The Fifth Column

-Gov. Chris Christie says Kmele has no excuse -Getting drunk with Colbert -No drugs, ever -RFK Jr.’s drug use -The only things Trump believes in -something is a little off about John Kasich -Olivia Nuzzi is a Freak, Crumb Cake edition -Michael Barbaro tried to take the Gov down with food -Bon Jovi, Bruce, and New Jersey loyalty tests -The Little Marco Florsheim Fib -The ultimate Kushner lore, aka...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com He also weighs in on populism, inequality, private credit, and why a country can be prosperous on paper while still feeling bleak to the people living in it. -“Blankfein hates minorities” -the economy is strong, unless you don’t own anything -get a grip, it’s not 1968 -semi-charmed kind of life -from Russia to China,...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com From the multiverse to time travel to bad studies and internet “experts,” and then all the way to metaphysics and belief, Sean Carroll explains why modern life makes everyone sound so sure about things they barely understand. -Moynihan is genuinely unnerved by space -a theoretical physicist’s favorite music is prog ro...

Hooman Majd comes from a family that reads like a parable about modern Iran: a grandfather who was an ayatollah, an uncle who worked for the Shah, and a folk-singing aunt. Everyone’s family has a version of this, right? -Iran is a tragedy -the sense of triumph has already faded -is Hooman happy the Supreme Leader was killed? -Trump’s motive: regime change, or only regime adjustment? -a ring of fir...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com -Matt takes off his glasses, Kmele panics -Moynihan is furious we started a war during his aggressive vomiting window -The Great Unwrapping of Liberated Iranian Women as the most convincing reason for war -Marco Rubio sells the rationale in Möbius-strip logic -the Dee Snider Doctrine -The Death of the War Powers Resol...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com Journalist Nadav Eyal joins Welch and Moyniahn to game out the Iran strikes, why Gaza’s endgame is still murky, and why the “no boots on the ground” promise matters more than most hot takes admit. -Zen and the Art of Strategic Surprise -Everyone who’s anyone in the region knew this was going to happen. -Why the US was...

I first met Ken Layne sometime in 1991, back when Vanilla Ice ruled the pop charts, the Soviet Union was still a thing, and Canadians still had a reasonable expectation of winning the Stanley Cup. We have been collaborating and experimenting ever since -- a little newspapering here , some music there , various dot-com shenanigans , all of it in a spirit of adventure, learning, and hijinks. Ken has...

-Matt Welch’s Caribbean identity crisis at Da Pig Beach -The State of the Union aka a two-hour hostage note -A greatest hits, lowest lights compilation for President Camacho -The futility of “speeching” your way through a math-defying approval rating -You can’t talk your way through a 38% approval rating -Let the hockey boys drink -Dan Crenshaw is allowed to be mad -The RNC’s new guard of real fuc...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com Kash chugs it back with the toothless champions Trump and his locker room talk with the boys State of the Union and the Six Year Itch A uniquely conspiratorial moment in an already conspiratorial nation PizzaGate nostalgia hour Fact checking dies in public A laundry list of made up shit that’s not even close to being...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com * Damon Root’s book Overruled: The Long War for Control of the U.S. Supreme Court * Basic civics, reintroduced * Root’s mood in five words * What becomes of this useless Congress? * Why not 9–0? Root on the three dissenters * The “major questions doctrine” translated * Profiles in inconsistenty * Doesn’t matter! Trump...

-The dork Star Wars cantina of famous biographers -Jefferson’s hypocrisy and the impossibility of paragon standards -Lincoln was not an abolitionist -The Howard Zinnification of American history -Ambiguity as the ideological propagandist’s mortal enemy -The true (New Testament) saint of America -George H.W. Bush’s blunt admission -This president would cut your throat for a vote, then be the first...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com -Please say hello to our new Sunset Park neighbor -The American Chávez -The Nobel Prize Grudge -The Dictatorship That Remained -Political Pilgrims and Failed Experiments -Maria the Maid and the, “Gay Marriage Lady” slur -A Masterclass in Macro-Failure -The Media Pioneer -The Illusion of Democracy -Economic Voodoo -The...

For Christmas 2024, I was gifted Robert Sullivan’s delightful My American Revolution : A Modern Expedition Through History’s Forgotten Battlegrounds . I devoured it within 24 hours. It is no exaggeration to say that the book is responsible as anything else for this little Semiquincetennial miniseries you are (hopefully!) enjoying. As you will hear in this episode, Sullivan at the time of publicati...

-John Bolton, Olympic Curling Hawk -Arguing with the 60s Since 1970 -I’m kind of a Libertarian (Minus the Defense Part) -Iraq was actually kind of perfect -Federalist Papers as Foreign Aid (or maybe porn would suffice) -The Arab Spring Brain-Break -Afghanistan is Not Exactly a Nation -Regime Change, Case-by-Case -The Forward Defense of New Jersey -Ukraine and the Gray Zone Trap -The Nuclear Press...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com -The Invertebrate Caucus -The New Tax Party -Ruby Ridge and Waco Redux -The Last Man Standing -The Crypto Appearance Problem -Government as a Mob Vig -The Fairness Trap -The Colombia Save, or how Rand prevented a military escalation by sending a quick text message to the President. -Epstein Transparency Collateral -Is...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com A deeply serious and important conversation over some listener-provided Scotch about the Super Bowl halftime show(s), the death of ad copywriting, dunking in the WNBA, pond skating, and the other Moynihan Report. •Oh good, Kmele started drinking early •About that game… •The horrible stereotypes in that halftime show •...

John Avlon stops by only to learn he’s also in the Epstein files, why the Daily Beast should’ve sold dick pills, and why we need to rebuild guardrails on what some call “stolen land” * Where John is surprised to learn he’s in the Epstein files and suddenly remembers he has plans not to be here * The Ceaușescu of Long Beach * Moynihan actually voted for this guy! * Georgia, the FBI, and the Trump 2...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com • Moynihan and Welch are in the Epstein files • A very indiscriminate and humiliating dump • Bannon & Epstein • Black boxes over kids, and the express train to Satanic Panic • Embarrassment is no reason • Moynihan’s Melania Review • Billie Jean is not my brother, but Jimmy Carter is my mother • That’s an awfully small...

What if you’re just … born wrong? (No, I don’t mean the darling little girl to the right.) You may know Bill Schulz through his years toiling as Greg Gutfeld ’s “ repulsive sidekick ” on ye olde Fox News late-nite WTF show Red Eye (on which all of your co-hosts , and several of our guests, got some valuable reps back in the day). You may know Bill through his years on Compound Media doing shows wi...

-The NYC Rolling Hobo Express -An Enthusiastic Armada Full of Speed and Violence -Iranian Death Toll Discourse and Roger Waters Still Sucks -The Donroe Doctrine and the Near Abroad Dodge -Everyone’s Favorite Powder Keg -A Norwegian, A Rat Bag, and a Lunatic -A disgusting thing to say -Noem’s Bellebolent Hypotheticals -Stephen Miller’s Basement Lotions and the Little Rogaine Carpet -Fingerers, Reac...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com -A huge TACO Tuesday -Survival of the Spineless -Low-level insurgency infrastructure -Astroturf panic and the suspicious run to Walgreens -The problem with punching Nazis -Walz and Trump finally talk -Fuck you, Ted -The Great American Slur Revival -Short king Bovino and the self-inflicted smoke bomb -Democracy Dies in...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com One topic in the news . One quick podcast on that single topic (rather than just texting each other about how certain media figures are vulgar, stupid, and morally depraved). Welcome back to the Fifth Column One Hitter! In the hours after ICE shot and killed Alex Pretti, we gathered at the studio to sit down with Pete...

•Don Does Davos•I Would Do Anything for Greenland (But I Won’t Do That)•Even MAGA Thought the Norway Text Was Fake News•The Danes’ Historical Resistance to Fascism•A Lament for the Belgian Congo•Cutting a Greenland Cake, and the Epidemic of Stupidity•Who the Fuck Is “We”?•Congress Could Do Something That Isn’t Impeachment•Shame Doesn’t Work•Past the Point of Passivity•Punching a Transtifa Baby•Mac...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com Chuck Klosterman’s new book, Football is out now! (See also The Nineties , and Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs ) -The music-doc cinematic universe, featuring Billy Joel and Japanese Jimmy Page -Moynihan missed the Morrissey cover-band boat -How to actually say Klosterman -From pop culture to America’s most popular TV show...

Two hundred and fifty years ago this very day, a gallant-strolling cat named George Washington convened in Cambridge about as high a level Patriot meeting as you could muster: John Adams, two major generals, five brigadier generals, and arguably the most connected man among the Boston rebels, Joseph Warren . There, the commander in chief persuaded his War Council of the “indispensible necessity of...