Firewall with Bradley Tusk

What will trigger the fiercest backlash to the AI boom? Rather than job losses or generative-AI weirdness, says Bradley, it'll be data centers and their insatiable appetite for electricity. When utility bills start climbing, voters everywhere will make their wrath felt. Which means new power sources are in hot demand. Can we develop them fast enough to head off a crisis? Plus: Bradley reflects on...

Did you know that life expectancy in Brownsville is 11 years shorter than on the Upper East Side? Dr. Ashwin Vasan, former city health commissioner, joins Bradley to discuss the funding crisis, mounting inequities and stratospheric administrative costs of public healthcare. Vasan explains why real reform starts with rebuilding trust—through ethics rules, revamped incentives, transparency, and...

The more we chase it, the more it slips away. For the first episode of 2026, Bradley explores the hard choices that lead to contentment over the long run, resisting the dopamine loop of money and status in favor of purpose, perspective and love. This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio. Send us an email with you...

...Well, not quite. But for this year-capping episode, Bradley came armed with a list of 50 big questions to discuss with his friend Alexander Kouts, the founder and CEO of Indigov, and because they had so much to talk about, the episode approaches Rogan-scale duration. Buckle up for this super-sized episode as Bradley and Alex take on abundance v. zero-sum thinking, the limits of capitalism, the...

Daniel Wortel-London, author of  The Menace of Prosperity: New York City and the Struggle for Economic Development, 1865–1981 ,  joins Bradley to unpack a century of economic policy, arguing that elites have often undermined cities even as they claimed to save them—and that smarter, more inclusive development is still possible. The conversation ranges from subways and public housing...

For Bradley, it was  Blob: A Love Story  by Maggie Su. In this episode, he reviews his favorites among the 96 books that he read this year, including the funniest one, the memoir that evokes real nostalgia, the one he most wants his son to read and the one that made him feel like less of a misfit. Plus, Bradley talks about how to make New York City a global model of Jewish-Muslim coopera...

What does Zohran Mamdani’s upset victory look like now that the memes have faded? Drawing on the months of reporting he did for  The New Yorker , Staff Writer Eric Lach walks through how Mamdani’s campaign rewrote the playbook on field organizing, social media, and “politics you can see” in the streets — rather than the "politics you can't see" in back rooms. He and Bradley pul...

Bradley makes 12 bold predictions about next year, focusing on the tidal wave of AI regulation hitting state legislatures, why electricity prices will soar and put incumbents in a major bind, the inevitable mishandling of mental-health chatbots, how all the politicians rushing to copy Mamdani's short-form videos are going to create one hell of a blooper reel, and much more. Plus, a strong recommen...

What happens when you walk away from a hyper-optimized New York life to immerse yourself in learning one thing? Ravi Gupta explains why he moved to Italy to study cooking, rebuild his attention span, and escape phone-and-dating-app brain rot, drawing on previous "skillbaticals" devoted to powerlifting, screenwriting and surfing. Then Gupta digs into his five-part series  Where the S...

In venture these days, it pays to be small and scrappy or huge and swimming in fees. Anywhere in between is a hard slog. Bradley walks through the changing VC landscape, using his own fund history as Exhibit A, and going into detail on his return to an “equity for services” model. Plus, why AOC should run for President rather than the US Senate, how AI could be utilized to revolutionize classrooms...

What does it take to unseat a 20-year incumbent? Raj Goyle — fresh off his successful campaign to ban smartphones in New York schools — returns to Firewall to discuss why and how he’s running for state comptroller. First step: Convincing voters that the often overlooked position has untapped power to make real progress on affordability. This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Str...

Governor Kathy Hochul’s real edge isn’t charisma or disruption, says Bradley, but a deeply “regular” superpower - backing things like universal school meals, subway security, phone bans in schools, childcare tax credits, and a crackdown on shoplifting simply because normal people want them. Plus, Bradley sees Trump and Mondami’s buddy act as a masterclass in pure political athleticism, admits he’s...

Bradley talks to Oliver Libby — venture investor, civic reform advocate, and co-founder of The Resolution Project — about his new book  Strong Floor, No Ceiling: Building a New Foundation for the American Dream . They dig into Libby’s “radical moderation” framework: the idea that America can rebuild its civic culture by pairing a rock-solid baseline of opportunity and support with an unapolog...

While the Mobile Voting Project posted its open-source code to GitHub, where it is available for any jurisdiction to use, the New York Times ran a front-page, above-the-fold story on Anchorage utilizing it for elections next spring. Bradley reflects on what it took to reach this point and where it goes from here. Plus, he offers two strategies for Mamdani — deploying AI to...

Bradley sits down with two Erikas — Erika Augustine, who runs The David Prize , and Erika Sasson, a winner of said prize — about why $200K, no-strings grants can unlock long-horizon, relationship-driven change in NYC. They get into Sasson’s restorative-justice work on serious harm and why apologies, agency, and community can lower future violence better than ever-longer sentences. Bradley also flo...

We've grown numb to politicians gaming out everything. But when Senate Democrats chose to end the shutdown, says Bradley, they chose the concerns of real people over political opportunism, and Chuck Schumer deserves credit. Plus, Bradley rhapsodizes about what the declining impact of TV ads will do for politics and credits Peter Thiel for properly diagnosing the disconnect between y...

In this special non-guest Thursday episode, Bradley walks us through his first-ever magazine for Substack: six articles where he analyzes the future Mamdani administration and what comes next for New York City. From how to staff City Hall to how the future mayor should interact with the press (and vice versa), these articles are Bradley's top tips for smart leadership — despite the gulf that remai...

So what happened last night? In this co-production with Firewall friend Jamie Rubin and his After Hours podcast, Bradley, Jamie, and Chris Coffey (Tusk Strategies CEO) analyze the historic win of NYC's next mayor, Zohran Mamdani. What does it mean for Gov. Hochul's re-election next year? Will NYPD commissioner Jessica Tisch stay at the helm — despite major policy differences with Mamdani? And coul...

In this bonus episode of Firewall, Rev. Al Sharpton, a major figure in Jonathan Mahler's book  The Gods of New York: Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists, and the Birth of the Modern City: 1986-1990 , joined the author and Tusk Strategies CEO Chris Coffey earlier in October for a spirited conversation about New York in the 1980s and how it set the stage for the politics of today. This episo...

Archie Gottesman traces her path from the comic genius behind Manhattan Mini Storage to JewBelong, where she’s trying to make Judaism feel human, welcoming, and actually usable (no Talmudic degree required). She and Bradley get blunt about fear-based conformity on the left, rising antisemitism since 2021, and how many Jews contort themselves to stay “in the club,” even when it means pretending to...

Not until Democrats finally stop performing politics, says Bradley, will they be able to beat Trump. In a blistering set of takes, he adds: “No Kings”–style protests are worthy but don't challenge Trump; the government shutdown only breaks when Republican voters feel real pain; the NBA must apply zero tolerance and radical transparency to the gambling scandal (“kill it or lose the league”); u...

Five charter revisions on this year’s ballot could make the city more affordable and make affordable housing more plentiful. Bradley sits down with Alec Schierenbeck, executive director of the NYC Charter Revision Commission, to explain how these proposals could finally unclog New York’s housing pipeline. They dig into why city bureaucracy resists change, how AI could streamline zoning and public...

It was right in the middle of a Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation session that Bradley had a brainstorm — an idea for a TV drama built around a conniving New York politico who hatches a plan to manipulate prediction markets. He titled it THE PREDICTORS, and in this Firewall episode, the audience (you) gets to play the part of a streaming executive as Bradley pitches us the show. RSVP to join...

What goes together better than smoked fish and good books? Russ & Daughters, beloved for its lox, herring, bagels and babka, is not only one of the truly great and iconic New York food institutions, it's also a neighbor of P&T Knitwear, Bradley's bookstore on the Lower East Side. To mark the publication of their fabulous new cookbook,  Russ & Daughters: 100 Years of Appetizin...

Bradley gets a Windy City on-the-ground report from friend and colleague Bob Greenlee, which leads to a bleak read on national politics: even if Democrats gain in 2026, the realities of executive power and a thin bench mean that little changes. Bradley then unveils a major milestone for mobile voting—Free & Fair’s open-source, rigorously engineered cryptographic protocol, arguing tha...