Politix

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm We’ll give Donald Trump this month: Thanks to his efforts, political discourse has moved on (for now) from health care and the Epstein coverup. But … not to anything particularly helpful for him. In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss: * What on Earth did Donald Trump think he was doing by ordering a campaign of legal ha...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm Gotta hand it to Donald Trump, he got the Epstein Files and the January 6 anniversary off the front page, and all it took was a wee little war, plus a threat to conquer the whole hemisphere In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss: * WTF? * How has this destabilized the globe? * Can the damage be undone? * What’s the right...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm It’s that time of year again. Self-indulgent mailbag time. Thanks to all who sent questions, and apologies to those who didn’t get answers. In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss: * Whether Gavin Newsom is doomed to become yesterday’s news; * Why there’s never been a better time to tax rich people; * How (and if) liberal...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm Donald Trump suddenly faces defections in Congress, from right-wing influencers, and even from his own White House chief of staff. In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss: * Susie Wiles’s…intemperate comments to Vanity Fair about all the incompetents and cynics in the Trump administration; * The challenge of passing the c...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm Donald Trump is suddenly mired in a huge war-crimes scandal, complicating his desire to launch an actual war (also illegal) against Venezuela. In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss: * All the things that make the circumstances surrounding the order to murder shipwreck survivors so strange and suspicious; * How it all ge...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm Brian is adventuring in South America, so Matt is joined by Lakshya Jain of The Argument and Split Ticket to talk about his Wins Above Replacement calculations, which politicians are good at winning, and what we know about them. In the episode, Matt and Lakshya discuss: * The importance of “downballot lag” in assessing ca...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm Donald Trump has lost his grip, and it’s making him prone to a variety of political errors, some of which we enjoy with pure schadenfreude, others of which could cause tremendous collateral damage. In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss: * What if anything makes Marjorie Taylor Greene’s early exit from the House of Repre...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm Donald Trump’s Epstein coverup has faltered. Jeffrey Epstein’s estate has produced tens of thousands of emails implicating scads of U.S. elites, Trump foremost among them, but including famed economist Larry Summers and other prominent Democrats. Meanwhile, Congress has now voted overwhelmingly to compel the Justice Depar...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm After notching huge victories in last week’s off-year elections, Senate Democrats were overcome by a failure of nerve, and agreed to reopen the government without restoring anyone’s health insurance or securing any legal mechanism to rein in Donald Trump’s lawlessness In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss: * What the fu...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm It was a night of blowout victories in elections for Democrats and Democratic causes across the country, significantly surpassing the party’s most optimistic expectations. In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss: * What, if anything, do the margins, and the nature of the sweep, tell us about the politics today; * How comp...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm Even some of Donald Trump’s own voters were shocked to see he summarily demolished part of the White House, surprising many Democrats who had convinced themselves Trump is teflon and people don’t care about his corruption or vulgarity. In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss: * The long history of politicians not doing st...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm More than seven million Americans marched peacefully in the streets. Republicans are palpably spooked about it. And courage is proving contagious: In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss: * How Trump’s king-like abuses are, for the first time in a decade, becoming hard to distinguish from kitchen-table issues; * Whether,...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm The government shutdown just crossed the two-week mark. If you take Donald Trump and his people at their word, it doesn’t seem like it’s about to reopen. But they are also huge bluffers. In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss: * Has Trump hit upon a (legally dubious) way to keep the government “shut down” indefinitely? *...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm As anticipated in last week’s episode, the government did indeed shut down, and as of this recording Congress remains at an impasse. At the same time Donald Trump and Stephen Miller are trying harder than ever to foment street violence in blue cities and maybe even martial law. In this episode, Brian and Matt discuss: * H...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm Donald Trump has crossed an important redline: He ordered his administration to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey, fired the prosecutor who told him he had no case, and installed a lackey who did as ordered. In this episode: * What distinguishes the (weak, losing) Comey indictment from past abuses of prosecutorial...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm With the firing (and then unfiring) of Jimmy Kimmel, the right-wing crackdown in the name of Charlie Kirk seems to have bumped up against real limits. In light of the week’s developments, we discuss: * The schisms within MAGA that were on display at the Kirk memorial; * How those schisms fused with resistance backlash, fo...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm Donald Trump and several of his top officials have promised to unleash a partisan crackdown in Charlie Kirk’s honor, even as the notion that Kirk’s assassin was in league with the institutional left becomes more far fetched. In light of the week’s developments, we discuss: * Our personal reactions to the Kirk murder, and...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm Another government shutdown looms, and, thus, so do more angsty struggle sessions over what Democrats should do, and what effective opposition looks like. In this episode, we discuss: * How does mounting bad news for Donald Trump—bad jobs numbers, defeats in court, and revelations about his relationship with Jeffrey Epste...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm This week, we indulge all the speculation and look ahead to politics if and after Donald Trump dies in office. For instance: * Is a movement that claims the mantle of making America “healthy” sustainable in a world where the obese 79 year old president croaks after his health secretary takes vaccines off the shelf? * Does...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm This week, a close look at two troubling authoritarian provocations from the Trump administration: Friday’s dawn FBI raid of John Bolton’s house in Maryland, and Monday’s purported firing of Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. We discuss: * How Matt managed to leave his microphone in Maine. * Wh...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm Donald Trump’s federal occupation of the capital continues, but the context has worsened. It now unfolds alongside Trump’s seemingly related efforts to: 1) gerrymander as many red states as possible; 2) unconstitutionally void and rerun the Census in a manner that would benefit Republicans; and 3) assert unconstitutional...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm Donald Trump has commandeered Washington DC’s police force and deployed federal agents and national guardsmen to patrol DC streets, on plainly pretextual grounds. In this episode we’ll discuss: * What makes this affront to DC sovereignty unusually offensive; * Trump’s stated reasons for seizing power, and how to see throu...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm This week, we’re reassessing both the resiliency of the economy, and the health of U.S. democracy. Why? Because recent data suggests Donald Trump’s reactionary policy blitz (global tariffs, mass deportation) has caused the economy to seize up; and Trump has responded by trying to kill the messengers. In this episode you’l...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm Donald Trump is trying desperately to bury the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. In this episode, Matt and Brian explore all the distractions Trump has attempted—implicitly and explicitly—to knock the Epstein files out of the news, why Trump is so desperate and why are his usual tactics failing. * Should we at this point suspect t...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm The new Superman is a critical hit and box-office smash—despite conspicuous Republican efforts to discourage people from seeing it. It’s the GOP vs. truth, justice, and the American way! In this episode, Matt and Brian explore all the reasons the modern right might have been put off by this movie, and Superman’s longer-ru...