Lever Time

It’s Election Day in America, and one of the biggest names this midterm election season isn’t on the ballot. To corporate Democrats’ and Republicans’ dismay, the massively popular Twitch streamer Hasan Piker has become a leading voice on the left. For a special election episode of Lever Time, we’re sharing David Sirota’s recent interview with Piker, in which they explore the rise of the progressiv...

The midterm elections are just days away, and despite populist candidates surging in popularity across the country, corporate Democrats continue to insist that “Romney Republicans” are the key swing voters Democrats need to court, not the working class. Could they be correct? Or next week, will voters prove yet again that corporate Democrats are out of step with average Americans, and that their d...

Last month, U.S. Senate candidate Angie Nixon, a member of the Working Families Party and Democratic Socialists of America, spoke at the nation’s largest annual conference of Black political power and called out one of the event’s corporate sponsors. Lever columnist Morgan Harper attended the conference and noticed that Nixon was not alone — after years of quietly accepting corporate cash, some Bl...

With the midterms less than a month away, some pundits and polls suggest Democrats have the election in the bag. But is that really true? David Sirota travels to Minnesota to speak with someone who knows the danger of election complacency and overconfidence: Democratic Gov. Tim Walz. Today on Lever Time, we’re airing David Sirota’s full conversation with Walz. They discuss the choices that led to...

Musk, a deep-dive investigative documentary about the world’s richest man, premieres this weekend, less than a month before the midterms. Maybe you haven’t heard about it — until recently, most major social media platforms declined to run paid promotions of the documentary’s trailer, citing rules on political content. What are Musk and Big Tech so afraid of? Today on Lever Time, David Sirota sits...

Today we’re sharing a special episode from You Might Be Right, the chart-topping politics podcast from the Baker School of Public Policy and Public Affairs at the University of Tennessee. It was recently named a “must-listen” by both NPR and Spotify. Each episode, former Tennessee Governors from both sides of the aisle Phil Bredesen and Bill Haslam tackle timely conversations about government and...

Anthropic’s leaked IPO documents show the company had a net loss of $42 billion in 2025 and still insists that its technology could pose a “catastrophic or existential risk to humanity.” It’s either the most honest risk disclosure or the most effective marketing scheme in corporate history. So which is it? Today on Lever Time, David Sirota explores a few less obvious AI risks — cognitive surrender...

California Attorney General Rob Bonta and 11 other Democratic attorneys general just settled their lawsuit blocking Paramount Skydance’s $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. The merger is now set to create one of the world’s largest media companies and put CNN and CBS News under the control of David Ellison, son of billionaire and Trump ally Larry Ellison. Bonta says the settlement...

The AI apocalypse is here, but it’s not what you think. Last week, former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon warned online that “the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.” The fallout sent shockwaves across the country — but how legitimate is Coxon’s warning? Should we fear AI agents going rogue and threatening humanity, or are these safety concerns...

Registered Republicans outnumber Democrats almost two to one in Nebraska, and the few elected Democratic politicians in the state overwhelmingly lean conservative. But like the rest of the country, Nebraska is feeling the strain of soaring prices, data center buildouts, and Trump’s tariffs. Is the state ready for a change? Today on Lever Time, David Sirota visits rural Nebraska to meet Dan Osborn,...

Maine’s Sen. Susan Collins (R) has won five elections in a row, and a Democrat has not won a United States Senate seat in the state since 1988 — but polls suggest Mainers have reached a breaking point. They’re tired of corruption and inaction from establishment politicians in Washington, D.C., and they’re clamoring for change.  Troy Jackson, a fifth-generation logger who spent nearly two deca...

Earlier this month, a new Democratic machine scored a major victory in Connecticut. First-time congressional candidate Luke Bronin won his Democratic primary by a landslide, ousting 14-term progressive incumbent Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.). Bronin’s win is part of a larger, national push — funded by a secretive hedge fund manager — to elect more establishment-aligned Democrats. Who is this man pour...

This week on Lever Time, we’re featuring our newest episode of Master Plan: The Kingmakers.  In this episode, President Barack Obama vows to restore the rule of law after the War on Terror. But behind closed doors, his administration creates a new secret system that allows the president to decide who lives and who dies. You can check out the full season of Master Plan: The Kingmakers here.&nb...

Oliver Larkin spent a decade battling the Democratic Party’s campaign machine as an organizer for candidates like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Now, in Florida’s Aug. 18 primary, he’s a democratic socialist going up against Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) — who once called himself a “twice-appointed, Ron DeSantis Democrat.”  Moskowitz claims Larkin is running against him “solely on my religion.”...

Michigan just proved that money has its limits in elections. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed beat out establishment sweetheart Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) in what was likely the most expensive Democratic primary in U.S. history.  El-Sayed’s win was a major blow to the super PACs and shadowy nonprofits that spent tens of millions against him, but the story is far from over. AIPAC and its affi...

Reed Galen was raised inside the Republican Party establishment, but in 2016, he left the party and later cofounded The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump political action committee. Now he has a warning for the Democratic Party. Today on Lever Time, David Sirota sits down with Galen to learn why the Democrats may be sleepwalking toward a dangerous point of no return. Check out Reed’s Lever article, "...

The Wisconsin Democratic primary for governor has gone haywire. Over the last week, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez dropped out amid a campaign finance scandal, and a candidate who had suspended his campaign, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, rejoined the race — immediately nabbing an influential endorsement from Gov. Tony Evers. Meanwhile, state Rep. Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist, has su...

Ten years ago this week, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) ended his first presidential run and endorsed Hillary Clinton. Now, his chief strategist says the primary process was rigged. Today on Lever Time, David Sirota sits down with Tad Devine, longtime political consultant and chief strategist for Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign. Devine reveals why he believes the Democratic National Committee til...

Last week, The Lever’s David Sirota traveled to Michigan to meet with Democratic Senate candidate and former public health official Abdul El-Sayed, who has become a political lightning rod as he campaigns in one of the country’s most consequential primaries.  Today on Lever Time, we’re airing Sirota’s exclusive interview with El-Sayed. Speaking at a coffee shop in Macomb County — the Michigan coun...

Candidates backed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani swept the state’s Democratic primaries this week, to the chagrin of corporate interests and party elite. Pundits are calling the political insurgency “Blue MAGA” or “the Democrats’ Tea Party,” but the group behind the victory already has a name — the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) — and its grassroots strategy is paying off at the pol...

California voters are poised to vote on a one-time billionaire tax that would fund schools, food assistance, and Medicaid. Silicon Valley is spending big to keep the precedent-setting initiative off the November ballot, but the campaign's most powerful opponent isn’t a tech oligarch — it’s California Gov. Gavin Newsom, the Democratic power broker and potential presidential candidate.  Today on Lev...

Perhaps the key to understanding modern American politics isn't an academic think tank report, but instead rambunctious cult classic films, like Caddyshack and Animal House, that pit low-status underdogs against high-status bluebloods, preps, and jocks. In an essay for Politico, author Dan Brooks argues that movies like these hardwired Americans to root for the rude, rule-breaking outsiders over t...

Hawaii just enacted a groundbreaking law challenging Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision that unleashed unlimited corporate spending in elections. It’s a major victory against big money’s grip on democracy — but powerful interests are already gearing up for a legal showdown. On today’s Lever Time, David Sirota speaks with Hawaii state Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole, one of the law’s architects,...

Everyone knows Jeffrey Epstein as a sex trafficker who died in 2019. But Epstein’s story goes further back than most people realize — and includes surprising links to the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s. Today on Lever Time, producer Natalie Bettendorf speaks with Drop Site News journalist Murtaza Hussain about his investigation into Epstein's ties to Iran-Contra and how Epstein built his wealth...

It’s primary season, and powerful political forces within the Democratic Party are stomping into local races, trying to pick winners and losers. Today on Lever Time, we’re diving into The Lever’s exclusive investigation that exposed billionaires and party operatives pulling strings behind the scenes.  Then, David Sirota sits down with two Democratic candidates, Randy Villegas from California and M...