Le Podcast

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.leefang.com I join my cohost Leighton Woodhouse for a podcast discussion around the violent confrontations in Minnesota and what it might mean for America. In short order, we discuss ethnic scapegoating, whether the federal government is truly focused on taxpayer fraud, and why this Trump presidency is fundamentally different from t...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.leefang.com Le Pod lives. After a short hiatus, we’re back with another episode about the dangers of artificial intelligence. When does a wonderful tool for the betterment of society become a dangerous dependency as we outsource our daily tasks, our cognitive abilities, our manufacturing, and our broader economy to technological ent...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.leefang.com Yesterday The Free Press published an editorial defending a recent report of theirs that sought to question whether there’s really mass starvation in the Gaza Strip. We dedicated this whole episode to discussing the controversy and the genocide surrounding it.

On Le Pod we ponder whether AI will usher in human extinction. This is a free episode. If you enjoy this content, please consider paying for a subscription. Though the AI age is upon us, it’s still but a zygote compared to what it’s almost certainly going to become. If Silicon Valley has its way, within years, not decades, we will achieve human-level artificial intelligence, and then, soon after,...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.leefang.com After far too long, we return to our normal schedule. Leighton and I chat about the mysteries revolving around Donald Trump and the FBI’s vault of evidence concerning Jeffrey Epstein. Why is the president insulting his own supporters and going back on his administration’s promise to release the documents? It is not the f...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.leefang.com Our guest today is Jake Klein , a libertarian activist and author who has written about the dangers of identity politics and tribalism. Klein, who was raised in an Orthodox Jewish household and is now atheist, talks about his path in life. We chat about the unproductive nature of many pro-Palestinian activists on the far...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.leefang.com Yesterday, Leighton and I tried out Substack’s new livestreaming feature. We like it; it was fun. About 300 of you joined, which was great for a first attempt with almost no promotion behind it. We’re going to start doing this every Wednesday at 3pm PT/6pm ET. If you can’t join us live, we’ll put out the non-live version...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.leefang.com Pedro Gonzalez is a great writer and, in my opinion, has one of the most interesting perspectives on politics today. In a similar way to how both Leighton and I became fed up several years ago with the excesses of the left, Pedro is an alienated right-winger who has watched MAGA turn into a cult of personality. This epis...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.leefang.com We examine the pros and cons of recent steep cuts to the United States Agency for International Development, weighing the agency's history of spreading propaganda and subverting foreign governments against its vital humanitarian work.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.leefang.com This week, Leighton and I recorded another episode of Le Pod. Leighton just returned from reporting on the L.A. fires and came home to the criminal indictment of Oakland’s recalled Mayor Sheng Thao. We talk about California’s endemic problems and our leaders’ penchant for foreign travel. We discuss what appears to be a T...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.leefang.com Welcome to our first podcast of the new year. Leighton and I kick off the discussion about Mark Zuckerberg’s pivot on free speech and try to make sense of seizing Greenland as an American territory. The Danish government provides $500 million in annual subsidies to Greenland’s tiny population, affording residents generou...

For today's podcast, Leighton and I discuss the latest in the Hunter Biden saga, which I began writing about in 2014, and the slippery slope the pardon may create. We also chat about the diminished legacy of Obama, the choices of Trump 2.0, the bizarre targeted killing of the UnitedHealth CEO, and the nature of political populism. Just a heads up. For the next seven days, we are offering a deep di...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.leefang.com There’s a lot to discuss this week as we button down for rainy weather in Northern California. We react to the news that Matt Gaetz was forced out as Donald Trump’s pick for Attorney General. President Biden’s decision to authorize Ukraine to launch long-range missiles into Russia. And we explore how the U.S. leads the w...

In a closely divided election between two candidates and an era of rapid political realignment, both campaigns are mining each other’s bases like never before. The Kamala Harris campaign is working to win over moderate Republicans, especially those in suburban communities. And the Donald Trump campaign is making a dash for blue-collar voters, especially members of labor unions and racial minority...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.leefang.com Episode 2 of Le Pod features Ana Kasparian, the executive director and co-host of the Young Turks. We've known Ana for years, and we've all followed a similar trajectory — from the political left to the politically unaligned. That's the name of Ana's new Substack , by the way: Unaligned. We highly recommend it. In this e...

Yesterday, I recorded a podcast with my friend and colleague Leighton Woodhouse of the  Social Studies  Substack. The podcast is “Le Podcast.” Lee, Leighton … get it? On this first episode, we discuss the Kamala Harris campaign’s proposal to win over Black Americans with marijuana and crypto, the working class and male disconnect with the Democratic Party, the Chinese Exclusion Act’s connection to...