired by #MeToo, those students have filed a mass grievance against him. The show’s “so what?” attitude towards sex and power imbalances catapults us back in time (or sadly, maybe not), and is amplified by the arrival of a flirty, married tenure-track assistant professor. Vladímír (played by Leo Woodall, who you last saw in the movie Nuremberg) becomes the stuff of Weisz’s fantasies, propelling her towards an affair with a subordinate even as she navigates fallout from the sexual harassment suit. English actor Ellen Robertson (Mickey 17, Black Mirror) has a superb supporting role as an adult queer daughter trying to understand what all this chaos has to do with her own relationship issues. Read a review here. Short takes: * Expect Donald Trump’s 250th celebration of the Declaration of Independence to portray a bunch Enlightenment atheists as devout Christian nationalists, Ja’han Jones warns at MS NOW. One member of the planning committee is “Eric Metaxas, the far-right media figure and promoter of election conspiracy theories who has touted his belief that...

We begin with a deposition from Nathan Cavanaugh, a twenty-something DOGE staffer on a team tasked with reviewing NEH grants awarded by the Biden administration in 2024 and to be paid in 2025. Cavanaugh and others cancelled grants based on whether, in their judgement, they violated Donald Trump’s executive order prohibiting any initiative that forwarded diversity, equity, and inclusion. Today’s theme is Billionaires by LNDÖ. DOGE staffer Nate Cavanaugh. Image credit: screenshot by author We begin with a deposition from Nathan Cavanaugh, a twenty-something DOGE staffer who was on the team tasked with reviewing NEH grants awarded by the Biden administration in 2024 and to be paid in 2025. Cavanaugh and others cancelled grants based on whether, in their judgement, they violated Donald Trump’s executive order prohibiting any initiative that forwarded diversity, equity, and inclusion. In the News: * After a machine recount and a manual recount, Boca Raton, Florida has its first Democratic mayor in 30 years. Andy Thomson defeated 70-year-old Republican incumbent Mike Liebelson by only five votes. Liebelson may challenge the results based on his skepticism about what he calls a “last minute dump” of 109 mail-in ballots. A third Republican in the race, Fran Nachlas, split the GOP vote, in a town only 27 miles south of Mar-A-Lago that went for Kamala Harris by less than a point in 2024. * Illinois Democrats are getting their business done, sending Lt. Governor Juliana Stratton on to the general election as the party’s nominee to replace Richard Durbin. Her election—which is likely would be historic, both for Illinois and the Senate: she would join Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE) and Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD) as the first cohort of three Black women Senators to serve concurrently. * Another big winner in Illinois? Governor J.B Pritzker, who was not on the ballot but financed and promoted Stratton. AIPAC was engaged in open and dark money spending in the state, and emerged with mixed results, going three for three. It underlines a recent trend for the pro-Israel lobbying group: while they still do quite well supporting party moderates, in some districts their support can be toxic. * MAGA drama! Joe Kent resigned as director of the National Counterterrorism Center, accusing the administration’s of capitulating to Israel’s desire for war in Iran. Some Capitol Hill watchers describe Kent as groyper adjacent; a far-right conspiracy theorist, he was always a controversial pick for the job. Kent has amplified antisemitic MAGA influencers who blame the war on Israel, some linking Trump’s decision to Prime Minister Netenyahu’s February visit. But conspiracy theories have room to fester: there are no clear goals or exit plan for the conflict, and why the operation was launched remains a mystery. Your hosts: Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller. Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024). Are you always thinking that you would love to read a book we have talked about? Then: Image credit: DCStockPhotography/Shutterstock News focus: * Here is a running list of attacks that the Trump administration has made on funding for the humanities, including the cancellation of NEH grants made by the Biden administration. * Several initiatives converged in the Trump administration’s aggressive campaign to remake the arts and humanities to support a certain kind of patriotic narrative. As one of his first acts as President, Trump...

We begin with a clip from the 2016 campaign trail in which presidential candidate Donald Trump discusses a Black supporter and invites rally-goers to “look at my African American.” At this point in MAGA history, influencer Candace Owens still identified as a liberal. By late 2017, she had transitioned to a conservative identity and become a leading voice in the MAGA movement. And you will want to listen from the beginning for a special announcement from Neil! Candace Owens speaking with the 2023 Young Women's Leadership Summit hosted by Turning Point USA in Grapevine, Texas. Photo credit: Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons. In the News: * This week, prices on the global crude oil market cracked $120 a barrel, an almost 90% increase since Donald Trump started a war on Iran. This is a shock to the global economy. At United States, gasoline pumps, prices have risen an average of .27 a gallon with states like California, Florida and Pennsylvania seeing much higher prices. Trump’s reassurances that U.S. oil independence will shield American consumers from higher prices are false. Because it is traded on a global market, the price of oil is the same regardless of where it is pumped. Americans should expect to see rising prices, from utility bills to food. And with 61% disapproval on Trump’s handling of the economy, Republicans may see their path to retaining a majority in the 2026 midterms extinguished. * Speaking of the economy: in Maine and Ohio, where Democrats have targeted two Republican incumbents, recent polling suggests MAGA economic policies hurt voters. In Maine, Democratic Governor Janet Mills is polling even with Republican incumbent Susan Collins. Democrat Graham Platner also polls only two points behind Collins—and it is Platner who seems to have momentum. In Ohio, Sherrod Brown polls two points ahead of Jon Husted—Husted, although uncharged, is also enmeshed in a major corruption case. * As Senator John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton gear up for their Republican primary runoff, a Democratic poll with a Trump +14 sample shows James Talarico in a statistical dead heat with either opponent. Are conditions ripe for Democrats to snatch a Texas Senate seat too? * It looks like frenemies Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, fixtures in the Democratic House leadership for decades, will fight one last battle. Pelosi has endorsed Harry Dunn, a former Capitol Police officer who testified about the January 6 coup against a former Hoyer aide, state delegate Adrian Boafo, in the primary for MD-05 Hoyer will vacate in 2027. Dunn lost a previous congressional bid in 2024, also endorsed by Pelosi; there are currently 22 other candidates vying for the Democratic line on November’s ballot. Your hosts: Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller. Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024). Turning Point USA founder and Director of Communications Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens, then Director of Urban Engagement for the organization, during a visit to Texas State University in San Marcos On October 24, 2018. Photo credit: Carrington Tatum/Shutterstock News focus: Who is Candace Owens, and why is she saying these terrible things about Erika Kirk? * Candace Owens, who is only 37 years old, began life as a Connecticut liberal in Stamford, CT. She became locally famous for filing a lawsuit in federal court alleging that, as a senior in high school, she was not protected from racist bullying. The Stamford School...

We begin this episode with a clip from a four-hour segment of testimony by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She appeared before the House Oversight Committee on February 26, 2026; former President Bill Clinton testified the following day. As Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton testifies before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Dec. 3, 2009. Image credit: Chad J. McNeeley/Wikimedia Commons In the News: * The big news this week is the Trump administration, minus Congressional authorization or an explanation, and in partnership with Israel, starting a war with Iran. You can see a timeline of the conflict here. Although the administration continues to insist that this will be a short war, there are no war goals or a timeline. Trump hints at regime change (hence the assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei in an Israeli air attack within the first 48 hours), as well as the Islamic Republic’s long history of sponsoring terrorism in the region. Trump also announced yesterday that he plans to be personally involved in choosing Khamenei’s replacement. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens and others are scrambling to get out of the region: there was no evacuation plan. * In related news, cracks in the MAGA coalition widen. On the extremely far right, influencer Laura Loomer has leapt to Trump’s defense, Groyper Nick Fuentes announced he will vote for Democrats in 2026 because Trump has broken all his promises, and antisemite Candace Owens blames the war on Israel. Hawks in the GOP have surfaced for a victory lap, while former Trump champions like Ann Coulter, Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson, who were high on the deportation supply, have crashed to earth. Trump’s response? MAGA is what he says it is. * War or no war, the midterms approach: on election day we saw incumbents in both parties struggling or knocked off. Democratic Governor Roy Cooper had a big win in North Carolina; incumbents on both sides of that state legislature’s aisle were pummeled. In Texas’s Senate contest, DemocraticState Representative James Talarico defeated Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, while incumbent John Cornyn faces a runoff with Attorney General Ken Paxton. Can Talarico win? * On Thursday, Trump fired ICE Barbie: could it be because Kristi Noem passed the buck to Trump for that $220 million ad campaign—about herself? She has been given a soft landing, a newly created job securing the Western Hemisphere, where she will be Marco Rubio’s problem. Your hosts: Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller. Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024). In an earlier moment of grace under fire, former President Bill Clinton and Secretary Clinton, now also a defeated presidential candidate, attend Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2017. Photo credit: Cristian L. Ricardo/Wikimedia Commons News focus: Hill and Bill—Still? * After months of negotiating that included threats to jail them, Bill and Hillary Clinton agreed to testify before the House Oversight Committee last week. * The Clintons were treated by, and responded to, the committee, quite differently. Hillary Clinton seemed annoyed and exasperated as she repeatedly said, in response to a battery of repetitive and stupid questions, that she knew nothing about Jeffrey Epstein, and had never visited any of his homes. Republicans also quizzed Clinton about Pizzagate and UFOs. * Former President Bill Clinton was charming, polite...

Thank you Theresa Smalec, John Stoehr, and many others for tuning into my live video with Ryan James Girdusky! At the end of last week, I had a chance to do a Substack live with Ryan Girdusky, a conservative political junkie who has many balls in the air at any given time. Ryan’s book with Harlan Hill, They’re Not Listening: How the Elites Created the National Populist Revolution (Bombardier Books, 2020) was one of the first to explain to a mass audience how and why national populist movements, from MAGA to Orbán, swept North America and Europe. His Substack, the National Populist Newsletter, tracks this phenomenon from a conservative perspective, including important data and sources, whether you are a reader on the left or the right. If you are a podcast fan, try It’s A Numbers Game, where Ryan breaks down politics according to how he understands the data. From left to right: Representative Marjorie Taylor Green (R, GA-14), Tucker Carlson, President Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., and Eric Trump on July 31, 2022, at the LIV golf Tournament, Trump National Golf Club, Bedminster,NJ. Photo credit: L.E.MORMILE/Shutterstock Together, we talked about Jason Zengerle’s new book, Hated By All the Right People: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind (Crooked Media Reads,2026). A biographical study of Carlson, who rose to national fame as a Fox News pundit in parallel to Donald Trump’s emergence as a presidential candidate, it’s an excellent survey of the interconnections between radio, television, internet publishing as cable TV pushed Americans to extremes—and conservative journalism profited from their relationships to Donald Trump. Short takes: * You know by now that Ayatollah Khamenei was killed by an Israeli missile on the first day of Donald Trump’s attack on Iran. He was a pivotal figure in the calcification of Iran’s brutal totalitarianism, policy analyst Karim Sadjadpour writes at the New York Times. For almost 40 years, “this seemingly unqualified cleric who rose to the top almost by chance would become one of the world’s longest-serving autocrats, confounding every American president since George H.W. Bush,” Sadjadpour writes. “He would at one point become the most powerful man in the Middle East, dominating five failing lands — Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Gaza. This ambition and hubris also eventually led to his downfall. He came to govern with the hypervigilance and brutality of a man driven by the idea that much of his own society and the world’s greatest superpower sought to unseat him — which, in the end, it did.” (February 28, 2026) * Did Representative Jasmine Crockett (TX-30), on track to win the Democratic Senate primary in the Lone Star State, have Atlantic reporter Elaine Godfrey removed from her Lubbock rally last week? Crockett says no, Godfrey says yes. “After Crockett finished speaking, I attempted to join a closed-door press scrum with the congresswoman that was open to the other reporters at the rally,” Godfrey writes. “But I was turned away, so I walked over to interview people in the crowd. That’s when I heard my name from the same woman with the badge at the entrance—and hit ‘Record’ on my iPhone. She asked me to leave, and armed security guards escorted me from the property.” You can listen to the audio if you click the link: the Crockett campaign has yet to issue a full statement on what happened. (February 27, 2026) * Mary Walsh, a producer and 46-year veteran at CBS News, has left the building. Saying that the newsroom has been “told to aim our reporting at a particular part of the political spectrum,” she explained; “I don’t know how to do that.” Jeremy Barr at The Guardian broke the story, reporting that “On a staff-wide editorial call on Friday morning, Walsh received a glowing tribute from the CBS News president, Tom Cibrowski, as did another departing veteran producer, Kate Rydell, according to a staffer who participated. The two producers also received an...

We had a little trouble with the video upload on today’s podcast: it is inconsistent, so if you will find that annoying, please just listen! We began our episode with a clip from this video, made by NBC journalist Savannah Guthrie, offering $1 million for the return of her mother. Eighty-four-year-old Nancy Guthrie was reported missing from her Tucson, Arizona home on February 1, 2026, and is believed to have been abducted by persons unknown. The FBI has also offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to her recovery. Today’s theme music is Mirror by New Alkemi$t. FBI Director Kash Patel at the head of the table as the task force assigned to Nancy Guthrie’s abduction meets on February 10, 2026. Photo credit: Federal Bureau of Investigation/Wikimedia Commons In the News: * With a hat tip to journalist Erin Reed, we have a report from Kansas that a bill passed over Democratic Governor Laura Kelly’s veto has invalidated the drivers licenses of trans people across the state, and that licenses are to be surrendered by end of business today. Senate Bill 244 requires that all drivers’ licenses reflect “sex at birth:” there is no grace period for updating credentials, and anyone found driving without a license is subject to fines and imprisonment. The legislation also awards a bounty of $1,000 to anyone uncovering a transgender person using a bathroom that the state deems incorrect. * Donald Trump gave the State of the Union speech on Tuesday night. It was 108 minutes long, soup to nuts, and the longest SOTU ever, breaking the record held by...Donald Trump last year at 100 minutes. You can read a transcript here, and highlights here. Nearly all of the people honored that night were men, including the gold medal Olympic US Ice Hockey team that partied with Kash Patel and laughed when the President dissed the gold medal women’s team. The exceptions were National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom, killed near the White House last year, a little girl who was rescued at the Texas summer camp that suffered a deadly flood last year, and a woman who benefitted from IVF. * On Wednesday, Dr. Casey Means came before a Senate Committee charged with vetting her for the position of Surgeon General of the United States. Means is a wellness influencer and popular author who dropped out of her surgical residency, no longer has a license to practice medicine, and promotes the idea that individuals, not doctors, are the experts on their own bodies. Not surprisingly, she is an influential figure in the MAHA movement; when asked about vaccines, she refused to commit to any position. The United States does not currently have a surgeon general: that role has been temporarily filled by Stephanie Haridopolos, a Florida family practice physician who was appointed as the acting chief of staff and senior advisor to the U.S. Surgeon General. She is married to Representative Mike Haridopolos (R, FL-08). This may be the longest that post—created in 1879 and usually filled by a high-ranking physician in the military--has remained vacant. * Primary voting is underway in Texas for the Senate seat currently held by Republican John Cornyn. On the Democratic side, the polls are all over the place: YouGov sees Representative Jasmine Crockett (TX-30) in firm command of the race; Emerson gives James Talarico (HD-52) a 9-point lead. The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram poll gives Crockett a comfortable 8-point lead. On the Republican side, John Cornyn is clearly struggling, and ahead by only 2 points in a single poll, with Attorney General Ken Paxton leading the pack in most polls. Cornyn warns that if he is not nominated, and if the primary goes to a runoff (as it is likely to, with three strong candidates, none of whom Trump has endorsed) Democrats will win the seat. Your hosts: Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk...

Last week, the federal Health and Human Services Administration website posted a video of HHS Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. working out with Trump-aligned musician Kid Rock. Titled the “Rock Out Work Out,” it featured head-banging music and two retirement-age men goofing around, getting in hot tubs, saunas and cold plunges, playing paddle ball, eating healthy food (we think—they were promoting raw milk which can also be really unhealthy), and using exercise machines in a home gym. RFK Jr. was wearing jeans, his standard workout gear, and Kid Rock a pair of baggy black shorts. Both remove their shirts early in the video: the Secretary reveals his trademark testosterone-pumped torso, while the musician—well, looking like he has been living on Pop Tarts and Kool-Aid in one of ICE Barbie’s detention centers. But before I lean into the body-shaming, let me just say this: there was virtually nothing in the video that would cause an average American to be inspired to re-up at the Y or join the local food co-op. In fact there was no actionable information at all, other than: men, grab a piece of exercise equipment and go! Fortunately, historian Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, the author of Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America’s Exercise Obsession (University of Chicago Press, 2023) jumped into the fray almost right away from her perch at MS NOW. “This stunt is more than just a disgusting distraction; it signals the dark reality of what MAHA — Make America Healthy Again — now unapologetically embraces, rather than what it might have been,” Petrzela writes. “Rather than promising a wholesome, if highly idealized, world in which individual fitness and diet choices offer all Americans who are willing to work for it a path to civic and moral salvation, this video makes clear that to Kid Rock, RFK Jr. and the administration behind them, fitness and food are primarily props for alpha-male preening, entirely disconnected from any policy that will actually make more Americans healthier and happier, in their bodies or their lives.” We used the opportunity this strange video offered to dig a little deeper: what should an administration that really cares about Americans becoming healthier be doing? How and why has RFK Jr. misfired so badly on the common sense advice and policymaking that past presidents, Republican and Democratic, have promoted with grace and skill? Short takes: * Trump administration Border flak Greg Bovino deliberately dressed like a Nazi storm trooper in Minneapolis, but he’s not the only one: federal social media seems to be positively dripping with messaging and inside jokes that reference the Third Reich. “So how did a major American political party become a safe space for such people?” Tom Nichols asks at The Atlantic. Looking back as far as the Reagan administration, Nichols argues that the tipping point was the Tea Party movement that arose in 2010, political organizing that advocated for a big tent on the right. Since then, the GOP “has laid out a welcome mat for an ideology that Americans once had to defeat in combat, at the cost of millions of lives. If wannabe Nazis now confidently roam the halls of power—and the streets of American cities—it is because Republican leaders have made them feel at home.” (February 23, 2026) * While RFK Jr. dithers in the gym and looks for new fringe theories to promote, actual scientists released a study that points in one direction: teenagers should not smoke pot. “As marijuana use among teens has grown in the past decade, researchers have been trying to better understand the health risks of the drug,” Rhitu Chatterjee writes at NPR. “Now, a new longitudinal study finds that cannabis use among adolescents increases risks of being diagnosed with bipolar and psychotic disorders, as well as anxiety and depression, years later.” The numbers go down dramatically as the age of first use goes up. “Teens who reported using cannabis had twice the risk of developing two serious...

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The show begins with a clip from right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson’s November interview with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem after the NFL announced that Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny would perform at the Super Bowl halftime show. Our theme this week is Ride It Like You Mean It by Kristian Leo. Image credit: AtlasStudio/Shutterstock In the News: * “Melania” opened last weekend to mostly terrible reviews but a decent box office of $7 million, although in Australia 33 theaters reported sales of just over $32,000. But some are questioning how those tickets were sold. One report points to bulk sales and private screenings; other reports show blocks of seats supposedly sold that were not then filled with patrons. Moviegoers who did show up were overwhelmingly white, female and over 55. * Over the weekend, ProPublica reported that the two men who murdered Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse and Minneapolis ICE observer, are Border Patrol Agent Jesus “Jesse” Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez. Both men are veteran agents normally based in South Texas. Ochoa is a gun enthusiast who owns over 25 weapons, and Gutierrez as a specialist in rapid-response high risk operations. * On Monday, following the raid on the Fulton County, Georgia, elections office, President Donald Trump told reporters that Republicans should move to “nationalize” elections in at least 15 states. The presser is part of Trump’s attempt to revive 2020 election conspiracy theories prior to this year’s midterms. * It looks like former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will testify before Representative Jim Comer’s (R, KY-01) Oversight Committee after all: nine Democrats crossed the aisle to hold them in contempt, and the motion was on its way to the full House when the Clinton’s reversed their decision. Comer halted all investigations into Trump that were underway in the last Congress, and has completely dedicated himself to pursuing prominent Democrats. Your hosts: Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller. Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024). You can get all audio content by subscribing for free on Apple iTunes, YouTube, or Spotify. News focus: The Super Bowl * The Super Bowl shows the trajectory of football as a popular sport. The first one was played on January 15, 1967: 61,000 people attended a game between the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs, at the Los Angeles Coliseum which the Packers won 35-10.It was not sold out, but it was broadcast on two networks, CBS and NBC, with an audience of 50 million. It also marks the maturity of the AFL, which had been founded in 1960; the two leagues had just merged in 1966. * Traditions have grown up around the event: the Super Bowl party, wagering on the game, the halftime show, and the broadcast as a showcase for advertising agencies to display their talents and top clients. This Sunday, we will see an advertisement for Trump Accounts. * Another tradition, since the George W. Bush presidency, is the Super Bowl Sunday Presidential interview: it is so entrenched that Joe Biden’s decision not to do it in 2023 and 2024 was controversial. Donald Trump will do the interview although he will not attend the game as he did last year. * It’s the biggest television audience of the year, and predominantly North American: last year a record 127.7 million viewers tuned in. Here are the demographics of that...

Our show begins with Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, as he disputes the Trump administration’s account of Renée Good and Alex Petti’s murders in the Twin Cities and promises a thorough investigation. ICE and Border Patrol agents on Nicollet Avenue following the shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, MN on January 24, 2026. Photo credit: Chad Davis/Wikimedia Commons In the news: * There’s nothing that says investor jitters like the skyrocketing cost of gold—except perhaps the spike in silver prices. The New York Times reported this week that rising precious metal prices are partly due to Trump’s tariff policies and the uncertain effects of Europe’s pivot away from trade with the United States and towards India. But they are also an effect of China choking off silver exports: because of its capacity to conduct electricity, the metal is important to a number of technologies, and crucial to AI infrastructure. * On Wednesday, FBI agents searched an Atlanta election office and seized ballots at the center of Donald Trump’s false claim that he won Fulton County, Georgia—and the presidential election—in 2020. Trump is supported by allies on Georgia’s State Election Board, and claims to be acting at their request. Coincidentally, the FBI Special Agent in Charge in Atlanta was relieved of his duties just last week. * The war on trans people continues. This week, Utah moved to enacting a complete ban on gender-affirming care for minors, and the Trump administration has found San Jose State in violation of Title IX for allowing a trans woman to play on the women’s volleyball team between 2022 and 2024. * Amazon’s Melania documentary debuts in theaters across the nation on Friday, but all is not well. Most of the New York crew “requested that their names not be added to the film’s credits,” Eboni Boykin-Patterson reports at The Daily Beast. Director Brett Ratner, who has not made a film since he was accused of sexual assault in 2017, did it as a rush job, and was described by crew members as personally unclean, rude and generally a d*ck. Melania Trump, while boring, was nice, and revealed nothing about herself. Surprise. In other news: South Africa has canceled the film’s release and did not specify a reason; and Trump issued a proclamation on Truth Social that Melania is the greatest film ever made and will be required viewing in all history classes. Your hosts: Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller. Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024). Our news focus: The Trump administration’s Second Amendment problem * Jamelle Bouie speculated that Renée Good and Alex Pretti’s murders could be the Trump administration’s Gettysburg moment. * Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem claimed that Alex Pretti was shot after having “brandished” a gun at Border Patrol agents. There is consensus that is not true. Here is one analysis by Bellingcat, and another by the New York Times. * Here’s a full timeline of what led up to Pretti’s murder, and a historical account of the 100 year-old Border Patrol, and its routinely violent enforcement tactics. Since 2010, 364 people have been killed by Border Patrol officers, some across the border with Mexico. * The two agents who murdered Pretti have been placed on administrative leave. * Donald Trump has uncharacteristically distanced himself from the Pretti coverup, although ss of Wednesday, he continued to insist that Pretti...

In this emergency episode of the Political Junkie podcast, I am joined by Michael Kazin, a prize-winning scholar and Professor of History at Georgetown University. Michael is an expert in American social movements and politics; his most recent book is What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022), but he has also written extensively about the American peace movement, the Progressive and populist movements, and the New Left. You can see all of his work here. The episode begins with a clip from a press conference on Sunday, January 25, 2026, in which Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar demands that ICE leave the state. A protest on January 7, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, immediately following the murder of Renee Good by ICE officer Jonathan Ross. Photo credit: Alejandro Diaz Manrique/Shutterstock Your host: Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller. The topics Michael and I touched on in today’s podcast included: * The murders of two Twin Cities residents: Alex Pretti, a 38 year-old White man, and an ICU nurse, and Renee Good, a 37 year-old White woman and mother of three. Good was shot in the face, and then twice more, as she attempted to leave the scene of a protest, while Pretti was shot in the back multiple times as he was being held on the ground by officers. * The roots of the Minnesota’s resistance in its long progressive past, and the networks established during the George Floyd protests in 2020. The organizations involved in the anti-ICE protests were clearly prepared--and some of the violence we are seeing from federal officers may be evidence that the activists are effective. * A recent poll shows that almost 20% of registered Republicans now want to abolish ICE: will this brutal crackdown will be a decisive factor in moving the electorate away from MAGA policies? * We mention the “credibility gap,” an old phrase from the Vietnam War years, a phrase that speaks to the out of control falsehoods coming out of Washington and the MAGA media. The Trump administration has responded to the crisis by flipping the narrative--claiming that ICE officers are really the victims, stating that they will not investigate the officers involved--and their media allies are pushing the same story. Is this fundamentally different from other Trump lies on some level, or should we expect many Americans to accept this as the “new normal?” * What Democrats should do right now, and what should those of us who are bracing for ICE in our own communities be doing. You can also get all audio content by subscribing for free on Apple iTunes, YouTube, or Spotify. Short takes: * Meredith Lee Hill reports at POLITICO that the White House may be pivoting: ICE chief Tom Homan is headed to the Twin Cities in what may be a move to displace the Border Patrol’s Gregory Bovino. “A growing number of Hill Republicans have been pushing publicly and privately for a lowering of the temperature, including from the federal government, after DHS agents shot and killed 37-year-old Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday,” Hill writes. “GOP lawmakers largely view Homan as a more practical enforcer of Trump’s mass deportation plans as some grow increasingly wary of how Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino are handling the campaign, according to six GOP lawmakers granted anonymity to discuss internal conversations.” (January 26, 2026) * “It’s not clear why the Trump regime chose to invade Minneapolis,” Jonathan V. Last writes at The Bulwark, speculating that the Trump administration could be having its Gettysburg moment. “But when the...

We begin with this clip: Bari Weiss, newly named chief of the CBS News Division and founder of The Free Press Substack, reintroduces herself and the network prior to a Town Hall with Turning Point USA’s Erika Kirk on December 14, 2025. Today’s theme music is Never Say Never, by Afternoonz. In the news: * The Department of Justice made it official on Sunday: despite the fact that a federal agent on the ground recommended a civil rights investigation into the shooting of Renee Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis, it is Good herself who is being investigated for allegedly assaulting a federal officer. Governor Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor James Frey, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and three other elected officials are also being investigated for interfering with ICE’s operation. In addition, five federal prosecutors in Minnesota resigned after being tasked with an investigation of Good’s partner; so have several DOJ prosecutors in Washington who have been excluded from the investigation. Because the FBI has taken over the case, and the evidence, the state of Minnesota has also been barred from investigating Good’s death. Radley Balko writes about how many conventions are the Trump administration is violating. * At Davos, President Donald Trump continued to insist on the United States taking possession of Greenland, an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. Trump appears to have ruled out military action, threatened tariffs instead, and now claims to have a deal. This roller-coaster ride sparked a sell-off of Treasury bonds by European investors. Although some Republicans have gotten on board with the United States annexing the territory, a bipartisan Congressional delegation traveled to Greenland to reassure its government, and meet with EU President Ursula von der Leyen. * Representative James Comer (R, TN-01), chair of the House Oversight Committee, pushed for a vote to hold former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in contempt of Congress and got one. Democrats on the committee crossed the aisle to rebuke the former first couple for refusing to appear to testify in the Epstein investigation. The Clintons argue that the subpoenas are invalid, even as their attorneys try to negotiate backstage for an off-ramp to the legal standoff. Your hosts: Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller. Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024). Image credit: OpturaDesign/Shutterstock Don’t miss new drops from Claire and Neil. You can subscribe for free or support us for only $5 a month. You can also become an annual supporter for $50/year and choose Neil’s Coming Out Republican or Claire’s Political Junkies: as a welcome bonus. You can also get all audio content by subscribing for free on Apple iTunes, YouTube, or Spotify. News Focus: Bari Weiss—Free Speech Activist? Journalist? Media Disruptor? * We start with a profile of Bari Weiss that sketches her biography, education, and professional accomplishments. * A staunch Zionist, Weiss graduated from Columbia University in 2007, having founded The Current, a campus magazine of politics and culture focused on Jewish affairs. She also waged a highly publicized campaign against Middle Pastern Studies Professor Joseph Massad, which spurred the creation of a special committee, Columbians for Academic Freedom, to examine the state of free speech on campus. * Weiss cut her teeth as a journalist at Haaretz, The...

At the beginning of this episode, we hear a clip from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about strategic uncertainty on February 12, 2002, as the Bush administration falsely argued that the United States was compelled to go to war in Iraq to seize weapons of mass destruction. Protesters march to the Pentagon on March 21, 2009 as part of an anti-war march and rally in Washington, D.C. Photo credit: Rena Schild/Shutterstock Show notes: * Jeremy discusses the movement against the War on Terror as a moral obligation, one that he participated in, but which he could not fully understand the dimensions of at the time. * Claire mentions the role that the War Resisters League, founded in 1923, played in the antiwar movement. * Jeremy and Claire discuss the significant participation of women, many of whom had extensive social movement experience, in the resistance to the war on terror. * Code Pink was a particularly effective and energetic feminist anti-war group that devoted itself to international civil society activism and highlighting the ways women’s experience in war provides a broader lens into the harms of state violence. * Jeremy points to Hillary Clinton’s support for the war, which was dismaying to many feminist organizations. You can read more about women’s participation in the War on Terror here. * The extreme violence of the War on Terror was, in some ways, epitomized by the sexualized torture and brutality inflicted on Iraqi prisoners by American men and women at the Abu Ghraib prison. * Claire and Jeremy discuss the violence of President Trump’s deportation agenda, and the administration’s assertions that ICE agent have absolute immunity, as a domestic extension of the War on Terror. * Jeremy outlines how the movement to stop the first Gulf War set the stage for strategies and groups that would oppose the War on Terror. * In a conversation about the moral injuries of war, Jeremy discusses the many ways in which soldiers suffer for their participation in war. * In a conversation about the forms of fellowship, friendship, and community in pease movements, Jeremy mentions Benjamin Heim Shepard’s book, On Activism, Friendships, and Fighting: Oral Histories, Strategies and Conflicts (Common Notions Press, 2025). Your host: Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller. Short takes: * It’s called “Blaxit”(short for Black Exit): Black Americans leaving the United States in higher than usual numbers. Historically, African Americans have often felt safer and freer abroad, but the trend of Black professionals seeking out relocation experts is growing. “This modern migration is seeing Black expatriates settle in countries like Thailand, Dubai, Ghana, Portugal, South Africa, Costa Rica, Mexico, Colombia, and more,” Karen Juanita Carillo writes. Predictably, MAGA hates dual citizenship. “In December 2025, Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno,” an immigrant from Colombia, “introduced the Exclusive Citizenship Act of 2025, which aims to prohibit dual citizenship. It requires Americans with multiple nationalities to renounce their foreign citizenship(s) within one year or face automatic revocation of their U.S. citizenship.” (January 15, 2026) * Can prediction markets change history—or allow insiders to profit from political decisions? Democrat Ritchie Torres (NY-15) says yes. “Hours before U.S. Army Delta Force commandos captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife during a nighttime raid in Caracas, an anonymous trader, using a newly created account on the prediction market Polymarket, wagered more than $30,000 that Maduro would be out of office by Jan. 31, 2026. The trader walked...

News Summary: * Yesterday, 37 year-old Renee Nicole Good, a poet, mother of three, and a United States citizen was murdered by an ICE officer identified as Jonathan Ross, a ten-year veteran of the service. Good was confronted by ICE vehicles, and for unknown reasons, Ross ordered Good to get out of the car, where she was accompanied by her wife and dog. As Good she attempted to leave the scene, Ross shot her three times. Trump and other administration officials have repeatedly lied about the events surrounding Good’s death. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem labeled the victim a “domestic terrorist” and falsely claimed that the ICE officer had been endangered; as of today, Democrat-sponsored articles of impeachment are circulating in the House to remove her from office. * In the wake of an alleged multi-billion dollar scheme to divert federal dollars intended for Minnesota’s subsidized child care, Governor Tim Walz has dropped his bid for a third term. The state’s popular Democratic Senator, Amy Klobuchar, is said to be almost certain to run in 2026; if she wins, she or Walz will pick someone to fill her seat who could run in the special election to replace her. Will that person be from the Congressional delegation? Perhaps it will be the popular mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey? Or Keith Ellison, the former Representative from 05 and currently attorney general? * Donald Trump added his own name to the Kennedy Center, not only outraging the ginormous Kennedy family, but causing numerous artists scheduled to perform there to cancel. * In a 4-1 ruling, Wyoming’s Supreme Court has struck down two laws banning abortion in the state as unconstitutional, including the first law in the nation to ban chemical abortions. The court, all appointed by Republicans, cited a 2012 amendment approved by voters in the wake of the ACA empowering adults to make their own health decisions. United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House in Washington DC, April 7, 2025. Photo credit: noamgalai/Shutterstock News focus: Marco Rubio, Venezuela, and the “Donroe” Doctrine * On the evening of Saturday, January 3, a special forces team from the United States supported from the air penetrated the compound in Caracas where Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores lived. After killing 31 members of a Cuban bodyguard, the team kidnapped Maduro and Flores. They were charged this week in New York with narco-terrorism. * While the official justification for Maduro’s kidnapping is unclear, as is Trump’s plan for “running the country,” Vice President Delcy Rodriguez has been sworn in as president—but is she on the same page as Trump? Yesterday, the New York Times obtained a 90-day emergency order issued by the government commanding the police to take into custody anyone who supports the “armed attack” by the United States. * Trump threatened attacks on two other sovereign nations in the hemisphere, Colombia and Cuba; and revived plans to annex Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of Denmark. Marco Rubio has amended Trump’s statements to say that the plan, for now, would be to purchase Greenland. * On Thursday, the Senate passed a bill invoking the War Powers Act with five Republicans voting aye: Rand Paul of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Todd Young of Indiana and Josh Hawley of Missouri. * Who is Marco Rubio? The son of Cuban exiles, he is only 54: he rose swiftly in Florida politics, becoming speaker of the Florida House of Representatives at 35. He was elected to the Senate in 2010, replacing Republican Mel Martinez, the first Cuban American in the Senate, and became well-known on the Foreign Policy Committee as a centrist. * But Rubio has always been a Cuba hard-liner. A challenger to Trump for the presidential nomination in 2015, he was once seen as the future of the GOP. But after Trump became president, as Secretary of State, Rubio...

Promotional photo of Imogene Coca and Sid Caesar from “Your Show of Shows,” August 30, 1952. Photo credit: NBC/Wikimedia Commons For this final podcast of 2025, we begin with a clip from “The Vitality Health Food Restaurant,” featuring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca as the recurring characters Charlie and Doris Hickenlooper; Howard Morris and Carl Reiner play bit parts. It was broadcast during the 1955 season of Caesar’s Hour on NBC: you can see the whole sketch here. Show notes: * Claire mentions Dick Cavett’s afternoon talk show: Cavett’s unique style was inspired by his admiration for, and study of, Sid Caesar. * The Catskills comedy scene, also known as the “Borscht Belt,” nurtured a generation of Jewish comedians who Caesar relied on, even though he himself spent little time in it. * David Margolick discusses how Sid Caesar navigated the heightened consciousness of antisemitism in the 1950s by downplaying the Jewish roots of his art. * Claire mentions the historical maleness of the comedy writers’ room, a phenomenon that—according to Tina Fey—lasted well into the late twentieth century. * The Dick Van Dyke Show was created by a Caesar writer, Carl Reiner, the father of the late Rob Reiner: the plot revolved around the antics of creatives in a fictionalized—and very cleaned up—version of the Sid Caesar Show writers’ room. * Caesar sustained the emotionally and physically crushing schedule of putting out a weekly show with alcohol and pharmaceuticals, something that was not all that uncommon for adult creatives and professionals in the 1950s. * David discusses the rivalry between Caesar and bandleader Lawrence Welk, who produced a more anodyne variety show aimed at middle America. Your host: Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller. Short takes: * New York City Mayor Eric Adams is getting ready to hand over the reins of government to Zorhan Mamdani, but will be in the news for some time to come. Numerous Adams staffers “are still facing criminal prosecution, lawsuits in state court, federal and local investigations, or some combination of all of the above,” Noah Schachtman writes at New York Magazine. “And while Adams is all grips and ‘What, me worry?’ grins in public, he continues to have some legal exposure of his own.” (December 26, 2025) * At The Atlantic, Jonathan Chait argues that no one should defend Bari Weiss for spiking the “60 Minutes” story on CECOT. Her reasoning is incoherent, Chait argues; worse, “Weiss is following a long-standing instinct to turn every Trump abuse into a debate, a generosity she does not afford targets on the left,” Chait writes. “The Free Press, which she continues to edit while running CBS News, publishes obsessively and unremittingly negative coverage of New York Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani, but holds symposia on Donald Trump. In defending the administration’s actions as debatable, she has misrepresented just how heedless it has been with the Constitution.” He has other reasons too: read on. (December 24, 2025) * The New Yorker’s Jay Caspian Kang has been following the debate about kids and social media since before Australia imposed a ban on the apps for youth under 16. Such a a ban is unlikely in the United States—but aren’t there other, more thoughtful approaches? The First Amendment argues that “we shouldn’t place arbitrary age limits on who gets to express themselves in the digital town square,” Kang writes, “and we shouldn’t require everyone who wants to express their opinions online to submit to an I.D. check.” In fact, the revolution has already begun by simply taking smartphones out of the hands of school-age kids without federal...

As we slide into the holidays, our politics podcast is on a three-week hiatus. But I have some terrific book chats lined up, each one accompanied by a short news summary. Neil and I will be back and ready to rock on January 9 to evaluate the fresh hell breaking loose in 2026! Country music star Dolly Parton arriving at a Hollywood premiere in January, 2012. Photo credit: DFree/Shutterstock We begin this episode with a clip from a 1977 Barbara Walters interview, in which Parton skillfully parries a stereotype about White people who grew up poor in the American South. News summary: * The man who right wing influencer Milo Yiannopoulos has called “The most ostentatiously useless and embarrassing government employee in the history of the nation”—that’s right, Deputy Director of the FBI Dan Bongino—has resigned as of January. “Bongino expressed deep satisfaction earlier this month after the FBI arrested a suspect in the Jan. 6 pipe bombing case. He said he pressed the bureau to solve the case and got regular updates from the lead investigator,” Carol Leonnig and Ken Dilanian write at MS NOW. But as a podcaster, Bongino had stoked conspiracy theories that the pipe bombs were a false-flag operation. When asked by Fox’s Sean Hannity about the discrepancy, he said “that as a podcaster, he was paid to give his opinions, but now at the FBI, he was ‘paid to be your deputy director, and we base investigations on facts.’” Rumor has it Bongino is returning to podcasting. (December 18, 2025) * This week saw a furor about a two-part profile of Trump Chief of Staff Susie Wiles by Chris Whipple of Vanity Fair. Wiles, a political consultant who is normally very backstage, let drop a number of frank comments about the President and the clown car that surrounds him. The outrage has been predictable—except for White House attacks on photographer Christopher Anderson, whose closeup of Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, whose lip gloss did not conceal injection marks, presumably the residue of a cosmetic procedure. * The suspect in the mass shooting at Brown University, a Portuguese man who may also be responsible for the murder of MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro, has been found in. New Hampshire storage unit, an apparent suicide. Today’s guest: Martha Ackman, the author of Ain’t Nobody’s Fool: The Life and Times of Dolly Parton (MacMillan, 2025) * Claire notes some of the similarities between Dolly Parton and an earlier subject Martha Ackman explored, Emily Dickinson. You can read about the famous reclusive poet in These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson (W.W. Norton, 2020). * Dolly Parton’s big break was on The Porter Wagoner Show. It was where Dolly learned her craft, but also became aware of how fiercely she would have to fight to make a career in the male-dominated country music industry. * Dolly has described her childhood in her autobiography, Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business (HarperCollins, 1994). * Claire and Martha also discuss Dolly making books available to children through her Imagination Library. * Rumors about Dolly’s private life include speculation about whether she has been sexually involved with a close woman friend: she denies them. We discuss how Dolly’s support for the LGBTQ community, her unusually supportive husband who preferred the backstage, and the difficulty in describing love and loyalty between women, have fed such rumors. * You can learn more about Carl Dean, Dolly’s husband for almost 60 years before his death this year, here. * Claire notes that her favorite song is White Limozeen, from the 1989 album of hte same name, because it reflects her commitment to her family and community. Short takes: * Changes to Medicaid under H.R. 1 will affect Black and Brown communities disproportionately, but also whole institutions designed to serve low-income people. “Community health centers like Harlem United serve as the few sources of dental care for low-income...