We've Got To Talk

Jolene used to start every morning with Fox News until her daughter, Bobbi told her to switch to Mo News, and now both of us listen. So we were thrilled to sit down with Mosheh Oinounou, founder of Mo News and former executive producer of the CBS Evening News, and Jill Wagner, the managing editor and co-host of the Mo News Podcast. They tell the origin story of Mo News, which began as Covid lockdo...

The USA 2026 Midterms are coming, and it feels like the whole country is being held hostage by political ads. They are everywhere, and a lot of them aren’t designed to inform you; they’re designed to polarize you. Jolene and I talk about how the media cycle shapes your nervous system, why constant outrage makes us less informed, and how both parties use fear to rally their base and keep voters rea...

“Underneath every complaint is a hope.” That line from Liz Vogel stopped Jolene and I in our tracks, because once you hear it, you see it everywhere. The angry post, the rant at the school meeting, the neighbor who won’t stop talking about how everything’s gone downhill often isn’t just complaining. It’s someone asking, in the only way they know how, to be seen, to be heard, and to feel like someo...

Jolene and I have been trying to work out whether the US is actually in a financial emergency, or whether we’re just stuck in the usual loop of scary headlines, charts, and people yelling on cable news. Because after a while you either spiral or you go numb, and neither one helps you understand what’s real. So we spoke to economist Marc Goldwein, and instead of drama, he gave us the calm, numbers-...

Most of us don’t want “our side” to win. We want the country to work, with less chaos, less political theater, and fewer people getting rich off outrage while nothing gets fixed. We’re joined by Lura Forcum, a consumer and social psychologist who studies the human dynamics underneath politics, identity, belonging, and why we get so weird around people who disagree with us. Lura breaks down why “tr...

Most of us don’t actually want “our side” to win. We want the country to work, with less chaos, less political theatre, and fewer people getting rich off outrage while nothing gets fixed. This week we welcomed Brad Porteus from Bridge Grades back onto the podcast, and his idea is refreshingly simple. Bridge Grades is a congressional report card that doesn’t measure ideology, it measures collaborat...

We’ve lost a lot of trust in politicians in America, and it’s not hard to see why. Politics feels like a permanent campaign where leaders are performing, fundraising, and protecting their careers while the real problems keep getting worse. Our guest is Adam Cronkright, creator of the film Goodbye Politicians Hello Democracy , which explores a bold alternative to the current political system. Adam’...

Politics can feel like a loyalty test now. Like you are either on the right team, or you are a threat. In this conversation with Larry Rosen, attorney turned mediator and host of The Enemies Project YouTube docuseries, we talk about what happens when people stop seeing each other as humans and start treating politics like a team sport. Larry’s work sits right in the middle of the biggest problems...

We are back in the Ozarks for our second annual in-person recording at Jolene’s house, and we decided to ask each other a handful of questions we have thought about asking, but never have. We start with something deceptively simple: why Jolene hides how funny (and sometimes crass) she is on the podcast. It turns into a bigger conversation about authenticity, self-censoring, and how exhausting it i...

A year and a half ago, when we started our podcast, Jolene and I had an uncomfortable realization. We weren’t just “watching the news”; we were watching news that already agreed with us. Jolene had her conservative media, I had my liberal media, and even when we landed on the same basic facts, the emotional tone was completely different depending on what we’d been consuming. Same country, same wee...

They’re saying Social Security could run out by 2032 , and that timeline is close enough to feel real. We talk through what that warning actually means for everyday Americans, especially if you’ve got parents, grandparents, a spouse, or a future self who’s been assuming this safety net will be there. This isn’t a “someday” problem. It’s a real deadline that’s already shaping what comes next. We al...

We walked away from our conversation with Layla Zaidane feeling something we don’t always feel after talking about politics: hope. Layla is the President and CEO of Future Caucus, and her whole approach is built around a simple idea that changes everything. If young lawmakers across party lines can know each other as people first, the work changes. The temperature drops, the incentives shift, and...

Accountability and common ground shouldn’t feel like rare collectibles in American politics, but lately that’s exactly what they are. In this episode, we ask the question a lot of exhausted Americans are asking right now: what is wrong with our political parties ? We talk honestly about feeling a bit party-less, even while coming from different political leanings. Jolene is worn down by what Trump...

Social media algorithms are shaping how the world sees America, and it’s not pretty. In this episode, we ask a simple question people are searching for everywhere right now: what does the rest of the world think of Americans when the only thing they see is viral outrage? To get a real outside perspective, we have brought in our Australian producer and editor, Brianna Ansaldo, who has spent the las...

Why does it feel like two-thirds of the country has completely checked out of the political process? In this special mailbag episode, Jolene and I step up to answer your political questions, breaking down everything from White House budgeting issues to local primary election shocks. We take an honest, unvarnished look at the real-world feedback filling our inbox, proving that a liberal and a conse...

Accountability on Capitol Hill should be a given, but why is it that Congress feels immune to the standards the rest of us live by? It’s easy to see why voters across the political spectrum are fed up. If you’ve ever searched “why is Congress so ineffective,” “why don’t politicians get fired,” or “why is Washington so broken,” we’re discussing a lot of these questions in this episode. We start wit...

Why has a critical issue like global energy independence been trapped inside a left-wing political monopoly for decades? In this episode, Jolene and Nicole sit down with former six-term South Carolina Republican Congressman Bob Inglis to discover the conservative solution to climate change. Bob shares his remarkable personal metamorphosis from a standard climate skeptic to a leading free-market ad...

Why do people say that Gen X was the very last generation to have a real childhood? In this episode, we take a look at what it was like growing up Gen X and what it really means to belong to the smallest age grouping in modern history. We examine how our unique position between the analog and digital eras completely shaped our worldview, creating a cohort of people who are uniquely resilient and p...

Why does celebrating the 4th of July suddenly feel like a political statement? In this episode, Jolene and Nicole tackle the upcoming 250th birthday of the United States to explore a question dividing the country: can you be liberal and patriotic? We look back at our shared childhood memories of the 200th Bicentennial parade, contrasting that early innocence with the deep anxieties and partisan di...

Why are modern political movements suddenly reviving ideas that the world discredited decades ago? In this episode, we sit down with New York Times columnist and constitutional lawyer David French to discuss the deep psychological and cultural shifts breaking our societal guardrails. David shares his unique journey from growing up in the conservative South to serving as an JAG officer in the Army...

Why does it feel like modern politics has shifted from simple disagreements to an all-out war for team loyalty? In this episode, we sit down with Stephen Hawkins, the director of research for More in Common, an international organization tracking the deep psychology, values, and hidden tribes behind our fractured global landscape. Stephen breaks down his journey from an evangelical College Republi...

Tipping culture in the USA is out of control right now. In this episode, we dig into the history of tipping in America, why it became normal for customers to subsidize wages, and how the USA minimum wage rules for tipped workers still shape what you pay every time you eat out. We talk about the tipped minimum wage, the “tip credit”, and why the $2.13 an hour figure still comes up when people searc...

In this episode, we tackle the shocking details behind Donald Trump’s latest legal maneuver. Nicole and Jolene break down why Trump suddenly dropped his massive $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS and immediately replaced it with the "$1.776 Billion Anti-Weaponization Fund." We take a look past the patriotic branding to reveal why this massive proposal has absolutely no legal safeguards. We break...

What happens when you try to tell the truth in a world that only wants team loyalty? In this episode, we talk with Isaac Saul, founder of Tangle, the independent, non-partisan politics newsletter that summarises the best arguments from the left and the right. Isaac wrote a “plea for help” email after conservatives accused Tangle of bashing Trump while liberals accused it of sanewashing Trump, ofte...

Fourteen Wisconsinites from opposite sides of the abortion debate sat down together for a three-day Builders Movement Citizen Solutions session on abortion and family wellbeing. This wasn’t a panel or a debate for show. It was a practical, structured process with trained facilitators and a clear framework, designed to help people hear each other properly and figure out what could actually change i...