The Dispatch Podcast

It’s the 19th anniversary of September 11, 2001, one of the most harrowing historical events in living memory. Today, our podcast hosts reflect on their personal memories of the day as a launching point into a discussion about  the United States’ current understanding of al-Qaeda nearly two decades later. In reality, we don’t talk about al-Qaeda much anymore other than within the context of Trump’...

News broke overnight of President Trump’s plans to reduce U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, less than a week after Jeffrey Goldberg’s bombshell article in The Atlantic highlighted anonymous accusations of the president’s poor conduct toward American veterans. Sarah, Steve, and Jonah tackle some of the move’s political implications for Trump’s re-election campaign before launching into a lively...

Erick Erickson, host of 95.5 WSB’s Atlanta’s Evening News and creator of The Resurgent, joins Sarah and Steve on the latest Dispatch Podcast to state the case for the president’s re-election, despite his own wide-ranging reservations about Trumpism and the future of the Republican party. To Erickson, Trump represents the lesser of two evils—acting on the better judgement of behind-the-scenes admin...

On the campaign trail and throughout his presidency, Donald Trump has painted himself as a law and order candidate. We’re now three years into Donald Trump’s America and waves of violence and racial unrest are sweeping across America, most recently in Kenosha, Wisconsin, following the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Do the riots and looting in Kenosha benefit Trump electorally? It’s hard to say wh...

The Democratic and Republican conventions are finally over but most of the major credible pollsters are waiting for the dust to settle before tracking public opinion of both presidential candidates. The critical message pushed by the RNC this week was that Trump kept the promises he made to voters, but is that a real policy agenda moving into his second term? Is Biden’s “nice guy,” “Build Back Bet...

Widespread destruction of businesses and private property has devastated Kenosha, Wisconsin, in the wake of the police shooting of a Jacob Blake last week. As we explained in today’s Morning Dispatch, “Blake was airlifted to a hospital, underwent surgery, and is still alive, but reportedly paralyzed from the waist down.” The details leading up to Blake’s shooting are still murky, but protests, rio...

When Politico reported on Republican congressional candidate Marjorie Greene’s racist and bigoted comments in June, several top GOP officials—including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy—condemned her campaign. But after she beat her Republican opponent Dr.  John Cowan in Tuesday’s primary race, McCarthy immediately switched gears. A spokesman for McCarthy’s office told Declan that the GOP leader “loo...

On Tuesday, Joe Biden tapped Kamala Harris as his running mate. But let’s be honest—we all saw this coming. As we wrote in The Morning Dispatch today, “D.C. conventional wisdom had Sen. Kamala Harris pegged as Joe Biden’s likeliest choice for months.” Despite Harris’ numerous attacks on Biden over his busing record and relationship with segregationist senators —not to mention her dicey criminal re...

Last week, President Trump experienced one of the most challenging interviews of his presidency when he sat down with Jonathan Swan from Axios. Swan asked some tough follow-up questions, and Trump’s responses demonstrated that he is not used to this level of pushback. What’s more, the interview highlighted the fact that the White House’s media strategy revolves around reassuring the president rath...

As our colleague Jonah Goldberg always says, the parties have never been weaker than they are right now. Democratic political strategist Joe Trippi joins Sarah and Steve today on The Dispatch Podcast to discuss how parties no longer have the power to push out irrelevant, personality driven candidates from the establishment. According to Trippi, this phenomenon is here to stay: “You’re going to hav...

This morning, Trump told Jonathan Swan from Axios that he has never confronted Vladimir Putin about Russian bounties that were paid to the Taliban to kill American troops, partly because the president doesn’t believe it happened in the first place. But we know from several credible intelligence reports that the president was briefed on the Russian bounties months ago. On today’s episode, Steve rem...

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan had some blunt criticism for the incumbent president of his own political party on the latest Dispatch Podcast, and all but ruled out supporting Donald Trump in November. “This week the president said he was going to cut funding for testing,” said Hogan, in conversation with Sarah Isgur and Steve Hayes. “That was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard.” Hogan continued...

During Tuesday’s press briefing, a reporter asked the president about Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite and confidante of Jeffrey Epstein who is facing charges for grooming and sexually abusing minors. When pressed on whether Maxwell will turn in other powerful people, the president said, “I just wish her well, frankly.” This took many by surprise, but as Steve reminds us in today’s episode,...

What is happening on the ground in Afghanistan and why are we still there? The Trump administration has closed five bases, reduced the number of American troops to 9,ooo, and signed a peace deal with the Taliban. But as Thomas Joscelyn points out in today’s podcast, the peace deal is really nothing more than a “pretext for justifying withdrawal.” While the United States reckons with its military p...

Peter Navarro, director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy for the Trump administration, published a scathing hit piece against top epidemiologist Anthony Fauci in USA Today this morning. “Dr. Anthony Fauci has a good bedside manner with the public, but he has been wrong about everything I have interacted with him on,” Navarro writes. For months now, Fauci has bickered with White Hous...

The day after his son was born on October 2, 2009, Jake Tapper watched a news report about a team of 53 American troops who were relentlessly attacked by 400 Taliban insurgents at the Combat Outpost Keating in Afghanistan. “In the haze of it all, there was a moment where I was sitting there holding my son and watching this news report about eight other sons, taken from this earth,” he said. Inspir...

An open letter published by Harper’s, signed by 153 prominent names, warning against illiberal behavior received swift pushback online. Sarah, Steve, Jonah, and David discuss which socio-political issues of our time are within the scope of reasonable disagreement while also addressing why illiberalism has become such a global phenomenon. Should schools reopen fully in the fall? Why has the fight o...

Yascha Mounk, the founder of Persuasion, joins Sarah and David to discuss his new publication and the project of defending liberal democracy. Show Notes: -Persuasion -Stranger in My Own Country -Stop Firing the Innocent Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sarah and the guys discuss reporting about a Russian plot to pay bounties to Taliban-linked militants to kill American troops, the battle for control of the Senate, and cancel culture's effect on our conversation about race in America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Astead Herndon, national politics reporter at The New York Times, joins Sarah and Steve to discuss his reporting from the president's rally in Tulsa to the Biden campaign and veepstakes. Show Notes: -Astead's work at the Times -Follow Astead on Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sarah, Steve, Jonah, and David discuss the state of the 2020 race as we kick off the first week of summer, and what the revelations in John Bolton's book mean for the president's administration. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Martin Gurri, a former CIA analyst, joins Sarah and Steve to discuss our information overload, the loss of trust in institutions and figures of authority, and the role of tech platforms. Show Notes: -Gurri's book The Revolt of The Public -Gurri's piece on post-truth -Vaca Frita recipe Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sarah, Steve, Jonah, and David discuss the president's executive order on policing, proposed reforms on Capitol Hill, the growing tension between China and India, and the Supreme Court's landmark Title VII decision. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Dispatch's own Andrew Egger and Declan Garvey join Steve for a discussion on the blow-up at The New York Times over its Tom Cotton op-ed, woke culture, Trump superfans, and the empathy gap. Show Notes: -The Wokening vs. the Trumpening -Barack Obama on woke culture -Andrew's piece on Trump superfans -Declan's piece on the empathy gap Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoice...

Sarah, Steve, Jonah, and David discuss the continued fallout over the death of George Floyd and the events of Lafayette Square, why this moment feels different, police reform on Capitol Hill, and the "defund the police" movement. Show Notes: -The crackdown before Trump’s photo op -David's Sunday newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices