The Fifth Column

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com Robert Wright ’s new book The God Test: Artificial Intelligence and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning , is out now ( Bookshop | Amazon ) •“Conference” = group sex •21 years of successfully avoiding podcast wealth •Interviewing the godfather of AI •A tiger and a rattlesnake •Matt gets quizzed on LLMs •The God Test •The shock...

The great Kat Rosenfield joins us to discuss the ongoing fallout from rape allegations against Maine U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner published Monday by Politico . When you’re a star, they let you mispronounce their name. •The Fifth Column (whiskey) sells out! •America’s birthday month •Loathing Graham Platner before it was cool •The least weird thing about Platner •The Times is on it •A work...

-The Fifth Column whiskey racket begins -Matt moves during a heat wave… Peter Meijer reports for duty -Meijer, class traitor, explains the pied-à-terre tax -Mayor Mamdani balances the budget, if you ignore the bailout -Kmele gets Hayek’d -Machine politics was bad, but graduate student politics is worse. -Bannon’s old Leninist fantasy, now available in DSA packaging -Kamala Harris genuflects toward...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com Also: a serious discussion of the cinematic category known as “movies where they clearly came up with the title first.” -The N-word trap at the Hudson Yards gym -Joe Jackson dressed for the evil dad part -Phil Spector and the Wall of Sound defense -Richard Simmons slaps a cage fighter -How to respond to an asshole -Co...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com We are lucky to be joined once again by Executive Editor of SCOTUSblog , Sarah Isgur , and on a day when the Supreme Court gave everyone a lot to argue about. -Trump loses, birth tourism maybe does not -Anchor babies and America’s soccer future -The 14th Amendment gets weird -A color-blind Constitution, except when it...

-Welch enters his Charles Nelson Reilly era -Laura Branigan, Happy Mondays, and songs you didn’t know were covers -Puerto Rico’s revenge -The cadres are closing in - Reihan Salam and Larry Flynt -DAC hits the media circuit and refuses to answer the easiest question in politics -Aber Kawas explains 9/11, in a Miss South Carolina sort of way -Vaporware word clouds masquerading as policy -No borders,...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com Michael A. Cohen is a columnist for MSNOW, a senior fellow at Tufts University’s Fletcher School, and co-director of its Afghanistan Assumptions Project. He also writes the Truth and Consequences newsletter. He is not the former fixer of Donald Trump. -The correct Michael Cohen stops by -Mamdani flexes in the primarie...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com -Ethnicity as performance -Manhattan politics with the president of the Manhattan Institute -Dan Goldman orders coffee, receives moral instruction -The many political personalities of Brad Lander -Taxpayer-funded activism and the Office of Mass Engagement -Mamdani and the borg beneath the campaign -AOC, cadres, and di...

-Kmele debuts his Sebastian Bach beach jeans -The Iran deal is like the JCPOA, but a lot worse -Lebanon sneaks into a U.S.-Iran deal -Strait of Hormuz, 60-day promises, and negotiating with hostage-takers -Why can’t the hawks ever learn? -Ukraine brings the war home to Russia -Drones, oil refineries, and the new cost of war -Europe wakes up… sort of -Meloni jabs her digits at Trump -Polymarket che...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com Batya Ungar-Sargon , host of Batya! on NewsNation, returns!!! And with a new book, The Jews and the Left , about antisemitism, anti-Zionism, and why so much of the modern left has made Jews the enemy. -JD Vance, Tucker, and the anti-Israel right -The Iran deal, Rubio’s silence, and Trump’s trial balloon -What Batya go...

-The Knicks give New York its greatest night in years and OG makes his MVP case -Valid destruction or peaceful rioting? -A brief detour through America’s dumbest college mascots -Dave Chappelle and Shane Gillis give Moynihan a perfect Comedy Cellar night -Kmele roots for the Spurs, but only to punish Knicks fans -Spike Lee has been on the court long enough -Which celebrity row courtsider gets booe...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com Throughout this entire interview, Ana remains furious that our office was stocked with whiskey, but only half a bottle of white wine and absolutely no pizza. -The White House press corps just takes it -Kristen Welker gets the Trump treatment (and would Trump have tried that with Tim Russert?) -Ana Navarro is here, fro...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com Noah’s new book is Blood and Progress … not to be confused with “Blood and Soil,” a phrase Moynihan has been muttering to himself around the office. -A book squarely in the TFC wheelhouse -The teens, the twenties, the sixties, the seventies, and now -The forgotten history of left-wing violence -Italian anarchists and...

-a dog is on set and Kmele should be wearing a helmet -Bernie Sanders wants to collectivize AI -The boys bask in the warmth of collectivism -Never trust a politician giving something back to “the people” -The centrist Democrat goes missing -It’s still a Nazi tattoo, goddammit -Character is out. Winning is in -Andy the Ogre Ogles has thoughts on the gays and Ted Cruz answers the question and keeps...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com Chris Murphy ’s book, Crisis of the Common Good, is out now -Murphy opens his book by dunking on his son’s NHL prospects -Pitching the common good -Trump is not the disease. He’s the symptom -Buy more stuff, feel worse, repeat until democracy collapses -Kids, phones and the algorithmic hell machine -Congress wants to...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com Be sure to check out Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps , Australia’s greatest podcaster and interviewer, which apparently counts. -90 minutes of Kmele cleaning his glasses -Josh is on drugs now -RIP Jack Karlson, hero of democracy manifest -we will be referring to limp penis throughout this show -Erect until...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe Check out Ben Rhodes new book: All We Say: The Battle for American Identity: A History in 15 Speeches -Ben Rhodes, wounded ’90s Knicks fan -Are we winning in Iran yet? -what should the President do with Iran right now? -Sanctions suck, mostly -Cuba and...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com The podcast is called Stay Tuned with Preet , and if you find yourself wanting more legal analysis from someone who knows the system from the inside and still has a sense of humor about it. -Trump 2.0 & the frictionless DoJ -The one thing Jeff Sessions did right -Even Bill Barr had his limits -Why do smart lawyers fol...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com After 10 years of doing this podcast, this week we had our first ever DC show at the Miracle Theatre on Capitol Hill. We were joined onstage by Robby Soave of Reason , and Lulu Garcia-Navarro of The New York Times’ The Interview . Join us as we wax nostalgic about the city we love to hate, and so much more. •The Curse...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com Matthew Yglesias is a liberal policy writer and longtime blogger. He co-founded Vox, now writes the Slow Boring newsletter, and is known for wonky-but-readable takes on housing, economics, Democratic politics, foreign policy, and the abundance agenda. -Matty finally makes it through the firewall -What type of gay is K...

We talk about broken housing markets, broken healthcare, broken Congress, Trump’s corruption, a broken Cuba, Epstein, UAPs, and the tragedy of being a drummer with no place to practice. -Making music is for rich kids now -From jazz drummer to Hillary field organizer -Sandy Hook, March for Our Lives, and the road into politics -Florida’s felon disenfranchisement fight -Guns, swamps, Confederate fla...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe - Steven Pinker on why “common knowledge” is much stranger than it sounds -The social machinery behind weddings, money, and power -How a norm starts to die once someone breaks it and gets rewarded -Trump as the great destroyer of polite restraints -The...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com His next book, China Whisperers (out in November), looks at the diplomats, journalists, scholars, and China hands who shaped America’s understanding, and misunderstanding, of its chief geopolitical rival. But we pretty much cover the entire globe in this conversation. -The experts had it coming -Federalists, anti-fede...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe -Kmele gets glasses -The return of Soho legs -Matt’s movie-theater race science -Trump sends a letter to Congress saying the war is over, Iran says, “wtf?” -Little Marco, Fog of War correspondent -A very leaky White House -Strange new respect for the an...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com We’re joined by Anthony Scaramucci, founder of SkyBridge Capital, former White House Communications Director, and one of the more memorable casualties of Trump 1.0 -The Mooch reads the stars -The truth is out there, allegedly -954,000 seconds in the White House -The Ryan Lizza thing, briefly -the reason God made Steve...