Political Junkie Podcast

In this emergency episode of the Political Junkie podcast, I am joined by Michael Kazin, a prize-winning scholar and Professor of History at Georgetown University. Michael is an expert in American social movements and politics; his most recent book is What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022), but he has also written extensively about the American pea...

We begin with this clip : Bari Weiss, newly named chief of the CBS News Division and founder of The Free Press Substack, reintroduces herself and the network prior to a Town Hall with Turning Point USA’s Erika Kirk on December 14, 2025. Today’s theme music is Never Say Never, by Afternoonz. In the news: * The Department of Justice made it official on Sunday : despite the fact that a federal agent...

At the beginning of this episode, we hear a clip from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about strategic uncertainty on February 12, 2002, as the Bush administration falsely argued that the United States was compelled to go to war in Iraq to seize weapons of mass destruction. Protesters march to the Pentagon on March 21, 2009 as part of an anti-war march and rally in Washington, D.C. Photo credi...

News Summary: * Yesterday, 37 year-old Renee Nicole Good , a poet, mother of three, and a United States citizen was murdered by an ICE officer identified as Jonathan Ross, a ten-year veteran of the service. Good was confronted by ICE vehicles , and for unknown reasons, Ross ordered Good to get out of the car, where she was accompanied by her wife and dog. As Good she attempted to leave the scene,...

Promotional photo of Imogene Coca and Sid Caesar from “Your Show of Shows,” August 30, 1952. Photo credit: NBC/ Wikimedia Commons For this final podcast of 2025, we begin with a clip from “The Vitality Health Food Restaurant,” featuring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca as the recurring characters Charlie and Doris Hickenlooper; Howard Morris and Carl Reiner play bit parts. It was broadcast during the 1...

As we slide into the holidays, our politics podcast is on a three-week hiatus. But I have some terrific book chats lined up, each one accompanied by a short news summary. Neil and I will be back and ready to rock on January 9 to evaluate the fresh hell breaking loose in 2026! Country music star Dolly Parton arriving at a Hollywood premiere in January, 2012. Photo credit: DFree/ Shutterstock We beg...

We begin with influencer Milo Yiannopoulos on December 6, 2025, in conversation with ex-Congressman and pardoned felon George Santos on Tim Poole’s podcast. Sporting a sequined “Make America Straight Again” cap, self-described journalist and “ex-gay” Milo Yiannopoulos served as the Parade Grand Marshall for the Boston Straight Pride Parade and Rally on August 31, 2019. Photo credit: Maverick Pictu...

We begin with this clip from a cabinet meeting earlier this week, in which Pete Hegseth described to a journalist his participation in a deadly September 2 strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug smuggling boat, and a second missile fired that killed first-strike survivors. Secretary of Defense fakes screwing in a sign misidentifying the Department of Defense of the Department of War, a name he likes...

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Here are a few books you might be interested in after listening: * Kevin M. Schultz, Why Everyone Hates White Liberals (Including White Liberals) : A History (University of Chicago Press, 2025). * Leah Wright Rigueur, The Loneliness of the Black Republican: Pragmatic Politics and the Pursuit of Power (Princeton: 2016). * Arthur M. Schlesinger, Th...

Hello listeners! This is a Substack live I did earlier in the day: in the future, I will be doing more features that take a deep dive into an important story that illuminates the functioning of our democracy. * Trump allies are demanding Pam Bondi’s resignation over the botched indictments—but no that they happened in the first place. See Edith Olmsted, “ MAGA Demands Bondi’s Head After Failed Com...

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video, and just to say: I have rescheduled historian Kevin Schultz, and the conversation about whether everyone *really* hates liberals. I filmed this before Marjorie Taylor Greene announced her resignation from Congress late last night . Join me for my next live video: download the app, if you have not done so already, and I will see you on Wednesday,...

We begin with a clip from a gaggle on Air Force One this week , in which a female reporter asked a follow up question about the Epstein files, and President Donald Trump responded by wagging his finger at her and saying: “Quiet, piggy.” Image credit: miss.cabul/ Shutterstock This week, we had trouble with our internet connection, which resulted in the loss of much of what Neil’s valuable contribut...

We begin with an Oval Office presser on Tuesday, when a White House reporter asked Trump to respond to criticism from Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R, GA-14) for spending time on foreign policy during the government shutdown. One correction: you will hear Claire misstate the beginning of the Watergate affair as the summer of 1971: it was the summer of 1972. Marjorie Taylor Greene speaking...

We begin with a clip from New York City Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani’s victory speech in Brooklyn, New York, on November 4, 2025, one of five critical victories for Democrats that day. Representative Mikie Sherrill campaigning in Morristown, NJ, October 14, 2025. Photo credit: Ben Von Klemperer/ Shutterstock News Summary: * On Election Day, former Vice President Dick Cheney died in Northern Virginia...

Neil is off this week doing super-secret stuff: all will be revealed eventually. But today, I am delighted to offer an episode featuring former New York Times journalist Sam Tanenhaus. The author of two previous books on conservatism in the United States, including a biography of anti-Communist Whittaker Chambers , Sam joined me to talk about his new volume about a man who did more than almost any...

We begin with this clip of Vice President Vance excusing the Young Republicans who sent racist, homophobic, and violent messages and misidentifying them as “boys” and “kids.” The organization he seems to be referring to is College Republicans . Young Republicans , founded in 1856, is an organization designed for “young professionals” as old as 40, and jumpstarts political careers . Vice President...

We begin with this clip from a March 28, 2025 press conference, in which President Donald Trump answers the timeless question: “What is a woman?” Photo credit: NeydtStock/ Shutterstock.com In the news: * Election day is on November 4, less than a month away, and a race everyone is watching is in New Jersey: Democrat Mikie Sherrill leads Jack Ciattarelli by between 3 and 8 points if you knock out a...

Due to a corrupted video file, our original file cut out after the 56 minute mark, and I couldn’t fix it. I have taken it down and you can now listen to the episode as an audio file. Our episode begins with White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller’s Christian nationalist eulogy for Turning Point USA CEO Charlie Kirk on September 21, 2025, at State Farm Stadium in Glendale Arizon...

We begin with words from Jeffrey Schaub, the Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Grand Blanc Ward. The Angel Moroni atop the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints temple in Monticello, Utah. Photo credit: Kara Laws/ Shutterstock News roundup: * We begin with the government shutdown that began on Wednesday at 12:01 a.m. Although the House majority was able to pass the c...

We begin with this clip , in which Donald Trump defends FCC chair Brendan Carr’s warning to Disney about ABC late night host Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue about the right’s reaction to Turning Point USA CEO Charlie Kirk’s murder. Image credit: chayanuphol/ Shutterstock News roundup: * On Monday, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order designating “Antifa” as a “domestic terrorist organizati...

We begin with a clip from the House Oversight Committee’s March 26 2025 hearing, chaired by Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA-14), in which Greene begins by accusing the now-former CPB President and CEO Katherine Maher of partisanship. Image credit: beast01/ Shutterstock News of the week: * On Monday, we learned that a New York Times team has done a forensic examination of the Ep...

This week, we skip our In the News feature to focus on what has dominated the national narrative since last Wednesday afternoon: the political assassination of Charlie Kirk. We want to emphasize our sorrow at this event, our exhaustion at an epidemic of gun violence in the United States that most frequently harms people who are not politicians or celebrities, and our heartfelt sympathy for Kirk’s...

This image of President Donald Trump leaving the White House prior to the Labor Day weekend raced around the internet and fed rumors that he was either already dead or had suffered a catastrophic health episode. Photo credit: posted on r/thebulwark , September 1, 2025; retrieved on September 6, 2025. We begin with this clip , in which Trump responds to internet rumors about his health. News of the...

Hedge fund manager Scott Bessent, the first out gay man to serve as Secretary of the Treasury, at his January 2025 Senate confirmation hearing. Photo credit: Maxim Elramsisy/ Shutterstock We begin with this clip from Donald Trump, speaking immediately after the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, and before the New Hampshire primary, in 2016. Don’t miss new drops from Claire and Neil! You can sub...

Delaware Representative Sarah McBride at the Delmarva Central Railroad headquarters in Harrington, DE, August, 2025. Behind her is Senator Chris Coons. Photo credit: Office of Congresswoman Sarah McBride/ Facebook . We begin with a clip from a March 13, 2025 press conference, in which Representative Sarah McBride (DE-01) rebukes her Republican colleagues for focusing on culture wars rather than is...