Politix

Two weeks into his trade war, Donald Trump has made at least a few tactical retreats, and markets have stabilized a bit as a result. Are we just in the eye of the storm? Or is it possible the economic fallout from the trade war won’t be as severe as we feared on LIBERATION DAY?

In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

* Why did markets recover signi...

Last week, in one fell swoop, Donald Trump wiped out trillions of dollars in wealth, upended all of our trade relations, and poised the U.S. for a lengthy recession and higher prices. His big money backers are in freakout mode. He’s made himself politically vulnerable in dramatic fashion, but also undermined the foundations of the American age.

In ...

There are signs of life in the Democratic Party, and if Republicans continue to badly underperform in special elections, the vibes could shift. But there are some things even a robust opposition can’t really stop, when a president claims autocratic power, and is insulated from normal political considerations

After a brief discussion of Cory Booker’...

Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats continue to catch hell from their own voters for caving in the government shutdown fight. But in the coming days, perhaps sooner than most people are expecting, Congress will have to increase the debt limit. And once again, Democrats will have to decide whether and how to use their votes to rein in an out-of-cont...

Donald Trump is becoming unpopular, but Democrats are more unpopular than they’ve ever been, reflecting not just Republican voter partisanship, but the fact that tens of millions of Democratic voters are fed up with their party’s conduct in the aftermath of the election. With partisan anger boiling over, calls for Chuck Schumer to resign from lead...

By the time this episode runs, we’ll be two days from the deadline to fund the government. And if Republicans get there act together juuuust a bit, Democrats will have to decide if and how to wield their leverage to the end of forcing the Trump administration back into compliance with the rule of law.

In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

* Can D...

Just six weeks into his presidency, Donald Trump has dragged the country to the brink of recession. He’s become unpopular, lost the public’s trust to handle the economy, and hollowed out the government in risky ways. So in his first speech to Congress, Trump: blamed all of it on Joe Biden, subjected Democrats to a torrent of abuse, lied about Social Security (among many other things), and redoubled his commitment to tariffs, even i...

Even in the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, most Americans thought Donald Trump was a good steward of the economy. This misplaced faith has been key to his political durability. But after just one month of indiscriminately firing federal workers, illegally reneging on federal spending commitments, and making erratic threats to tariff the bej...

Explaining the GOP’s rapid slide into authoritarianism is complicated, but you can’t tell the story if you don’t understand that Republicans have been unwilling to abandon huge, unpopular tax cuts for the rich as an organizing principle. In their view of things, if popular majorities don’t support regressive tax cuts, then democracy has to go. So ...

Donald Trump and Elon Musk are now on the receiving end of multiple court orders requiring them to rein in their constitutional crime spree: resume impounded payments, destroy improperly downloaded government data, restore regular government communications. Their response, as of this recording, has been to see how contemptuous they can be of the o...

Prior to the election, Elon Musk warned non-billionaire Americans to brace for “temporary hardship” (approving) in the event of a second Donald Trump presidency. Over the weekend, after insisting he’d impose 25 percent tariffs on all Canadian and Mexican imports, Trump also acknowledged (perhaps for the first time) that his economic policies will ...

In just the past week, Donald Trump has illegally fired over a dozen federal anti-corruption watchdogs, installed Fox News weekend host Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense, and then claimed the power to arbitrarily withhold congressional appropriation—an unconstitutional maneuver called “impoundment.”

In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

* What...

It’s the first Politix podcast of Donald Trump’s second presidency, and it began more or less how we expected: with a lot of bluster and bullshit, but also real demonstrations of lawlessness. Thanks John Roberts?

In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

* Trump’s immigration executive orders, with a special focus on his effort to unilaterally suspen...

It’s the final Politix podcast of Joe Biden’s presidency! Soon Donald Trump will be inaugurated president for a second, non-consecutive term. Inflation and crime and border crossings will fall, wages will rise, and America will be great again. Except…all those things already happened.

In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

* Why did the Biden pres...

Multiple developments over the holiday break raise real questions about who will call the shots in Donald Trump’s still-forming administration. Elon Musk seemed to commandeer aspects of legislative strategy, immigration, and foreign policy. Republicans in Congress seemed to heed Musk over Trump, while leaving Trump wide berth to enrich himself and...

The mailbag episode is here! Thanks to all who sent questions, and apologies to those who didn’t get answers. We hoped to get through more, but brevity isn’t our strong suit and we ran out of time. But the answers we DID deliver are choice, in our opinion.

We touch on:

* Ezra Klein’s terribly wrong ideas about the political impact of blue-state and blue-city misgovernance;

* What Donald Trump’s attempt at an unconstitutional third ter...

The mailbag episode will have to wait, but for good reason! An opportunity arose for us to interview Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair (and DNC chair candidate) Ben Wikler. So we jumped on it—and warmly extend an invitation to other DNC chair candidates to join us in the new year.

In this episode, Matt and Brian ask Ben:

* What he thinks happened in ...

Last week, a big public uproar forced the health-insurance carrier Anthem to backtrack on a plan to cut reimbursements for anesthesia. Then, an assassin—suspected to be a 26 year old ivy league graduate named Luigi Mangiano—murdered Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare.

In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

* Why there such widespread pro...

Donald Trump and Joe Biden marked the weekend after thanksgiving with two big news developments that look a lot like chess moves in a high-stakes match between the revenge-obsessed far right and the outgoing liberal establishment. First, Trump nominated Kash Patel, an aggrieved loyalist with a literal enemies list, to run the FBI. Second, Biden pa...