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  Thoughts on Michigan's Final Debate! The Impossible Midterms Archive Test (with Howard Mortman) 28.07.2026 1val 10min

  Haley Stevens has found her groove. She’s made herself into a plucky underdog, which is hard because she’d been typecast as the spoiled golden girl — Chuck Schumer’s special little lady who was handed everything and had all the money. Mallory McMorrow was fresh, Abdul El-Sayed was exciting, and Stevens looked like she was getting run over. Now her message is: I don’t care what they make fun of me for. I’m like you, and I’m looking out for you. It’s solid. It’s good.El-Sayed has run a very good campaign, but he’s had trouble restabilizing since Stevens found her footing. His problem is explaining his progressive message to people who don’t automatically buy into it. You need to describe the what before the why. Start with the person who counted on a government check that didn’t come, then explain why it happened and where the money went. El-Sayed keeps starting with AIPAC and the quid pro quo because he’s still talking to progressives. Progressives understand that language, but everybody else might not.Politics Politics Politics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.The Stevens campaign wants to make El-Sayed the bully. She keeps pointing out that he makes fun of the way she talks, and she brought up his comment about putting an ogre’s head on a spike. That matters because El-Sayed needs the McMorrow women — voters who weren’t into Stevens but could be talked into a more progressive way of thinking. He’s going to ride and die on being a fighter, including his support for abolishing ICE. That’s authentic, but he’s more of a blunt instrument than Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Stevens looked confident under the lights. El-Sayed didn’t look in command. My prediction: Stevens by five.Trump, meanwhile, has asked the Supreme Court to revive parts of his executive order restricting mail voting before the November midterms. A federal judge blocked provisions directing agencies to build state citizenship lists and requiring the Postal Service to send mail ballots only to currently listed voters. I’m not personally for asking states to assemble these lists so close to an election, for the same reason I wasn’t for expanding mail voting during COVID. Anytime you’re expanding or restricting voting and changing the electorate, you’ve got to do it with some tender loving care.Trump also met with Benjamin Netanyahu for the first time since the United States and Israel launched their joint air campaign against Iran. Iran was expected to dominate the meeting as Trump decides whether to resume large-scale strikes or give diplomacy more time. There’s visible friction: Trump doesn’t like Netanyahu publicly raising concerns about activity at Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain to pressure him, while Netanyahu wants to preserve military pressure. Their decision could determine whether this pause becomes a negotiating window or merely an intermission. Nobody knows what’s happening in Iran. There are only so many ways I can say it.Michigan’s attorney general is also reviewing how a false allegation against Pete Buttigieg led authorities to separate him from his four-year-old twins. Officials acted on a vague tip before confirming the caller’s identity or credibility, and Michigan State Police later declared the allegation unfounded. Investigators found a Facebook post in which the apparent caller urged people not to vote for Buttigieg and referenced the accusation before contacting authorities. Emergency responses involving children need a hair trigger, but unsupported accusations can also become political intimidation. It’s ugly — really, really, really ugly.Chapters00:00:00 - Intro00:03:49 - Michigan00:21:31 - Israel, Iran, and Ukraine00:30:40 - Mayor Pete Swatted00:34:22 - Interview with Howard Mortman01:06:28 - Wrap-up This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/subscribe
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  Something Big is Happening in Iran. The Dumbest Right-Wing Media Outrage Ever (with Josh Jennings) 23.07.2026 1val 27min

  Donald Trump says he’s close to deciding whether to launch a massive attack on Iran as the U.S. military expands its campaign aimed at stopping attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. The Pentagon used a B-1 bomber against Revolutionary Guard targets for the first time since the fighting resumed, while Iran continues attacking U.S. bases and shipping. Trump says Tehran wants negotiations, but the White House hasn’t accepted any of the Iranian proposals. The House voted 214 to 208 to demand an end to hostilities, while the Senate rejected a similar measure 47 to 49.There are a lot of signs that something is about to happen. Air traffic is moving, Israel is opening bomb shelters, hospitals are getting specific instructions, and skirmishes on the Iran-Iraq border might suggest American special forces will get involved. Trump has said Israel would quickly rejoin the fight if asked, but claims the United States could act alone. The B-1 launched from Britain can carry two dozen 2,000-pound bombs or dozens of cruise missiles. Its targets included Iranian military operations centers, maritime capabilities, aircraft hangars, drone storage, and logistics infrastructure.Iran still has some ability to threaten shipping despite officials saying its military capability around Hormuz has been sharply degraded. On the other side of Saudi Arabia, the Houthis have attacked a Saudi shipping line and threatened a second critical energy route through the Red Sea at the Bab el-Mandeb.Politics Politics Politics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.I think this is on and poppin’. Either there’s some kind of détente that lets Trump kick the can past the midterms, or you’ve got to extract a pound of flesh from Iran. You’ve got to call their bluff and say: Look, whatever you think you can do, go ahead and do it.I don’t think there are any coincidences in the Middle East. It’s a very transactional region, and I don’t think Saudi Arabia getting a nuclear deal is disconnected from what’s happening. My 360-degree view of Iran has always been predicated on the idea that both the region and the United States are looking to reshape the Middle East around Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Israel as the new powers, while the United States pivots to China. But if you’re going to do that, you’ve got to really degrade Iran.I don’t know how you do it or what you can do. It certainly seems that the Trump administration believes bridges and power plants are what the IRGC really, really, really doesn’t want to lose. The more audacious military plans include storming an area where we believe Iran has nuclear material and taking it by force, seizing the coastline from which Iran is firing drones and missiles to ensure the Strait of Hormuz stays open, or seizing Kharg Island, where Iran exports its oil. I don’t know that Iran can function without the kind of money it gets from oil.It’s very hard to follow this because you don’t really know what’s happening. I didn’t know why oil stayed as low as it did before, why it fell before the memorandum of understanding, or why it’s shooting up now. If it goes way up, how fast can it fall? I don’t know. I have no idea. But it looks like something is about to pop. In fact, it might already be happening by the time this podcast hits your feed.Chapters00:00:00 - Intro00:02:52 - Campaign Undertaker00:13:42 - Iran Heats up00:20:20 - Stock Trading Bill00:21:57 - Midterm Polling00:25:33 - Interview with Josh Jennings01:22:51 - Wrap-up This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/subscribe
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  Somehow, Trump 1.0 Returned... The Ever-Shifting Midterm Winds (with Michael Cohen) 21.07.2026 1val 17min

  To date, Trump 2.0 has been defined by everybody appearing to be on the same page and by a sense that the administration kept moving its priorities forward. You might not have liked what those priorities were, but the priorities did get done. The one big beautiful bill was described as an administration’s worth of priorities getting done too soon, and it seems like that might have been prophetic. Trump 1.0 returns when internal fights spill into public view, aides leak against one another, major spectacles vanish with nothing much changing, and the president treats factional drama as fuel rather than a problem to solve.Go back to the beginning of 2025, when Trump 2.0 very much was aligned. The coalition was locked in. The administration had momentum. USAID dismantled in a split second. The one big beautiful bill pushed over the finish line in record time. Again, the point isn’t that these were good things that happened. It’s that they kept happening. But no momentum is made to last forever. Maybe the coalition was always doomed to splinter. The cracks began to show as people were fired, as Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi went down for various different ICE shootings and Epstein, accelerating distrust and leaving Dan Bongino back on the radio airwaves. Either way, the drama that Trump 2.0 kept outside the tent has now fully moved back within it.How do we know? Because they’re telling us.Politics Politics Politics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Take the address that happened last Thursday night. We knew officials were fighting over how much information the president should share when he was speaking to America. Acting DNI Bill Pulte pushed for a more aggressive version, but senior White House aides intervened. Separate reports said the speech might have claimed that Georgia’s two Democratic senators were elected illegitimately because they both came in during the 2020 runoff. The final address didn’t go that far, meaning somebody pulled something back — or at least that’s what the reports would lead us to believe, which means somebody inside the administration is telling a reporter. The 24-minute speech eventually focused more on election interference and intelligence findings as a way to get to the idea that the Save America Act should be passed. But even that’s telling, because the speech was quickly swallowed by the news cycle. That’s another hallmark of Trump 1.0: a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing, or at least nothing that’s remembered more than 48 hours later.The biggest Trump 1.0 tell is Iran. From the very beginning, the administration has said the Iran strategy has two hands. Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth are the closed fist, the violence that will come down on the regime, while J.D. Vance, Jared Kushner, and Steve Witkoff are the open hand of diplomacy. If you want to make a deal on our terms, we’re always welcome. In the meantime, we’ll punch you in the face. Trump has actively encouraged a rivalry between Vance and Rubio, asking people all the time who they think should be the next president. And now the proxies of both men are in out-and-out war online.Alex Bruesewitz is on the J.D. Vance side, making it a priority to talk about how much foreign influence, including Israel, is affecting the discourse. Meanwhile, Israel hawks, including Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro, are attacking Vance, saying he’s surrendering to Qatar and he’s mostly a socialist. The damage is falling most heavily on Vance because he’s become the face of diplomacy. If the memorandum of understanding had worked, he would’ve gotten the credit. Since there’s now a lot of violence happening in that region again, he gets the blame. Instead of all of this being part of one big rolling ball that is the Trump administration, we now have winners and losers, which means people inside that sphere are playing the game. Very Trump 1.0.The reason this happens in both instances is, well, Big Chungus. Trump 2.0’s advantage was that the drama stayed outside the tent and the team inside was united. Now we’re getting a clearer view of exactly what the war behind closed doors looks like, and in my opinion, it goes hand in hand with priorities not being enacted. You hear a lot about the Save America Act, but it’s stalled and doesn’t have the votes to become law. Iran is different because the consequences are immediate. Trump has to show that either pressure or diplomacy can produce a successful end state. If neither path works, he’ll have made a very big bet without a clear conclusion, and he’ll have to define a win for himself even if it’s not very clear to the American people. We might already be in the lame-duck phase for Donald Trump, which may make all of these problems worse.Chapters00:00:00 - Intro00:03:44 - Trump 1.000:11:36 - Darlene Graham00:16:05 - Reconciliation, Again, Again00:19:38 - Andy Burnham00:25:03 - Interview with Michael Cohen01:13:55 - Wrap-up This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/subscribe
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  Donald Trump's Primetime Election Fraud Gambit. The Rise of Gray Money (with Dave Levinthal) 16.07.2026 1val 6min

  Donald Trump is going before the nation Thursday night to make a case about election integrity. We don’t know exactly where or how many places he’s going to be shown, but we do know what the case is supposed to be. And the difference between what he says and how he says it is literally the difference between 80% of America agreeing with him and 20% of America agreeing with him.What Trump really wants to do is demonstrate that now that he’s in control of the federal government, all the things he said about the federal government are indeed true. He wants to reveal elements of the secret workings of the deep state that he was previously unable or unwilling to reveal in his first term. According to Politico, Trump is expected to declassify previously unseen intelligence during the address, and White House aides are reportedly debating exactly how far they should go. Senior staffers have prepared a version they believe is supported by the available intelligence, while others want Trump to make broader claims.Politics Politics Politics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Trump also wants to pass the SAVE America Act. The current House-passed version has two major requirements: documentary proof of citizenship when somebody registers to vote in a federal election, and photo identification when that person casts a federal ballot. The Senate doesn’t currently have the votes to pass it under normal rules unless Republicans suspend the filibuster or find another way to attach it to legislation that can pass. Whether an election law provision could survive the Senate’s reconciliation rules is a different story for a different day.The biggest, juiciest kernel inside the legislation is voter ID. That’s a huge political opportunity for Republicans and a problem for elected Democrats. If Trump were to get on television and say we need voter ID, we’re going to include it in the SAVE America package going to the Senate, and the reason is simple — only citizens should be able to vote — that’s overwhelmingly popular. Democrats will say it’s voter suppression. They’ll say women who change their names could be disenfranchised because their current identification doesn’t match what’s on their birth certificates. Well, Trump could answer that by putting money in the bill to expedite any new identification and documentation necessary to comply with the SAVE America Act, especially for women who’ve taken their husband’s names.That’s the layup. Pew found in August 2025 that 83% of Americans supported requiring government-issued photo IDs to vote, including 95% of Republicans and 71% of Democrats. Pew measured the issue again in January 2026: 80% supported voter ID, with 58% strongly favoring it and another 22% somewhat favoring it. Gallup found essentially the same thing, with 84% of Americans supporting photo identification at the polls. In politics, that’s called a no-brainer layup. Put the screws to him if you’re the GOP.But guess what? He ain’t gonna. Because Trump also wants to expose what he considers the nefarious deep state, and with that comes the greatest bugaboo of his political life: the 2020 election. If Trump goes on television and says the 2020 election was manipulated by China, Democrats, Brad Raffensperger, or anybody else, he’s no longer operating within the overwhelming support of the American public. Talking about 2020 and manipulated vote counts is, at best, red meat for the base. At worst, it’s exactly what Democrats want to be talking about, because it takes Trump further away from the current moment. Sometimes you get the 80-20 layup, and sometimes you get the long, meandering “Democrats plus China plus Brad Raffensperger ruined my life.”Chapters00:00:00 - Intro00:03:38 - Trump’s Primetime Speech00:12:02 - Iran00:15:59 - Israel and Democrats00:20:20 - NYS Data Centers00:29:23 - Interview with Dave Levinthal01:03:47 - Wrap-up This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/subscribe
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  Michigan Democratic Primary Preview! The State of the Democrats Post-Platner (with Bill Scher) 14.07.2026 1val 24min

  Circle August 4th on your calendar: Michigan is now the number one marquee primary matchup I’m watching. Mallory McMorrow is out of the race as of a couple of weeks ago, and what’s left is a head-to-head contest between the Democratic establishment — or at least what’s left of it — and the insurgent progressive movement. Yes, friends, it’s Haley Stevens versus Abdul El-Sayed, and it’s set to be a knockout fight.This really represents the first live test for the current Democratic Party. Can the progressive movement, with a more charismatic candidate and a high-energy, extraordinarily competent campaign, expand its coalition enough to win statewide? Or will it do what it’s done in the past — hit a ceiling when the opposition consolidates?There’s only one new clean head-to-head test: a Tavern Research survey from July 6th through July 7th of 2,211 likely Democratic primary voters. It found Haley Stevens at 42%, El-Sayed at 41%, with 17 to 18% undecided. That’s a margin-of-error race, but it’s the first time in a very long time that we’ve seen Haley Stevens up over Abdul. The same poll tested the old three-person field and found El-Sayed at 41%, Stevens at 38%, and the flagging McMorrow at five. In other words, when McMorrow disappears, the voters are forced into a binary choice, and they’re making it more on the Stevens side than the El-Sayed side. But still: tight, tight, tight, tight, tight.Politics Politics Politics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Because we live in reboot culture, this is essentially — coalitionally, at least — Bernie Sanders versus Hillary Clinton for a new generation. The Stevens coalition is exactly like Hill-dogs: older voters, Black voters, traditional self-identified Democrats, non-college voters, and on the Michigan side, Metro Detroit — particularly Oakland, Macomb, and Wayne counties. What’s powering Stevens is Black voters. She’s led El-Sayed consistently in almost every poll. Meanwhile, Abdul’s coalition is younger voters, very liberal and progressive voters, college-educated voters, voters outside Metro Detroit, Democratic Socialists, Arab Americans, and Muslim organizing networks. He also has significant labor support, including the UAW endorsement, despite most UAW members being non-college educated, which would normally fall outside his coalition. A very strange world we live in.The one demographic that’s going to decide this race is women. They’re the biggest disputed demo in every poll we’ve seen. An April Glenn Gariff poll showed Stevens leading among women 29% to 17%. But in a June Mitchell poll, the exact opposite was demonstrated: El-Sayed led with women 51% to Stevens’s 35%. So as we look at the rest of the polls from now until Election Day, keep an eye on the ladies. They’re the majority of the likely Democratic primary electorate. If Stevens can consolidate older and Black women while also inheriting McMorrow’s suburban women, she can win. But if El-Sayed’s progressive and younger female support holds, his coalition may be large enough to break through.Which brings me to the latest front of this war. I don’t know if it’s being done to court women, I don’t know if it’s being done specifically on purpose, but the results are undeniable: El-Sayed and Stevens are in an out-and-out shooting match to be more cringe. For Haley Stevens, this isn’t something she has to worry about. She’s naturally gifted in this regard. She’s awkward, she has a thick Great Lakes accent, and she speaks in this clipped, emphatic manner. On one hand, she is herself. She feels less like a polished Washington candidate and more like somebody who wandered out of a Detroiters sketch. Abdul El-Sayed has the opposite problem. He’s clearly a charismatic, compassionate candidate, a strong communicator, and an aggressive counterpuncher. But if you’re running against him, your job is to make El-Sayed scare the hos. I think his campaign has found a solution: make himself toe-cringingly embarrassing. My read — and this is analysis, not something the campaign has admitted — is that cringe is a form of inoculation against being defined as scary. If you’re embarrassing, you can’t be terrifying.So who’s going to win? I’m an old-school guy. I tend to bet chalk unless I’m convinced otherwise. And while I very much believe El-Sayed has the better campaign, and I think he’s the better candidate if we’re just looking at raw talent, I’d still bet the Michigan coalition that usually wins. Haley Stevens is a suboptimal candidate, and I’ve counted her out at every step of this race. I thought McMorrow was going to win. That obviously didn’t happen. So don’t take my prediction for a whole lot. But Stevens doesn’t really have to do anything but be her cringy self to get over the line. Meanwhile, waiting on the other side, smiling like the butcher’s dog, is Mike Rogers. He nearly beat Elissa Slotkin in 2024, losing by only 18 to 20,000 votes, about 0.3%. This is supposed to be more of a blue-wave year, but Rogers is going to benefit from a fractured leftward coalition. After Stevens and El-Sayed spend weeks beating the hell out of each other, the question is whether the losing half comes home. If they don’t, Rogers benefits.Chapters00:00:00 - Intro00:03:01 - Michigan Preview00:14:58 - Update00:22:04 - Trump’s Upcoming Address00:25:40 - Reconciliation00:29:36 - Inflation00:32:37 - Interview with Bill Scher01:20:01 - Wrap-up This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/subscribe
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  Is Platner REALLY Out? The Arizona Congressman Story You Won't Believe (with Juliegrace Brufke) 09.07.2026 55min

  Graham Platner is out… but is he? Last night in Maine, he released an 11-minute video that savaged the Democratic establishment and the progressive establishment. He blamed everybody but himself for why he’s suspending his campaign, saying all of his resources were taken away from him. The people who didn’t fight for him — Ro Khanna, Bernie Sanders, Hasan Piker — all wound up in the blast radius.Everybody wanted Platner to be a lot more conciliatory. He was not. He was forceful. He took what he wanted. But here’s the big question: you can’t declare bankruptcy like Michael Scott. You can’t just walk into the office and yell, “Bankruptcy.” You need to file paperwork. So even though Graham Platner suspended his campaign on Twitter, that doesn’t mean his campaign is suspended in real life.Politics Politics Politics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.He’s telling people he’ll suspend his campaign on Monday. By the way, Monday is when he needs to file by. If Graham Platner gets a little sleepy on Monday and forgets to file, then there’s no replacement. He’s the nominee. That’s something to keep an eye on. Now, full transparency: I don’t believe he’s going to do that. I do believe he’s going to file either then or sooner, and this will eventually blow over. But, still, with this guy, you really never know.So the question becomes: who’s running against Susan Collins? A handful of names are now in the mix, and they’ll essentially be decided at a hastily thrown together state convention sometime in the next few weeks, because Democrats need an answer by July 27th. Troy Jackson tends to be more of the favorite of the progressives. Nirav Shah, the former Maine CDC director, is in the conversation. Dan Kleban, who had initially been running against Platner before dropping out when Janet Mills got involved, is back in a big way. Jordan Wood, Paige Loud, and Shenna Bellows bring up the rear.I don’t know exactly what happens at that convention. Are they all going to debate on one stage? Are they just going to make their pitches and then have a back and forth? I do know this: if you leave it up to the supporters of those people, they’re going to start knifing each other. And if you’re a Democrat trying to take down Susan Collins, that’s the last thing you want. You don’t want this to get fractious.There’s some polling from a pro-Nirav Shah outside group showing Shah up on Collins 47-46, Collins up on Troy Jackson 48-47, and Collins tied with Shenna Bellows 47-47. I don’t know whether that’s a reputable outfit or whether those are reputable polls. What I’ll say is this: if you’re tied with Susan Collins, you’re losing. Platner, before the disaster, was running about eight to ten points ahead of Susan Collins. Now Democrats are looking at people who are tied, and Susan Collins regularly outperforms her polls by six to eight points. So if you’re tied with Susan Collins, you’re losing. Have we seen the last of Graham Platner? Man, I really don’t know.Chapters00:00 - Intro03:52 - Graham Platner09:47 - Trump’s Plane Switch12:40 - Mexico, ICE, and Dems Polling18:55 - Interview with Juliegrace Brufke52:36 - Wrap-up This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/subscribe
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  Europe's Ridiculous Divorce from America. It's Curtains for Graham Platner (with Kirk Bado) 07.07.2026 1val 2min

  European leaders are talking about a rupture with America — a de-Americanization of the continent driven by Donald Trump’s demands that NATO members spend more on defense, his transactional view of alliances, and even his threats to annex Greenland. I don’t blame them for being frustrated. Their citizens hate the guy, and they still have to deal with him.Trump is never going to be a weepy internationalist reminiscing about the transatlantic bond forged in blood and mud from World War II through the Cold War. He looks at every relationship as a business deal: What are you doing for me, and what am I doing for you in return? He doesn’t mind doing something for Europe if Europe does something for America, and he views this as one of our more one-sided relationships.European governments are now removing American technology from their systems, adopting European open-source software, and investing hundreds of billions of dollars in their own space firms, artificial intelligence companies, and data centers. Good luck. If Europe were capable of developing that economy under its current system, it wouldn’t be in this situation. The talent exists, but investment is too hard, regulation is too burdensome, and companies must navigate a collection of fiefdoms with their own tax bases and regulatory structures. Europe has a gigantic social safety net, and it can’t grow its way out of it.Politics Politics Politics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.The numbers tell the story. From the fourth quarter of 2019 through the first quarter of 2026, real GDP grew 15.2 percent in the United States and 6.4 percent in the euro area. In the first quarter of 2026, American GDP was up 2.7 percent year over year, while the euro area managed 0.3 percent. Europe has made more promises to its citizens, created a larger regulatory burden, and left itself more vulnerable to inflationary spikes. If it wants to decouple from America, it will need to start paying its own bills — including the enormous cost of providing for its own defense.Quite simply, Europe is not a serious place. Many of the leaders complaining about Trump might not even be around in 2028. By then, a President Vance could meet a NATO shaped by Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen, and an elder stateswoman Giorgia Meloni. The political order Europe imagines itself preserving may be disappearing faster than its relationship with Washington.For lack of a better phrase, Europe needs a sugar daddy, and its binary choice is either America or China. Only one of those countries has a shared history with Europe, and it’s us. I understand that Trump is frustrating and isn’t the American president European leaders came to know and love. But he’s the best they’ve got, and the alternative is either unrealistic or worse. There is no great substitute for America, so Europe will ultimately have to take the deal we give it.Chapters00:00:00 - Intro00:03:44 - Graham Platner00:07:29 - Kirk Bado on Graham Platner and More00:35:20 - Andrew Gillum’s Arrest00:45:49 - Trump’s F-35 Push for Turkey00:48:08 - Iran Attacks00:50:08 - Europe’s Divorce from America00:59:56 - Wrap-up This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/subscribe
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  Happy Birthday America, You Absolute Classic. The Fate of the Democratic Party (with Jeff Maurer) 02.07.2026 1val 27min

  We talk all the time about how America is a very young country, and that’s true when you compare us to Europe, Africa, and Asia, where countries are built around lineages, ethnic majorities, and religions. But not America. We’re a melting pot. We’re risk takers. It’s woven into the fabric of the United States that no matter where you are right now, tomorrow can be better than today was, and your life can be better here than it can be anywhere else in the world. You can gain here. You can lose here, too, so you’ve got to be careful and you’ve got to be vigilant. But that lesson is what moves us forward.I keep telling people that, with America, we’ve got a classic. But what does that mean? In the same way your favorite song is a classic, something you can play over and over again and it never gets old. Your favorite movie that you quote with your friends. Something that lives in your head and every time you think about it, you find a new way to think about it. Two hundred and fifty years ago, we declared independence with the idea that we could make one. We could invent our own set of rules that would not only endure, but allow humans to prosper. What we got from it was the United States Constitution. It continues to endure to this day. We argue about it, we amend it, we challenge it, and we defend it because we know it’s worth defending. It’s a classic.Politics Politics Politics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.While we are a young country, we are old in one regard: we are the longest continuous form of government on the planet. Everybody else comes and goes. You don’t have to when you’re sitting on a classic. I love America. I love talking about our great moments. I love talking about our bad moments. I love learning lessons from the missteps we’ve made, and I love reveling in our success. Ronald Reagan once said that you could live a hundred years in Japan and not be Japanese, or in Germany and not be German, but if you come to the United States, you can be an American. It is a spirit that beats deep within those of us who are lucky enough to have been born here and lucky enough to live at the bleeding edge of technology, culture, and finance. We have our problems, but there is no better country on the planet to identify them and fix them.So this weekend, raise a glass with your loved ones. Grill whatever you want on that grill. Look around in that humid, hot weather, whether you’re by the lake, in your backyard, sitting at your desk, or doing whatever the hell you want. I hope that either physically or in spirit, you’re with your friends and family when you say, “Happy Birthday, America.” You absolute classic.Chapters00:00:00 - Intro00:10:17 - America at 25000:17:05 - Interview with Jeff Maurer00:42:55 - AOC Endorses El-Sayed00:48:54 - SAVE America Dead?00:51:18 - OpenAI’s 5% Plan00:54:37 - Interview with Jeff Maurer, con’t01:21:47 - Wrap-up This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/subscribe
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  Birthright Citizenship Survives! How America's 250th Birthday Celebration is Going (with Kevin Ryan) 30.06.2026 1val 41min

  The Supreme Court wrapped up its term with three major decisions, and one surprise that turned out not to be a surprise after all. NPR briefly published a report that suggested Justice Samuel Alito was retiring, which would have handed Donald Trump another Supreme Court appointment, but that story was pulled, leaving us to wonder when that announcement might finally land.The actual rulings were significant enough on their own, though. The Court rejected Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants and temporary visa holders, effectively settling a legal argument that immigration hawks have wanted decided for decades. They’ve argued for years that the phrase “under the jurisdiction thereof” in the Fourteenth Amendment leaves room to limit birthright citizenship. Trump finally brought that argument to the Supreme Court, and the Court disagreed. At least for now, this feels like settled law, and I’m curious to see where immigration activists go from here.Politics Politics Politics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.The Court also upheld Idaho and West Virginia laws banning transgender athletes from women’s and girls’ sports. The ruling says Title IX permits sex-separated teams based on biological sex, and while the liberal justices wanted a narrower constitutional review, they agreed on the Title IX question. It feels like this issue has reached a legal endpoint. It’s remarkable that Title IX has become the vehicle for defending these policies, but I don’t see much room left for this fight in the courts.The final decision struck down federal limits on coordinated spending between political parties and candidates, ruling that the caps violate the First Amendment. Republicans are understandably celebrating because the National Republican Senatorial Committee brought the case, while Democrats are warning about billionaire influence and corruption. I tend to think the real victim here is the political middleman. Most of this money was getting where it wanted to go anyway. People donate to party committees because they want those organizations directing resources into competitive races. If you’re worried about billionaire influence, I think the darker corners of campaign finance remain a much bigger issue than the official party committees.Meanwhile, the national media has finally caught up to something I’ve been talking about for weeks: gas prices keep falling even though every expert expected the opposite after the war with Iran began. I first noticed it at my local gas station in Austin, and it didn’t line up with the conventional wisdom that prices shoot up like a rocket and come down like a feather. Now that same question is being asked everywhere. National gas prices have fallen for five straight weeks, crude oil has drifted back into what I’d consider a normal range, and we’re steadily moving away from the price spike that followed the conflict. Trump is even publicly pressuring retailers to get prices down to $2.50 a gallon, although it’s pretty obvious he’d be thrilled just to get them back near $3.The diplomacy behind all of this is getting more interesting. Iran launched drones at supertankers over the weekend, the United States responded with strikes on missile sites near the Strait of Hormuz, and shipping resumed. At the same time, the Trump administration appears to be running a good cop, bad cop strategy. JD Vance has focused on keeping negotiations alive, while Marco Rubio’s trip through the Gulf helped produce an Israel-Lebanon agreement tied to a broader deal with Iran and expanded shipping options through Oman. If crude oil keeps falling despite all of that, then the question I can’t shake is the same one I’ve been asking for weeks: what exactly is Iran’s leverage? If they’re negotiating denuclearization and they can’t keep energy prices elevated, then I need somebody who understands the Iranian system better than I do to explain where the leverage actually is.Chapters00:00:00 - Intro00:03:21 - Tom Kean00:06:41 - Supreme Court Decisions00:12:17 - Iran and Gas Prices00:24:28 - Interview with Kevin Ryan00:46:57 - Colorado Primaries00:54:29 - House of Representatives00:57:46 - Interview with Kevin Ryan, con’t01:36:37 - Wrap-up This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/subscribe
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  A Tale of Two Blockades! What the Hell is Going On in the UK? (with Tom Merritt) 26.06.2026 1val 10min

  What should have been a bipartisan housing bill touting affordability has instead become a fight over the Save America Act. Representative Anna Paulina Luna is leading a House conservative blockade, freezing routine procedural votes until the Senate takes up the Trump-backed elections bill. The problem is that the Senate has no path forward. The bill doesn’t have the votes, and the Senate isn’t about to let the House dictate its agenda. In the meantime, House Republicans are unable to move other priorities, including appropriations and next week’s defense policy bill.Luna’s leverage comes from one place: Donald Trump. The president canceled the planned signing of the bipartisan housing bill, saying he would not move forward until the Save America Act passes. House Republicans believe Luna’s close relationship with Trump is what’s keeping the blockade alive. Mike Lee has also pushed Trump to hold the line, arguing that Republican voters need something to get excited about before the midterms and that the Save America Act is that issue.Politics Politics Politics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.The divide inside the Republican Party is becoming clearer. Luna, Lee, and the hardliners argue that if voters gave Republicans the White House and both chambers of Congress, they expect them to fight for election legislation, not immediately explain why it can’t pass. The Senate’s answer is that the bill doesn’t have sixty votes. Their view is that Republicans can either spend weeks arguing over a bill that cannot pass or move on to things they can actually accomplish.I think this has been mishandled by both Speaker Johnson and Leader Thune. Whether or not the entire Save America Act could ever get sixty votes, there are pieces of it that are broadly popular with the American public, particularly voter ID provisions. Those could have been broken out and forced into separate fights. Instead, Republicans have backed themselves into a corner where the House is frozen, the Senate has no incentive to move, and everyone is arguing over tactics instead of making progress.My expectation is that Trump ultimately signs the housing bill. This feels like walking away from the table before signing in the hope of getting something else. He wants movement on the Save America Act. I just don’t think he’s going to get it.Meanwhile, Iran's Revolutionary Guard reportedly struck the Singapore-flagged cargo ship Ever Lovely as it transited the Strait of Hormuz, raising new doubts about the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding and the security of commercial shipping through the waterway. No casualties were reported, but the ship was damaged and the International Maritime Organization paused evacuation efforts while reassessing security. My biggest question isn't whether the memorandum itself is good or bad. It's whether any agreement can actually be enforced if there isn't one clear center of leadership in Iran. I honestly don't know who's making the calls, and I’m not sure if anyone else really has a good idea either.Chapters00:00:00 - Intro00:02:57 - SAVE America Blockade00:11:54 - Iran00:14:16 - Asylum Ruling00:16:29 - James vs. Mamdani00:19:52 - Interview with Tom Merritt01:06:40 - Wrap-up This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/subscribe
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  JEFFRIES vs. MAMDANI! NY-12 Heats Up the House! Digging Into the Anthropic Debacle (with Andrew Mayne) 23.06.2026 1val 48min

  All eyes are on New York. The congressional primaries happen tonight, and in a city this Democratic, many of these races will effectively decide who heads to Congress. What I’m watching is a battle between Hakeem Jeffries and Zohran Mamdani. Mamdani is flexing. We’re going to see exactly how much of a kingmaker he is in New York City. Jeffries is backing incumbents like Dan Goldman and Adriano Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Mamdani is backing candidates including Brad Lander and Darlisa Avila Chevalier. The big question is whether Mamdani’s endorsements can translate into wins, especially against somebody as entrenched as Espaillat.The race that really has my attention, though, is New York’s 12th Congressional District. Jerry Nadler is retiring, and what has followed is an absolute clown car of a race. Micah Lasher would be my favorite to win, but he’s the least interesting candidate in the field. George Conway, once one of the chief architects of turning the Monica Lewinsky scandal into the political force that it became and later one of the most notable Never Trump Republicans in America, is running as a Democrat. Jack Schlossberg, John F. Kennedy’s grandson, is also in the race. And then there’s Alex Bores, a New York Assembly member who has become the main character of this contest thanks to his relationship with AI.Politics Politics Politics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.The polling has been all over the place. Early on, Schlossberg led thanks to the Kennedy name. More recent polling has Lasher ahead, with Bores close behind and a huge chunk of the electorate still undecided. That’s important because Bores has become the center of one of the strangest political fights I’ve ever seen. Roughly $26 million has poured into this House race because of his support for the RAISE Act, a proposal to regulate artificial intelligence at the state level.The two major companies in artificial intelligence, OpenAI and Anthropic, have very different views on how to regulate AI. A super PAC supported by OpenAI leadership in a personal capacity spent money attacking Bores, arguing that splintered state regulations would hurt the industry. Anthropic-aligned groups responded by spending even more money. Do they support the RAISE Act? Who knows. They want OpenAI’s effort to fail, and that’s what makes fight this so unusual. All of this is far less about Alex Bores and more about two AI companies using a congressional primary as a venue for a much larger argument.I know politics, and I understand the influence of super PACs. I’ve never seen a personal beef quite like this one. Anthropic hates OpenAI, and it’s not a secret. Their CEO, Dario Amodei, does not believe OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman is trustworthy. Anthropic’s view is that it needs to out-innovate OpenAI and become the market leader. At the same time, I think the anti-Bores effort made strategic mistakes. The ads were so ham-fisted that they gave him life he otherwise would not have had. The spending has even become controversial inside OpenAI. And tonight’s the night we find out whether any of it even mattered.Chapters00:00:00 - Intro00:05:34 - Jeffries vs. Mamdani00:10:04 - NY-1200:20:50 - Update00:22:00 - Keir Starmer00:26:50 - Israel00:31:35 - Congress00:34:29 - Intro to Attention Mechanism00:38:16 - Attention Mechanism with Andrew Mayne01:43:58 - Wrap-up This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/subscribe
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  Can Republicans Hold the House? Checking In with Midterm Primaries (with Kirk Bado) 18.06.2026 1val 16min

  Republicans are now arguing that their aggressive mid-decade redistricting campaign could preserve their House majority even in an environment where history is usually not on their side. According to a new memo from the National Republican Congressional Committee, newly redrawn maps have reduced the number of competitive districts and forced Democrats to compete in more Republican-leaning territory. Democrats dismiss that analysis, arguing that strong special election results and voter dissatisfaction with President Trump still favor a House takeover. My gut is still that Democrats will take the House. I do think it’s going to be closer than people think, if just because we’re in an intensely polarized country.Republicans are still looking for the why. That’s what they haven’t found yet. Why am I excited? Historically, at least in the Trump administration, it has been things like immigration. But you can’t run the next election on the thing you solved in the last election. I know there are a lot of frustrated conservatives who say we should be talking about the fact that we closed the border. What have you done for me lately? That is the refrain from voters. Republicans are going to gin up the culture war, and they’re going to point at Democrats and say they’ve learned none of their lessons. Turning the keys back over to them is not going to get you anything. It’s going to get you more impeachments, more nonsense, and less of what you want. Democrats, meanwhile, will say we have an out-of-control oligarch president and we need some kind of emergency brake, so give us back control of the House.Politics Politics Politics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.With gas prices continuing to fall, it’s not crazy to think Republicans could find some footing. The national average fell below four dollars, according to AAA. A month ago it was around $4.50. We are looking at a collapsing gas price. We have been told throughout the history of commodities that gas shoots up like a rocket and falls like a feather. We are seeing it fall pretty quickly. If the price of a barrel returns to the levels we saw before the war, now that the memorandum of understanding has been signed and there is free flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, you’re going to see lower gas prices. That’s usually what people rely on, and it’s also the hedge against inflation.Cheap gas had always been the Trump administration’s hedge against tariff inflation. The argument was that while you might pay more on imports, gas would remain extraordinarily low. Obviously that promise was broken with the Iran war. Now it seems that we are at least in some phase of calm and negotiation, a controversial one. My point of view on any American activity in the Middle East—some may even say adventure in the Middle East—is that it almost always ends with America having to tell Israel no. Israel is usually very excited about having us in the region because, in general, we agree with Israel on most everything that happens in the Middle East. But they will always want us to do more, and eventually we usually have to tell them we are not going to do everything they want. That is just the way I understand the region.Is this memorandum of understanding wise? I read the text that was released yesterday. It’s a pretty big give to allow Iran to sell oil. It’s going to help the gas price, but it is a pretty big give. The carrots we are offering are big and juicy, but they are not promised up front. Everything is contingent on what happens from here. For Republicans, the best-case scenario is relative economic calm and Donald Trump being seen as a game-changing president that people might not always agree with but who is moving things forward. If we’re talking about jobs numbers and things that are forward-facing, Republicans are probably winning the argument. If we’re talking about side issues and distractions, Democrats are winning the argument. I still think it’s going to be very, very, very hard for Republicans to keep the House. But again, this is a very polarized country, and the biggest thing Republicans need is a reason to get their people excited.Chapters00:00:00 - Intro00:01:57 - Republicans and the House00:12:19 - Obama00:15:51 - Thomas Kean Jr.00:19:36 - Iran00:24:43 - Kirk Bado on Primaries01:11:10 - Wrap-up This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/subscribe
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  A Memorandum of Misunderstanding? Anthropic vs. the US Government, Round Two (with Maria Curi) 16.06.2026 1val 15min

  The memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran was apparently signed over the weekend, but the text remains a mystery to most. Donald Trump says he’ll release it and even read it himself so nobody can misunderstand it. If it’s such good news, though, why not put it out right now? Israel isn’t a fan of it, nor are those who believe we’ve abandoned the Iranian people by making a deal with the IRGC. At the same time, there may be a silent majority that cares less about the politics and more about the price at the pump. And that’s what caught my attention.Since the beginning of May, with Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz, gas prices in the United States have fallen. Not by a little, but by a lot. The national average has gone from roughly $4.50 a gallon to $3.50. That happened while the strait was closed and before any memorandum of understanding was announced. The White House wasn’t bragging about it. They weren’t loudly telling Iran that the closure wasn’t working. That made me think something else was going on.Politics Politics Politics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.After digging through it, I’ve been able to dig up a few explanations. The most public, I’d argue, was the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The Department of Energy released more than 53 million barrels as part of a broader international effort, bringing the reserve down to its lowest level since 1983. There were also reports that the United States was helping move oil out of the Gulf using some of the same techniques Iran has historically used to evade sanctions. American production remained high. Every hint of a peace deal pushed oil prices lower. Global demand softened. China sharply reduced its purchases on the open market. Alternative routes around Hormuz became more important. Gasoline inventories improved. All of it pushed prices down.If I rank the reasons, peace-talk optimism sits at the top. Strategic reserve releases bought time. American-supported workarounds moved real barrels. Demand destruction, especially with China stepping back, reduced pressure. Improved gasoline inventories helped. Some of the more speculative theories include sanctions waivers for Iranian oil, greater tolerance for shadow-fleet shipments, and alternate export routes making Hormuz less decisive than Iran hoped.What stands out is that there were more American incentives to get to the table than Iranian ones. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is a temporary band-aid. Smuggling oil out of the Gulf is risky. Every day the Strait of Hormuz remained closed carried economic and military risks. That helps explain why the White House wanted a deal. Iran had incentives too, especially if China was no longer buying at previous levels, but the balance of pressure appears different than many expected.My assumption remains what it has been for weeks: there are multiple power centers inside Iran, and the biggest question is whether any deal can survive them. The Ayatollah is gone, much of Iran’s leadership structure has been shattered, and the IRGC itself appears divided between factions willing to make a deal and hardliners who want to keep fighting. The memorandum of understanding may give us a clearer picture when we finally see it. Until then, the biggest question isn’t whether a deal exists. It’s whether anyone on the Iranian side can actually enforce it.Chapters00:00:00 - Intro00:02:38 - Iran and Gas Prices00:31:47 - Update00:32:04 - UFC 250 Terrorism Plot00:37:46 - Russia-Ukraine00:39:48 - Primaries00:42:48 - Interview with Maria Curi01:11:46 - Wrap-up This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/subscribe
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  Is Our Iran Deal Groundhog Day Almost Over? Platner, LA's Mayor, and More (with Karol Markowicz) 11.06.2026 1val 10min

  The situation with Iran continues to feel like Groundhog Day, except this time, believe it or not, there may actually be movement.Earlier this week, I mentioned that I had heard from people in the know that the United States military was coiled to strike Iran and was looking for either provocation or justification to resume major military activity. That appeared to happen when Iran shot down an Apache helicopter that was escorting oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. We also learned that more than 100 million barrels of oil had moved through the strait under U.S. protection over the last month.Politics Politics Politics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.One of the reasons that caught my attention is that gas prices in the United States have been falling pretty dramatically. It was a head-scratcher. If the Strait of Hormuz was effectively stalled, then what explained the drop? Was it a global rerouting of supply? Was there a China component that had been negotiated and never publicly heralded? I didn’t know then, and I don’t know now, but the announcement about oil shipments at least provides part of the picture.What’s more interesting is what happened next. After one night of military strikes, the second night was canceled. Donald Trump said that’s because we’re at the point of a deal, one that has supposedly been signed off on by all available parties in the region. It appears to resemble the memorandum of understanding that’s been floating around for weeks, although nobody really knows because we still haven’t seen the text. We don’t know if it’s real. We don’t even know exactly what it says.The administration’s definition of success has been fairly consistent: Iran gives up its nuclear material and removes the nuclear threat. If that’s actually in the agreement, then it would be meaningfully different from what came before. The obvious question is what Iran gets in return. The reporting and public comments suggest that Tehran is focused on access to frozen assets and getting money quickly. Whether that money goes directly to Iran, whether it’s routed through humanitarian aid, and what conditions are attached are all questions that still need answers.The strongest sign that something may actually be happening is coming from inside Iran. Reports indicate that FARS, the IRGC-controlled news agency, is acknowledging that a draft memorandum of understanding exists, that the United States has approved it, and that Iran is likely to do the same. The bigger question is whether any agreement can actually be enforced. Iran’s leadership appears splintered. We’ve seen officials make commitments before, only to have military figures or IRGC commanders move in a different direction. That’s why the real issue isn’t whether a deal can be signed. It’s whether anybody in Iran has enough authority to keep it.Chapters00:00:00 - Intro00:02:48 - Iran00:08:38 - Interview with Karol Markowicz00:36:19 - Update00:37:19 - DeSantis and AI00:42:56 - FISA00:44:42 - Director of National Intelligence00:47:17 - Interview with Karol Markowicz, con’t01:07:27 - Wrap-up This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/subscribe
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  It's Time to Fix How California Counts Votes. Does Platner Still Have a Shot? (with Bill Scher) 09.06.2026 1val 17min

  California is inviting questions about its elections because of a problem that is entirely solvable: the state takes too long to count ballots. This LA mayoral race is just the latest example.Let’s look at what happened. On election night, Karen Bass was at 30 percent of the vote. Spencer Pratt was at 28 percent. Nithya Raman was around 20 percent. Every model from respected vote-modeling people that I saw indicated that Raman would gain more than Pratt in the later votes, presumably giving her enough to catch up to a less-distant third place without surpassing Pratt’s campaign. Instead, we got an avalanche of late Raman support.Politics Politics Politics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.The first vote drop had Raman running about 10 percent ahead of Pratt. The second was stronger. Then Friday came around, and things got really weird. Whether you want to ascribe malicious motives to it or whether it’s totally above board and legitimate, the fact that this is happening on Friday for an election that happened on Tuesday becomes suspicious when Raman gets 40 percent of the vote total in a drop. She’s not only running ahead of Pratt, she’s running ahead of Bass. The same thing happened Saturday. The same thing happened Sunday. Now Raman is through to face Bass in the general a week after this sort of outcome — even in LA — seemed unlikely.Am I saying that somebody cured ballots after seeing the results? Am I saying somebody harvested ballots? No. I don’t know specifics, and nobody else does, quite frankly. I’m saying you don’t have to do this. Opening the process up this way is the reason you create suspicion. Is it odd? Yeah, it is odd. Even the people who thought Raman was going to overtake Pratt thought it would happen by the skin of her teeth at the very end. Nobody thought it was going to be over by the weekend. It’s beyond expectations.I’m going to renew my call here, and it’s not just me saying it. You’ve got systems in America that process a lot of votes really fast, and the way they do it is not rocket science. Florida created a system after 2000 that handles a lot of early voting and a lot of vote-by-mail, but those ballots are processed before Election Day and then dumped into the results when the polls close.If we’re in an era of declining trust in elections, then I don’t care how you think we got here. I don’t care if you think it was Chicago in 1960, hanging chads in 2000, Democrats in 2020, Elon Musk and Starlink in 2024, or any of the other election fraud theories that have floated around American politics. What I care about is creating a system that we can all look at and say, “Seems like what happened.” I don’t think California is close to having that, and it’s only going to get worse if we don’t make some big changes ahead of 2028.Chapters00:00:00 - Intro00:03:22 - California Results00:13:57 - Interview with Bill Scher00:35:08 - FISA00:38:06 - Walz and Ellison00:41:19 - Dems’ New Super PAC00:44:09 - Interview with Bill Scher, con’t01:13:13 - Wrap-up This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/subscribe
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  The Graham Platner Situation Gets WORSE! Texas Senate Races and DC Bar Drama (with Reese Gorman) 04.06.2026 1val 5min

  A new Graham Platner story dropped today, and it answers one question while opening about a dozen others. The reporting centers on an ex-girlfriend from his time in Washington who describes behavior that she says included being yanked out of cabs, shaken by the shoulders, blocked from leaving rooms, and subjected to bizarre conversations about violence and power. The Platner campaign does not appear to dispute many of the specifics. Instead, it continues to insist that none of this amounts to sexual assault. Their strategy is obvious: keep this campaign alive until July 10, the last day under Maine law that Democrats could replace him on the ballot.The problem is that the list of people the campaign says are actually the problem keeps getting longer. First it was the former campaign manager. Now it’s an ex-girlfriend. The campaign has gone out of its way to point out that the woman worked in Republican politics years ago. Maybe that’s relevant, maybe it isn’t. What matters politically is that this is now the second woman in a week whose allegations are being dismissed while the campaign asks everyone to focus on Graham Platner instead. Meanwhile, the campaign’s own internal polling reportedly has him four points ahead of Susan Collins. That’s not exactly reassuring when a public poll from late May had him up nine. If you’re releasing a poll to save a candidacy and it shows you’ve lost five points, that’s not great.Politics Politics Politics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.The bigger issue remains the stuff we still don’t know. The dating stories are damaging, but the Kik story is the Pandora’s box. That’s the ugly stuff. What’s behind that door? The potential answer is why this scandal continues to dominate the conversation. Platner’s goal now is simple: survive the primary, survive the next month, and make it to July 10. If he’s still standing then, Democrats may have no choice but to circle the wagons.Elsewhere, there was a polling shocker in Ohio. A Fox News poll found Sherrod Brown leading Senator John Husted by eight points, 53 to 45. If we start seeing more polls like that, Democrats may have found one of their best pickup opportunities. Brown is a known quantity in Ohio. If the environment continues to improve for Democrats, it may not matter how exciting or energetic his campaign is. He could simply coast on familiarity and favorable conditions.California, meanwhile, continues to count ballots at a pace that seems designed to test the limits of human patience. The governor’s race is still unresolved, and Los Angeles mayoral results remain in flux. What frustrates me is that this is a choice. California mails ballots to everyone and allows ballots to arrive days after the election. Fine. But there’s no reason the ballots already in hand couldn’t be processed faster. Instead, the state releases vote drops so slowly that candidates can spend weeks appearing to lead or trail before the public gets anything close to a final picture. I genuinely think that’s bad for democracy because people are not wired to watch somebody lead by eight points and then potentially lose weeks later.That brings us to Spencer Pratt and Nithya Raman. Prediction markets currently have Raman favored to make the general election despite Pratt holding second place. I don’t understand the math. Raman gained ground in the latest vote drop, but not nearly at the pace she would need to overtake him. Maybe future batches change that. Maybe they don’t. But when prediction markets start pricing in outcomes that don’t seem to match the publicly available numbers, people begin assuming something else is going on. That’s another reason the endless California count is so damaging. Even if everything is perfectly legitimate, the process encourages suspicion in ways that simply don’t seem necessary.Chapters00:00:00 - Intro00:01:20 - Graham Platner00:09:22 - Ohio and California00:14:58 - Interview with Reese Gorman00:30:18 - John Bolton00:32:01 - Todd Blanche00:34:26 - College Sports Bill00:41:28 - Interview with Reese Gorman, con’t01:01:43 - Wrap-up This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/subscribe
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  Is Platner Done? All the Antics of Canadian Parliament (with Evan Scrimshaw and Charlie Feldman) 02.06.2026 1val 35min

  The Trump administration is backing away from a planned $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund after a revolt from Republicans on Capitol Hill. The fund, tied to a settlement and intended to be administered by the Justice Department, had drawn criticism as a potential slush fund that could benefit Trump allies prosecuted under the Biden administration. White House officials told GOP leaders they were retreating from the proposal, at least for now.What stands out to me is that this was never something Trump could simply do by executive order. It would have had to move through Congress, and right now he is running short on political leverage. Collins, Murkowski, and McConnell have already shown they’re willing to break with the administration. Add in senators like Tom Tillis, John Cornyn, and Bill Cassidy, who have their own political considerations, and suddenly there are a lot of Republican votes that need convincing. If every other priority is tied to this fund, it becomes a problem. The White House has signaled retreat…. for now.Politics Politics Politics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Meanwhile, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has sued OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, alleging that ChatGPT is an unsafe product, particularly for children, and that the company misled the public about its risks. The lawsuit argues that AI contributes to harms including addiction, suicide, and even mass shootings. What makes this interesting is that there are no clean ideological fault lines on AI. In Florida, AI is increasingly being treated as just another version of Big Tech, grouped together with the companies conservatives believe have censored or de-platformed them. Simultaneously, politicians in states like Michigan are celebrating AI investments, data centers, and the jobs that come with them, even as it might leave Gretchen Whitmer on the outside looking in for 2028. As AI becomes a larger part of the economy, states are going to play a much bigger role in determining how it develops.But our biggest story remains Iran. Over the last few days, a targeted IRGC commander killing, an attack on a U.S. airbase in Kuwait, and reports that Iran is ending ceasefire talks have all pushed events away from diplomacy and toward escalation. Iran is threatening to fully shut down the Strait of Hormuz and other export routes. The president of Iran has reportedly tendered his resignation, while the IRGC appears to be tightening its grip on power. At the same time, Hezbollah has reportedly signaled a willingness to accept a ceasefire with Israel, though neither American nor Israeli officials seem convinced it would hold.Everything now revolves around leverage. The Strait of Hormuz is Iran’s last major bargaining chip. If it reopens without major concessions, Tehran loses a significant source of pressure. If Iran gives up its nuclear ambitions or loses the ability to project power through regional proxies, the regime risks undermining the very justification it has used for decades. Meanwhile, global oil markets are hanging on every development. Hopes of a diplomatic breakthrough have helped keep prices contained, but each new escalation raises the possibility that the conflict widens and energy markets absorb the shock.One small but important development is that internet access appears to be returning inside Iran after months of restrictions. That means more information is beginning to flow out of the country at a moment when the political situation appears increasingly unstable. Whether this ends in negotiations, further military action, or a deeper internal power struggle unfortunately remains wrapped in the fog of war.Chapters00:00:00 - Intro00:03:07 - Interview with Evan Scrimshaw00:39:19 - Trump Slush Fund00:42:13 - AI Lawsuit00:46:34 - Iran00:50:10 - Interview with Charlie Feldman01:30:42 - Wrap-up This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/subscribe
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  Iran Proposal BREAKDOWN. Have We Reached the End of All Podcasts? (with Michael Tracey) 28.05.2026 1val 28min

  We currently have a reported 60-day framework on the table between the United States and Iran that would temporarily extend the current ceasefire dynamics and create space for renewed nuclear negotiations. To be clear, it’s not a breakthrough deal. This feels like a pressure valve built to prevent escalation from snapping back while both sides decide whether they can actually land something bigger.The center of gravity here is the Strait of Hormuz. That is where the entire arrangement becomes real or falls apart. The reported structure prioritizes restoring and guaranteeing commercial shipping through the strait, easing maritime restrictions, and reducing the risk of renewed disruption in one of the most important energy chokepoints on the planet. In exchange, Iran would gain movement on sanctions relief and potentially access to frozen funds, while the United States would push for verifiable constraints on uranium enrichment and clearer handling of existing stockpiles.Politics Politics Politics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Nobody is pretending this is a final settlement. It reads more like a staged de-escalation plan: stabilize shipping first, then attempt to negotiate the more politically radioactive issues like enrichment levels, inspection access, and long-term nuclear limits. The idea is to reduce immediate risk before trying to solve the underlying conflict.That underlying conflict is the same one that has defined U.S.–Iran relations for decades. Economic relief in exchange for nuclear restraint. The structure is familiar, even if the packaging is not. Anyone watching this unfold will recognize echoes of past negotiations, especially the JCPOA framework, where the core trade was access to global markets in return for limits on Iran’s nuclear program. The political debate around that model has never really gone away, and it is very much present again here.The fragility of the situation is obvious in the way it is being described. Working-level agreement is one thing. Leadership approval is another. That gap is where deals like this tend to stall, shift, or collapse entirely. Even small changes in political appetite can rewire the entire structure.Still, this feels like the first tangible step towards restoring reliable, uninterrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. If that actually does happen, everything else becomes more plausible. If it does not, the rest of the framework is just another document waiting for even events to overtake it. God knows we’ve seen enough of those.Chapters00:00:00 - Intro00:03:07 - Iran Deal?00:10:49 - Interview with Michael Tracey00:36:18 - Update/LA Mayor Polling00:39:46 - Trump’s AI Deal00:43:43 - 2028 Dem Frontrunners00:46:09 - Interview with Michael Tracey, con’t01:25:16 - Wrap-up This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/subscribe
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  FINAL Texas Predictions! Exploring the Uncanny Valley of AI Ads (with Brian Brushwood) 26.05.2026 1val 21min

  Texas Republicans are about to answer a question that has been hanging over the party since 2024: is partial loyalty to Trump enough anymore, or do you either become fully absorbed into MAGA or get pushed out entirely? Because both John Cornyn and Chip Roy represent different versions of Republicanism that tried, in different ways, to coexist with Trump without completely surrendering to him. And right now it looks like both experiments are failing. Chip Roy backed Ron DeSantis and spent years cultivating the image of an ideological purist who would occasionally buck leadership. Cornyn, meanwhile, did the exact opposite. He spent the last few years trying to carefully stay inside Trump’s orbit, hiring Trumpworld operatives and constantly reminding voters how aligned he was with the president. One strategy was confrontation, the other was accommodation, and both may end in political extinction.Politics Politics Politics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.The Roy situation honestly feels more straightforward. MAGA voters have absurdly long memories when it comes to perceived disloyalty during the DeSantis challenge. Roy spent the last year trying to re-enter the fold by being more cooperative, less antagonistic, more visibly aligned with the movement, but the suspicion never really disappeared. In a normal political environment, Roy’s résumé would make him a strong favorite for statewide office in Texas. Instead, he now looks like somebody who made one unforgivable career calculation at exactly the wrong moment. If the polling is right and Mays Middleton wins comfortably, then the lesson Republican politicians will take from this is brutal: you do not get credit for eventually coming home after backing an alternative to Trump. The scarlet letter sticks.Cornyn’s downfall is more interesting because he actually played the game correctly, at least according to the old rules. He built institutional support. He raised enormous amounts of money. He aligned himself with Trump operationally. For a while it even looked like it might work. He outperformed expectations in the initial round of voting and there were persistent rumors that Trumpworld had seriously considered endorsing him. But the problem with trying to survive inside Trump politics is that eventually survival itself becomes weakness. Ken Paxton understood this instinctively. He didn’t need to prove he was more effective than Cornyn. He just needed to remain more emotionally connected to the base long enough for Trump to make a final decision. Once the endorsement landed, the race effectively stopped being about qualifications and became a referendum on who belonged more naturally inside the MAGA coalition.What’s fascinating is that this same dynamic is now showing signs of strain elsewhere. South Carolina Republicans refusing to immediately fall in line on redistricting suggests at least some elected Republicans are beginning to quietly calculate for a post-Trump future. Not necessarily because Trump lacks influence — he very clearly still has it — but because the timing starts to matter. If Trump cannot personally destroy you until after the next election cycle, then maybe you can survive long enough for his attention to move elsewhere. That’s the first real symptom of lame-duck politics: not open rebellion, but selective hesitation. Politicians start making small bets that enforcement may become inconsistent.And that’s probably the deeper story underneath all of this. Trump still absolutely has the power to end Republican careers. Thomas Massie just learned that. Cornyn is probably about to learn it. Roy may learn it too. But the coalition is also beginning to subtly adapt around the reality that Trump’s political clock is finite. The question is whether Republicans are entering a transition period where fear of Trump remains dominant but no longer universally paralyzing. Because once politicians begin believing there are scenarios where they can survive crossing him, even temporarily, then the entire incentive structure inside the party starts to change.Chapters00:00:00 - Intro00:02:51 - Final Texas Prediction00:09:05 - AI Ads with Brian Brushwood00:30:23 - South Carolina00:33:54 - Iran00:37:46 - Trump’s Physical00:40:47 - AI Ads with Brian Brushwood, con’t01:18:25 - Wrap-up This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/subscribe
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  The DNC Autopsy RISES! How Political Outsiders are Dominating the Midterms (with Chris Cillizza) 22.05.2026 1val 22min

  The Democratic Party finally released its 2024 autopsy and somehow managed to make the whole situation look even worse. Not because the conclusions were devastating. Honestly, the conclusions barely mattered. The thing itself apparently reads like garbage. Wrong facts, shallow sourcing, no real accountability structure, no serious attempt to interrogate the deeper failures of the campaign. Ken Martin’s explanation for why he sat on it for months was basically: “I thought it sucked.” Which immediately raises the obvious follow-up question: then why are you releasing it now instead of fixing it?That’s the part that really sticks with me. A bad first draft is not some unforgivable sin. Every organization produces bad drafts. The problem is what happened next. Instead of commissioning a better version, expanding the scope, interviewing more people, and turning it into something useful, the DNC chair basically admitted he got scared. Scared of upsetting Biden loyalists. Scared of upsetting Kamala people. Scared of turning the 2028 primary into a blame war. Scared of stakeholders. Scared of his own shadow. And if your political party just suffered a massive defeat and is going through a structural identity crisis, “risk-averse hall monitor” is probably the worst possible archetype you can install at the top.Politics Politics Politics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Because the Democratic Party’s problems are not cosmetic — they are systemic. The issue is not whether they were two clicks too progressive or three clicks too centrist on Gaza or Liz Cheney or whatever argument people want to relitigate forever. You can build winning coalitions with different ideological mixes. What you cannot survive is an outdated operating system. The Democrats still communicate like it’s 2012. They still protect candidates through message discipline instead of exposure. They still behave like traditional media gatekeeping works. They still think carefully managed campaigns can survive in a hyper-networked political culture where voters expect constant access and authenticity, or at least the performance of authenticity.That’s why I keep coming back to the feeling I had during the 2024 Democratic convention. Everybody was celebrating. Everybody was dancing. Everybody was acting like the vibes alone had solved the party’s problems. And the whole thing felt to me like a deeply dysfunctional family that had temporarily won the lottery. For one week everybody’s hugging each other, buying champagne, pretending the underlying rot disappeared. But the money doesn’t fix the alcoholism. It doesn’t fix the debt. It doesn’t fix the resentment. Eventually the sugar high wears off and you’re left with exactly the same structural problems you had before, except now everybody’s angrier because the miracle cure didn’t work.Republicans, for all their chaos, at least went through this process earlier. Trump bulldozed the old Republican establishment starting in 2016, and whether you think that was good or bad, it forced the party to evolve operationally. They adapted to social media faster. They understood small-dollar online fundraising faster. They cultivated emerging political communities like crypto and AI faster. The Democrats still feel institutionally run by either the same people from the Obama era or the protégés of those people. Even when personnel changes, the culture often doesn’t. And culture matters more than almost anything in politics because culture determines how fast you can adapt when the ground shifts underneath you.Which is why the current Democratic polling advantage feels fragile to me. Democrats are benefiting because Donald Trump is politically damaging himself on Iran, Epstein, and governance. They are functioning as a check on Trump. That is different from voters enthusiastically buying into a coherent Democratic agenda. Even now, when Democrats talk about affordability, it often sounds abstract and bureaucratic instead of tangible. Huge spending programs, diffuse benefits, complicated delivery systems — the exact kind of stuff voters chronically struggle to emotionally connect with. So if the party leadership can’t even produce a competent internal autopsy after one of the most consequential losses in modern politics, it’s hard to argue they are materially closer to fixing the deeper problems underneath all of this.Chapters00:00:00 - Intro00:03:00 - DNC 2024 Autopsy00:15:24 - Interview with Chris Cillizza00:40:19 - Trump’s AI Deal Postponed00:46:11 - Senate Republicans vs. Trump’s Slush Fund00:50:38 - Raúl Castro00:57:25 - Interview with Chris Cillizza, con’t01:19:44 - Wrap-up This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/subscribe