Systemic Error Podcast

SEATTLE, WA, USA - APR 3, 2025: A man holds smartphone with Truth Social app on Google Play and the face of US president Donald Trump in the background. The app is owned by TMTG. (Photo credit: Charles-McClintock Wilson / Shutterstock) The President as AI’s Only Guardrail Is the Crisis Power Without Restraint Donald Trump’s latest declaration on artificial intelligence is not a policy so much as a...

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with travel executives in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 2, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo FEMA Was Ordered to Invent a Reason for Its Own Destruction The Number Came First The Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security ordered FEMA to plan for cutting its workforce from...

U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) waves at reporters outside the Senate Chamber after he returned to Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 14, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci A Senate Seat Is Not a Party-Owned Hospital Bed The Spectacle Is Not the Scandal Mitch McConnell returned to the Senate after a hospitalization, having missed more than 60 roll-call votes, and appeared in public using...

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters about the helipad being constructed on the South Lawn, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 19, 2026. REUTERS/Kylie Cooper/File Photo The Press Ban Is the Story. Trump’s Psyche Is a Distraction. An Official Act, Not a Temper Tantrum Donald Trump announced that CNN, MS NOW, and Politico would be barred from the White House because thei...

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an observance ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon, in Washington, D.C., September 11, 2026. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz The Loyalty Test Was the Policy Patronage Disguised as Hiring The Trump administration ordered federal agencies to ask job applicants how they would advance the president’s executive orders...

FILE PHOTO: Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico speaks during a rally in San Antonio, Texas, U.S., May 29, 2026. REUTERS/Joel Angel Juarez The FCC’s Message Was the Censorship The Power Was Federal The central fact is not that James Talarico joked with Jimmy Kimmel or sold shirts bearing Donald Trump’s “Talafreako” nickname. It is that Kimmel said the Federal Communications Commission threa...

President Trump walks by his Executive assistant Natalie Harp as they attend a dignified transfer of the remains of U.S. Army service members, Army 1st Lt Tyler James Feehan, Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad, Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, killed during an attack on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, and Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, killed in action during a controlled detonation of a downed one-way unmanned ae...

U.S. President Donald Trump disembarks Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., September 7, 2026. REUTERS/Eric Lee The Bruise Is Not the Story. The Secrecy Is. A Government Reduced to Zooming In New images of President Donald Trump at his Bedminster golf club show bruising, pronounced bags under his eyes, and changes in his appearance. Those details have revived speculation about the...

Former U.S. President George W. Bush and former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (not pictured) have a conversation as the George W. Bush Presidential Center commemorates the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks in Dallas, Texas, U.S., September 9, 2026. REUTERS/Jeremy Lock George W. Bush Paints Himself Into the Frame A Presidency Reduced to a Reaction Shot George W. Bush mar...

REUTERS/Octavio Jones The Senate Seat Trump Wants as a Loyalty Trophy The Appointment Was the First Exercise of Power South Carolina voters are being offered a choice whose terms were set long before Election Day. After Lindsey Graham’s death, the governor appointed his sister, Darline Graham, to the vacant Senate seat. Donald Trump then endorsed her bid for a full term, helping her survive a prim...

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an event to honor “Angel Families” who have lost family members to crimes committed by people in the country illegally, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 23, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein The “Strange Bedfellows” Are Not the Story. Unchecked AI Power Is. A Coalition Is Not a Contradiction Ashley Judd, Bernie Sanders, Steve Bannon, and...

U.S. President Donald Trump in Evian-les-Bains, France, June 17, 2026. REUTERS_Evelyn Hockstein The Pardon Market and the Price of Telling the Truth Torture Was Policy, Not Confusion John Kiriakou exposed the CIA’s use of waterboarding while prisoners were stripped, shackled, deprived of sleep, forced into stress positions, and confined in coffin-sized boxes. The government later imprisoned him fo...

Personnel work near Air Force One ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s trip to the Republican National Midterm Convention, at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., September 9, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci The Flying Palace and the Machinery of Presidential Vanity A Gift With a Chain Attached Donald Trump sat inside Marine One while ground crews dealt with a deployed emergency slide on the Qatari jet...

Ron DeSantis speaks in Tallahassee, Florida. REUTERS/Phil Sears Florida’s Missing $10 Million—and the Government Built to Forget Public Money, Political Machinery A Medicaid contractor paid Florida a $67 million settlement after overbilling the state. Ten million dollars then traveled through the Hope Florida Foundation into political committees and ultimately helped the Republican Party fight a r...

Photo by Joshua Rawson-Harris on Unsplash The Price of a Cheap Burger Is Regulatory Surrender This Was a Political Choice Donald Trump used presidential authority to admit roughly 660 million pounds of foreign beef without the usual out-of-quota tariff. The reporting places that decision alongside weakened food-safety enforcement, opaque sourcing, and a private Oval Office meeting with JBS co-owne...

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with the media before boarding Marine One for travel to Florida from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 6, 2026. REUTERS/Leah Millis The “Sale” That Makes Americans Pay for Israel’s Bombs A Transaction Designed to Conceal the Subsidy The Trump administration is preparing a $2.8 billion weapons package for Israel that reportedly...

REUTERS/Callaghan O’Hare The Scapegoat Coalition Is the Governing Coalition Hate Is Not a Distraction Donald Trump’s political strength does not survive despite his bigotry. It depends on it. The source describes an administration producing economic pain, institutional decay, environmental damage, military dysfunction, and attacks on voting rights. Yet Trump retains fierce loyalty because he offer...

U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche attends a television interview at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 2, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein The Justice Department Wants Obedience to Be Optional The Order and the Defiance In March 2025, Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered the government to turn around deportation flights carrying Venezuelan men to El Salvador. The fligh...

U.S. President Donald Trump looks on as he exits Air Force One on his arrival at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., January 31, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard Trump Chose the War. His Allies Inherited the Damage. A Ceasefire Built on Failure The Houthis have seized the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, threatening the Red Sea route Saudi Arabia turned to after Iran took control o...

(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Trump Is Accelerating a Collapse He Did Not Create The “Yawn” Is Policy Donald Trump’s dismissal of affordable-housing legislation as a “yawn” is not merely another vulgar presidential aside. It accurately describes his administration’s governing choice: leave housing to developers chasing the highest returns, impose tariffs that raise construction costs, and of...

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks while hosting a dinner in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 2, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File PhotoTrump’s 9/11 Myth Is Not a Mistake. It’s a Power Move. The Story He Wants Days before the 25th anniversary of 9/11, Donald Trump told Fox News host Trey Gowdy that he rushed downtown after the towers fell, sent...

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump listens as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks during a cabinet meeting at Camp David in Thurmont, Maryland, U.S., July 31, 2026. REUTERS/Daniel Heuer/File Photo The House Goes Home Rather Than Go on Record A Recess With a Purpose Mike Johnson controls the House schedule, and he used that power to cancel Thursday’s votes and prepare to send lawmakers ho...

Corey Lewandowski -- (Photo by Lucas Jackson / Reuters | Credit: REUTERS) The Shadow Government Was the Corruption An Operative Behind the Secretary The Wall Street Journal’s reporting describes Corey Lewandowski—who held no Senate-confirmed office—exercising influence over billions of dollars in Department of Homeland Security spending while Kristi Noem formally ran the department. It alleges tha...

Pete Hegseth speaks to senior military leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia. Andrew Harnik/REUTERS The Pentagon’s Problem Is Not Pete Hegseth. It Is the Power That Chose Him. A Revolt Without Accountability The reported campaign against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is being conducted through leaks because the officials around him apparently lack either the authority or the willingness...

REUTERS Evelyn Hockstein The Loyalty Test Was the Government Chaos Was the Design Anthony Scaramucci’s brief White House tenure exposed an administration divided into hostile camps: Reince Priebus’s Republican establishment, Steve Bannon’s far-right faction, and the family operation around Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. They leaked against one another, blocked rivals from gaining access, and trea...