Hawk Podcasts

Hawk, a former criminal defense attorney, walks through the evidence now in the record, including the Discord group chat first reported by journalist Ken Klippenstein and additional text messages reported by the New York Times. He explains why this far exceeds the probable cause standard, why Twiggs received state and federal immunity, and why he expects Robinson to be held over for trial and, abs...

Much of the argument centers on the recorded testimony of Lance Twiggs, Robinson's roommate and romantic partner, who has been granted state and federal immunity in exchange for testimony. Hawk walks through why spousal privilege does not apply, how hearsay and the statement-against-interest exception work, and why the prosecution wants to frame the interview as Robinson's confession. Along the wa...

Marjorie Taylor Greene brings her McConnell and AIPAC claims to The View, which gives Hawk an opening on a subject close to him: the roughly $60 million AIPAC has poured into congressional races this cycle, Miriam Adelson's spending against Thomas Massie over the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and where that leaves both parties. George Conway flatly calls Donald Trump an adjudicated rapist, point...

The rest of the video turns to Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, credibly accused by Jenny Racicot of a violent 2021 sexual assault in reporting Hawk finds credible and Platner denies as categorically false. Hawk points out that Platner's two-minute response video spent only about fifteen seconds on the allegation before thanking voters, and walks through Racicot's CNN interview with Jake Tap...

Hawk, a former trial attorney, walks through the reporting, the accuser's account as told to Politico across three interviews, and the corroborating material the outlet says it reviewed. He notes the Maine statute of limitations leaves fifteen years in which criminal charges could still be brought, though no charges have been filed and the claims remain unproven. The heart of the video is a questi...

Hawk argues it is an affordability problem. Zohran Mamdani's winning mayoral platform was built on housing costs, rent control, free transit, daycare, and taxing the rich. Those policies poll extremely well. The word socialism polls badly. Paul Krugman's Substack draws the distinction clearly: what most Americans actually support is social democracy, a market system with progressive taxation, safe...

Trump's 2025 financial disclosure showing $2.2 billion in personal income, much of it from crypto, is drawing backlash even from Republican voters in Florida. CNN aired a supercut of Trump on the 2016 campaign trail ripping politicians who enrich themselves in office, nearly ten years to the day before his own disclosure dropped. John Fetterman appeared on Fox News to say the only thing that would...

The headline finding: fourteen of twenty-one study participants, two thirds, had an immediate negative reaction when asked about democracy. Hawk reads quotes from participants by name throughout the study, including a Wyoming homeschooling mother who says she does not like the word democracy, a Michigan retiree who says if they had a democracy it would be a problem, a Wyoming delivery driver who s...

Hugh Hewitt praises the ruling while pivoting quickly to celebrating Kavanaugh's concurrence encouraging Congress to pass a law restricting birthright citizenship. Hawk responds by noting that Congress cannot even get all Republican votes for the Save Act, let alone pass a constitutional amendment. Lisa Rubin analyzes Kavanaugh's partial dissent in detail, with Hawk describing Kavanaugh as the kid...

The majority opinion was written by Chief Justice John Roberts and joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Amy Coney Barrett. Brett Kavanaugh concurred in the judgment while dissenting in part. Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented, joined by Neil Gorsuch. The court grounded its decision in the historical context of the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause,...

Second, NBC News correspondent Ryan Nobles corners Republican Senator Roger Marshall on Meet the Press over voter fraud claims, with Hawk noting that Republicans won the House, the Senate, the presidency, and effectively control the Supreme Court in 2024, making the left-rigs-elections argument impossible to sustain. Third, an Ohio pastor from the Springfield area shares a firsthand account of wha...

Serwer's piece documents the Trump administration's explicitly race-based statements about Haitian immigrants, including claims they all have AIDS, eat household pets, are genetically predisposed to crime, and are poisoning the blood of the country. Samuel Alito's majority opinion declined to repeat any of those statements, substituting his own race-neutral explanations for what they might have me...

Haitian plaintiffs did raise exactly that claim, arguing that Trump's decision to strip their TPS was motivated by racial animus and citing Trump and administration officials' own racist statements about Haitian immigrants. Alito's response in the majority opinion was that because Trump expresses hostility toward immigrants broadly, his actions cannot be considered racially motivated. Hawk points...

Hawk addresses the establishment's attempt to frame the losses as a product of antisemitism, pointing out that the three congressional districts involved contain some of the largest Jewish populations of any districts in the country, meaning Jewish voters themselves rejected the AIPAC-backed candidates in large numbers. He plays a clip of Joe Scarborough's reaction and walks through an Axios repor...

Ben Shapiro aired his own criticism, calling out JD Vance for getting embarrassed by Iran and saying he has never seen a weaker Republican performance. Hawk also plays a clip of Mark Thiessen, a former George W. Bush speechwriter and one of the most consistent Trump boosters at the Washington Post and on Fox News, breaking from his pattern of unconditional praise to call the Iran deal a disaster....

Hawk plays a clip of Nichols appearing on Deadline White House with Nicole Wallace on June 22nd. He covers Trump's claim that Iran's enriched uranium stockpile is essentially worthless, a reversal from his earlier position that Iran must surrender its entire nuclear program. Hawk points out that Iran only resumed enrichment after Trump tore up the JCPOA in 2018, and that JD Vance's announcement of...

On Iran, Hawk recaps the collapse of the Switzerland talks with JD Vance after Trump threatened the Iranian delegation on social media, and raises the point that Lebanon and Israel are not signatories to any negotiations despite being central parties to the ongoing conflict. He also covers the Supreme Court's new gun ruling tied to marijuana use, referencing commentary from Michael Popok, Lisa Gra...

The MOU's opening term demands an immediate end to all military operations including in Lebanon, a war Israel is fighting against Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy. Israel was not part of the negotiations, is not a signatory, and is not named. That first sentence effectively legitimizes Hezbollah. Iran retains joint control of the Strait of Hormuz with Oman. The U.S. commits to lifting every category of...

The MOU commits the United States to ensuring a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran, lifting all sanctions regardless of type, releasing all frozen Iranian assets, and allowing immediate oil sales upon signing. Iran's nuclear program and enriched uranium stockpile are left entirely unaddressed. Israel was excluded from the negotiations and is not a party to the agreement. The signing ceremon...

The uncontroverted facts: Cyrus was shot in the back. If someone is pointing a gun at you and you shoot them, they don't get hit in the back. Hawk also addresses that the jury was never told Mr. Chow had been involved in two prior shootings as a private citizen. Hawk reflects on his own criminal defense career and the moral weight of defending clients in cases involving rape and child sexual assau...

Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense and former Fox News weekend co-host, is facing mounting scrutiny across three major stories that broke in a single day. Hegseth has classified the Pentagon press area, effectively barring journalists from accessing public affairs officials, a move that is expected to face legal challenges after courts have already ruled against him multiple times for restricting...

Trump sued the IRS for $10 billion over an unlawful tax return disclosure, a lawsuit that was time-barred, improperly pleaded under the statute, and lacked any adversity between the parties since Trump controlled the very agencies he was suing. Todd Blanche and the DOJ mounted zero defense, then quietly settled for $1.776 billion in taxpayer money, including a sweeping addendum that would have per...

Hawk walks through Jonathan V. Last's Bulwark newsletter "The Murder of 60 Minutes," a deep look at how Barry Weiss and the Ellisons are systematically dismantling CBS News and 60 Minutes to appease Donald Trump and clear the path for billion-dollar media mergers. 60 Minutes generated $206 million in advertising revenue in 2024, yet CBS's corporate parent Paramount SkyDance is willing to destroy a...

Republican senators Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, and Roger Wicker initially called the deal a disaster and a surrender before reversing course. Former National Security Advisor John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and analysts from The Atlantic and The Bulwark all weighed in on what amounts to the worst U.S. strategic defeat since the Iraq War. Robert Kagan's piece in The Atlantic argued that Trump's endgame wa...

Find Reed Galen Here Substack: https://reedgalen.substack.com/ Join the Union: https://www.jointheunion.us/ Civic Forum: https://www.civicforum.org/ SUBSCRIBE to Hawk on YouTube 👉 https://www.youtube.com/@hawkpodcasts Become a Member: https://www.youtube.com/@hawkpodcasts/join Hawk sits down with Reed Galen, one of the founding members of the Lincoln Project, for a wide-ranging conversation about...