In the Meanwhile

This week, Nora and Marcus sit down with Iranian American democracy advocate Nilu Jenks for a deeply personal conversation about war, diaspora grief, authoritarianism, and the deadly lie of "liberation" through violence. Drawing from her family's lived experience in Iran and her work for more representative democracy here in the U.S., Jenks brings clarity, grief, and fierce moral vision to a momen...

What does it mean to celebrate America at 250 if we've never been honest about the story we've been telling ourselves?   This week, Nora and Marcus sit down with Eddie Glaude Jr. for a conversation that's equal parts history lesson, therapy session, and reality check. Drawing from his new book, America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation's Anniversaries, Glaude argues that America's biggest probl...

This week Nora and Marcus speak with Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal about what Democrats keep getting wrong, why "moderation" so often means surrendering before the fight starts, and whether the left might finally be done asking permission to act like it has a spine. We talk Medicare for All, immigration, trans rights, the Epstein files, and the political class's ongoing refusal to understand that...

This week on In the Meanwhile,  while billionaires flirt with trillionaire status, ICE detention centers face hunger strikes, and America's political class continues its speedrun through late-stage empire, we sit down with someone doing something radically unfashionable: caring about people. Father Ray Riding is a 76-year-old Catholic missionary who has spent the last two years accompanying migran...

It's been another "37-day week" in America, and In The Meanwhile is doing what it does best: refusing to let the chaos set the agenda. On the heels of Bill Gates' Congressional appearance to be questioned about his role in the Epstein Files, we revisit a prescient conversation from March with Tim Schwab, investigative journalist and author of The Bill Gates Problem.  Schwab walks us through the Ga...

This week on In The Meanwhile, Marcus sits down with Loretta J. Ross — activist, MacArthur Fellow, Smith College professor, and one of the most clear-eyed movement builders of the last five decades — to talk about her new book, Calling In: How to Start Making Change with Those You'd Rather Cancel. The conversation couldn't be more timely. With Democrats tearing each other apart in the run-up to th...

This week on In The Meanwhile, Marcus and Nora spiral from Mark Zuckerberg's $300 million "Launch Pad" yacht docking in Seattle, conveniently timed with 1,400 local layoffs, into a searching, deeply human conversation with housing advocate and legislative candidate Jaelynn Scott. Together, they unpack trans safety, housing justice, coalition-building, and what it means to practice 'grace in the st...

This week on In The Meanwhile, Nora and Marcus sit down with worker-owner Mark Paschal of Seattle co-ops Jude's Old Town and Rosette for a conversation about what happens when workers stop asking capitalism for dignity and start building alternatives themselves. Between billionaire slush funds, Jeff Bezos embarrassment, and the slow collapse of the "customer is always right" economy, Mark lays out...

Fifty-one episodes. Countless headlines. Several existential spirals. At least one national meltdown per week. And somehow, against all odds and several algorithms designed to emotionally flatten us into paste, we're still here. A year ago, Nora and Marcus started asking a deceptively simple question: what does it mean to live through this, and still remain human? Fifty-one episodes later, they're...

This week on In The Meanwhile, Nora and Marcus sit down with policy powerhouse Maggie Humphreys for a conversation about motherhood, caregiving, misogyny, and why American families are forced to hold themselves together with duct tape and unpaid labor. From childcare that costs more than college tuition to the fight for paid family leave, Maggie breaks down why the U.S. doesn't actually have "fami...

This week on In The Meanwhile, Marcus and Nora sit down with Peter Beinart for a searching conversation about identity, power, and moral reckoning in the wake of Gaza. Drawing from his book Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza, Beinart challenges the narratives that bind community to state, and asks what it means to confront complicity: honestly, publicly, and at personal cost. From aparthei...

This week on In The Meanwhile, Nora and Marcus sit down with Professor Emily M. Bender for a reality check that cuts through the Silicon Valley fever dream. Because apparently we're all supposed to believe "AI" is either our robot overlord or our climate-saving bestie, and Bender's like: absolutely not, please log off. She dismantles the doomers and the boosters in one clean sweep, exposing how bo...

As headlines spiral from burning warehouses to unholy warfare between the Vatican and White House, Nora and Marcus sit down with civil rights attorney and Copaganda author Alec Karakatsanis to ask a sharper question: what if the story we're being told about crime, safety, and justice is the real manipulation? Karakatsanis pulls back the curtain on how media, political power, and what he calls the...

This week on In the Meanwhile, Marcus and Nora wade through a truly unhinged news cycle: war threats, political absurdity, late-stage empire vibes, and land on something rare: a conversation that actually feels like it offers hope. Enter Washington State Representative Brianna Thomas, who joins the show to talk about the state's new "millionaires' tax", and, more importantly, who it's for, who it'...

This week, Nora and Marcus sit down with Laura Marquez-Garrett, a plaintiff's attorney at the forefront of a landmark legal battle against Big Tech. Fresh off two historic court victories, Laura pulls back the curtain on how social media companies design products to addict and harm young users, and what it took for families to finally start holding them accountable. What emerges is both chilling a...

In this week's episode of In The Meanwhile, we do that uncomfortable, but necessary, thing where the abstractions of war fall away, and the human cost steps all the way into the room. Nora and Marcus sit down with Gina Baskin, fresh out of the military and bringing a level of clarity that cuts clean through the usual talking points. She unpacks what war actually asks of the people sent to fight it...

This week, Nora and Marcus sit down with Iranian American democracy advocate Nilu Jenks for a deeply personal conversation about war, diaspora grief, authoritarianism, and the deadly lie of "liberation" through violence. Drawing from her family's lived experience in Iran and her work for more representative democracy here in the U.S., Jenks brings clarity, grief, and fierce moral vision to a momen...

This week,  Nora and Marcus sit down with author and activist Ijeoma Oluo for a searching conversation about movement work, harm, belonging, and the radical choice to stay. Together, they explore the personal cost of speaking truth, the wounds movements can inflict on their own, and what it means to build the world we long for now—not after revolution, but through the way we live, love, and strugg...

It's been another "37-day week" in America, and In The Meanwhile is doing what it does best: refusing to let the chaos set the agenda. Nora and Marcus open on the latest Washington-fueled disaster (a brand-new war with Iran, because apparently weekends are illegal now), then pivot to the scandal the powerful would love you to forget: the Epstein files, and one name still floating above the consequ...

This week on In The Meanwhile, Marcus and Nora do what America refuses to do: pay attention. They skim the State of the Union so you don't have to, drag the idea of replacing epidemiology with astrology, and ask a very basic question: should our Surgeon General believe in vaccines or just vibes? Then it gets real. While Black History Month goes conspicuously unmentioned in a country built on Black...

We're back with a question that sounds obvious until you say it out loud: if you're picking a North Star… why is "more prisons" anywhere on the map?  This week, Nora and Marcus wade through the usual dystopian fog and land in L.A., where a blockbuster social media trial is screaming in 4K: "Yes. The harm. Is the business model." Not a glitch. Silicon Valley said, "Move fast and break things," and...

This week on In The Meanwhile, Nora and Marcus start with civic sunshine(yes, the Seattle Seahawks are Super Bowl champions), and end in the deep waters of power, protest, and historical memory. From Ernest Jones' "spirit-forward" parade speech to a congressional hearing that felt like defiant incompetence colliding with diabolical intent, they unpack the Bondi–Epstein fallout, elite impunity, spa...

Nora and Marcus are back in Seattle after Marcus's whirlwind reporting trip to Minneapolis, and what he saw there stayed with him. From vigils and memorial sites honoring Alex Pretti and Renee Good, to organizers building "community protection" in real time (warming stations, escorts, carpools, and mutual aid), Marcus reflects on how grief travels across time and distance, and how solidarity can,...

This week on In The Meanwhile, Nora and Marcus do what every emotionally stable person does in a collapsing empire: eat dessert first and deal with the vegetables later. They speed-run the Trump administration's latest clown car pileup: featuring the extremely cursed timeline where even the NRA and Senate Republicans are like, "Hey man… maybe chill?" — before zooming out to a much bigger target on...

This week on In The Meanwhile, Nora and Marcus open with global chaos: tantrum diplomacy, Greenland confusion, and peace-as-a-timeshare, before turning to something far more urgent and close to home: the accelerating cruelty of ICE. Joined by Angelina Godoy, founding director of the UW Center for Human Rights, they unpack how immigration enforcement has slid toward secret-police tactics, how Washi...