Chris Riback's Newsletter

Well, that was quite a week. And no doubt, in the few hours between my recording this intro and when the podcast drops, another extraordinary week will have passed. How to make sense of it? To fashionably employ the double negative – it’s so good to see grammar finally get its due on the world stage – I don’t think it’s unfair to ask: Where are we as a nation? For guidance, I turned to former U.S....

It feels like a lifetime ago, I know. But so much of what’s happening today – the divides, anger, insults, policy realities – have emerged as a reaction to the Obama years. To understand today, it helps to understand what came before. Brian Abrams makes an important contribution to the process. Abrams specializes in oral histories – talking with key players and letting their words, almost exclusiv...

So here’s the timeline: Two days ago, I spoke with Dan Pfeiffer. As you surely know, he’s President Obama's former communications director and senior advisor and co-host of a podcast you might have heard of: Pod Save America. Then yesterday, Dan’s new book -- Yes We (Still) Can: Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter, and Trump – debuts at No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list. Co-incidence?...

In the face of jailing immigrant children, questions about capitalism amid tariffs and possible trade wars, and concerns about democracy as we reject western allies and warmly welcome authoritarians and dictators, a lot of us are wondering not just who are we, but also, how in the world did we get here? Steven Brill feels he has an  answer. You likely know: Brill is a serial ideas entrepreneur. He...

For many on the right and left, the question has been “what’s happening to the GOP?” Free Trade? Gone. Budget deficits? No problem Free movement of labor? Not so much. Military war exercises? Who needs’em? Russia as outlaw state? How about Russia in the G8? I think a more fair – and probably more relevant question: What is the GOP?And frankly, the question comes more from the right than the left....

Does President Trump think he’s a king? That was the provocative headline to a recent piece by Harry Litman, a former U.S. Attorney and Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney General. Litman made his argument after reviewing the legal arguments made in that confidential 20-page memo sent by President Trump’s lawyers to the special counsel, Robert Mueller. I wanted to talk with Litman for many reasons, not...

If you know Bill Browder's story already, you surely won’t mind hearing it again. It’s extraordinary. If you haven’t heard it before, get ready. Bill Browder very well may be Vladimir Putin’s public enemy No. 1. Why? Remember that “Hillary dirt” Russia meeting that Don Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort had with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in June 2016 – the one the White House said wa...

Of the many institutions that Donald Trump has attacked – Courts, Congress, media, political parties, diplomats, former Presidents – perhaps the most surprising and unnerving has been the relentless attacks on our intelligence community. Even before that second day in office – the one where he stood before the 117 stars honoring the CIA’s fallen and said we should’ve kept Iraq’s oil, claimed almos...

Can we talk politics? In the last weeks on this podcast, we’ve talked about racism, our shrinking diplomacy, the Mueller investigation, how democracies die, and more. But we ought not forget: it’s the political elections that deliver the policies that define our democracy. Not happy with how things are going? You might want to vote. Thrilled? Well, you may want to, also. So where’s our Midterm vot...

Usually we drop these conversations on Friday mornings – you know, something to look forward to since the workweek excitement is about to end. But we’re posting this on Monday, May 7 because of my guest: It’s his last day as Mayor of New Orleans. Did you see the speech? It was about a year ago and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu stood up and explained to his city and the nation, really, why he re...

Iran, North Korea, Syria, Brexit, Paris Agreement, China. Prime Minister Abe, Macron, Merkel, Xi, a fellow named Putin. At a time when U.S. foreign policy – when diplomacy itself – requires as much clarity and coordination and skill as it has in decades, ours has been going through – to put it diplomatically – a major transition. You know the headlines: Thousands of State Department positions unfi...

Forget everything you think you know about President Jimmy Carter and get ready to ask yourself: Was he an ineffective, overwhelmed outsider who oversaw four of the worst years in our history… or, as my guest today argues, was Carter’s presidency one of the most consequential in modern history. I confess – I forgot just how much occurred during Carter’s four years – and how much of what he did set...

How will it end? For any of us following the Mueller investigation -- hanging on the latest leaks around the mood inside the White House and who might get fired or not fired – the wonder of what’s next is relentless. The possibilities seem endless. That’s why for many of us, we’re getting a crash course in Constitutional Law – indeed in our Constitution itself – seeing in real time how and whether...

Why is Hillary Clinton not the first woman President? Many people, political types, historians and sociologists will consider that question for many years to come. But besides Hillary Clinton herself, the people who surely must think about it most are the ones who worked with her for years and during the campaign. Jennifer Palmieri is one of  them. You may know: Palmieri was Director of Communicat...

Perhaps this is how the Framers wanted it, but has there ever been a time where more issues with the potential to more deeply divide us – has there ever been a time where more of them seemed so likely to head to the same place: The U.S. Supreme Court? I’m talking about the 2nd Amendment, and the inevitable gun rights issues surely to come out of the growing #enoughisenough movement. I’m talking ab...

For the last several weeks, regular listeners will know that I’ve been pretty focused on the state of our democracy. We all need to pay attention. At the heart of democracy, of course, is elections… and so today we get to focus on the politics and probabilities and look ahead to the big vote this fall: The midterm elections. Midterms always have a story to tell, of course, and most frequently thou...

With the daily headlines on Russia – Nunes memos, Mueller indictments, Trump denials, continual cable TV panels – it’s easy to miss a powerful and – as it turns out, complicated – question: How did Russia happen? How did we get here? For many of us, the so-called “Russia story” started in 2015 with Donald Trump. It continued with Paul Manafort and Carter Page and WikiLeaks and, of course, picked u...

I’ve just got one thing to say: Thank goodness for John Kelly! I bet that’s not the one thing you expected me to say. But here’s why:With Kelly so much in the news – for the Rob Porter disaster, inexplicable non-existent security clearances, insulting the congresswoman who supported a gold-star widow from Georgia, his supposed role as a so-called “adult in the room” – for all those reasons and mor...

About 13 years ago, I climbed on the bandwagon and, like lots of other folks, read several books to better understand our history in Afghanistan and Iraq and with Al Quaeda — how we got into the mess and, maybe how we’d get out. You may recall – it was a bit of a golden age of reporting and writing. Among them: “The Looming Tower” by Lawrence Wright;  “Fiasco,” by Thomas Ricks; “Imperial Life In T...

I might not have a more important political conversation this year than the one I just had with Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. You’ll be tempted to look at the title of their book How Democracies Die and – particularly if you sit on the left side of things – think that it’s purely about President Trump. It’s not. Yes, of course, it covers Trump. Specifically, by looking at authoritarians acro...

If you’ve ever wondered: Where do public polls go to die, today we bring you the answer: They don’t. They live on forever at the Roper Center. One of the things I love most about doing this podcast is the opportunity to talk with incredibly smart people in fields where, under normal circumstances, our paths might not cross. I just finished talking with one of them. Peter Enns is Executive Director...

Investigative Reporter David Cay Johnston documents President Trump’s first year in office and explains why “It’s Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America.” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.chrisriback.com/subscribe

McKay Coppins, Staff Writer at The Atlantic, joins Chris to discuss religion and politics, and his recent piece: "God’s Plan for Mike Pence." If we want to understand just how divided the country is – and if we want to consider whether it will ever be repaired – we better dig deeper into the role of religion and politics. One question: How do evangelicals today reconcile their true beliefs and pol...

First, where to begin? Roy Moore? Al Franken? Tax bill? Jerusalem? Government shutdown? Russia? The pace of politics is relentless – fatiguing, really – so you need someone of relentless energy to talk about politics with. And few have more relentless energy than Chris Matthews. But these times also call out for perspective and context. What in the world is going on? To many of us, it feels like t...

It’s only a slight exaggeration that there is nothing in the political world that Charlie Cook can’t analyze, clarify or explain. Which is good news, because we had plenty to cover, starting with the Cook Political Report’s Midterm analysis. The report -- Political Environment and Congressional Breakdown Charts – is available only to Charlie’s subscribers. But he went into the details with me.  I...