The Fifth Column

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 …and how raising a black daughter changed the way he sees America. -David French returns to the Fifth Column -SCOTUS drops of a few ruling -Free speech wins 9-0 ( First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Davenport ) -The Voting Rights Act gets another t...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com After the failed shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, the boys sift through bad manifestos, assassination discourse, microlooting, conspiracy politics, and the strange moral permissions of America’s bored radicals. -Matt’s 15-year Werner Herzog hangover workshop -judging the newest failed killer manifes...

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 -have we met before, or did we just share a zip code? -Iran is a disaster from basically every possible angle -you don’t go to war with this president -maybe just crawl back to a worse JCPOA and call it historic -Venezuela “worked,” which is exactly why...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com Comedian Ryan Long stops by to join the guys at their very special 10th year anniversary. A few live mics, a non-stop flow of mystery drinks, and audience participation: what could go wrong? -10 years later, the grievance ledger is still very much active -Brett Weinstein cannot think his way back from the moon -Andrew...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com The border, the bombs, and can you guess how many Baldwins there are? -up at 2:30am, in by 4am, then 6 straight on-air hours before the fill-in shift even starts -Glenn Beck saved 5pm and accidentally birthed The Five -Fox News finally discovered the internet -2020 was insane and everyone got dumber -if the facts chan...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com He has spent a lifetime around fame, a heroic father, football mythology, and old Hollywood… and somehow still comes off like the calmest guy in the room. -Steve McQueen and a Mini Cooper -what Carl Reiner was really like, and why Summer School still rules -growing up with Tom Harmon: Heisman winner, broadcaster, figh...

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 -Where have ye gone Chris Matthews? -California’s governor race is a freak show (Fang Fang rides again) -Bring Kevin Spacey to the table? -Barney Frank, Ted Kennedy, and different standards -The anti-gambling jihad -Talks about talks about talks -The go...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com Sarah Isgur, Executive Editor of SCOTUSblog , has a book! Last Branch Standing is out today. -The Ted Lasso version of the Supreme Court -The Supreme Court is not the 6-3 cartoon people think it is -RBG thought Roe was built on weak foundations -The Court decides legal questions, not good policy vs. bad policy -Congre...

-The wrong Greenwald, but the actual Abe -Everyone loves our ad spots -Iran’s deranged peace menu -Ceasefire, with extra missiles -The joint Hormuz tollbooth fantasy -What Iran lost, even if nobody can sell it -Regime change, but not the fun version -Vanceworld (probably) leaks to the Times -Trump threatens apocalypse, then shrugs -Pakistan, Vance, and easier marks -Groypers and other forms of los...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com BEHOLD, the Mailbag (aka male-bagging, aka you-yell-at-us-and-we-tell-you-to-fuck-off) -The Easter Bunny claps for the Iran rescue -Lie long enough and eventually your conscience taps out -about that Rahm moment -who remembers Jazz Hands? -maybe woke actually is over -Bret Weinstein, vindication for the Evergreen psyc...

The Fifth Column marks ten years with a live, loose, alcohol-assisted celebration featuring Thor Halvorssen, Pete Meijer, Olivia Reingold, Nick Gillespie, and Nancy Rommelmann, with stops along the way for Venezuela, culture war absurdity, Jewish identity, sexual politics, old stories, new grievances, and the usual refusal to keep anything on the rails. WATCH IT on Youtube: The Fifth Column (A Pod...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com Oh, and Wednesday marks the 10th anniversary of this show, yes, on April Fools’. Can you fucking believe it? Join us for the only appropriate celebration, a LIVE late-night shitfest of alcohol, probable technical mishaps, and some very special guests. -Theodore Henken, plantanified yuma -Why America still can’t quit C...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com * Maybe I wasn’t exactly a prince * Why nobody should want to stay in Washington too long * The worst job in politics * The ACA, “the three children,” and the birth of the Tea Party * The Great Recession and losing your ticket to the American dream * Trump didn’t invent the anger, he captured it * The no-drinking-unti...

Kmele loves Apple products…maybe a little too much. But what a perfect guest to talk all things related to this monster company and how it’s shaped American culture and the globe as a whole. -The Newton saved Apple -What Kmele does with Apple products in the shower -The underdog with taste -Why Matt Welch hates Macs -On getting access to Apple -Project Titan and the $10 billion heartbreak -Apple a...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com -Celine Dion, slightly less stiff -Every headline out of Hungary is insane -The Orbán character arc -The Polish miracle -Conservative 2Pac in the Borat republic -Cuba is falling apart, Hasan Piker is thriving -Cuba’s healthcare miracle, minus aspirin -Why pseudo-intellectuals love communist field trips -The pig whose...

-Joe Kent’s weird texts and the “Israel did Iraq” brainworm -The Jews are so fucking clever -Iraq 2003, back from the dead yet again -There’s always a new monster to destroy -Iran, nukes, and the problem with crazy people holding civilization hostage -A Ron Paul guy with a war boner -Don’t you realize you’re losing America? -Norman Finkelstein has no phone -Mearsheimering, Robert Pape, and the inc...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com -Gov. Chris Christie debrief -Kmele nearly dies after seeing the new hidden painting on set -K-Pop Nazi Hunters and Sinners -Joy Reid says America is basically Iran now -Straight from The Communist -Lights out in Cuba -The Gains of the Cuban Revolution -”I got my job from the New York Times” -The old broken Cuban syst...

-Gov. Chris Christie says Kmele has no excuse -Getting drunk with Colbert -No drugs, ever -RFK Jr.’s drug use -The only things Trump believes in -something is a little off about John Kasich -Olivia Nuzzi is a Freak, Crumb Cake edition -Michael Barbaro tried to take the Gov down with food -Bon Jovi, Bruce, and New Jersey loyalty tests -The Little Marco Florsheim Fib -The ultimate Kushner lore, aka...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com He also weighs in on populism, inequality, private credit, and why a country can be prosperous on paper while still feeling bleak to the people living in it. -“Blankfein hates minorities” -the economy is strong, unless you don’t own anything -get a grip, it’s not 1968 -semi-charmed kind of life -from Russia to China,...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com From the multiverse to time travel to bad studies and internet “experts,” and then all the way to metaphysics and belief, Sean Carroll explains why modern life makes everyone sound so sure about things they barely understand. -Moynihan is genuinely unnerved by space -a theoretical physicist’s favorite music is prog ro...

Hooman Majd comes from a family that reads like a parable about modern Iran: a grandfather who was an ayatollah, an uncle who worked for the Shah, and a folk-singing aunt. Everyone’s family has a version of this, right? -Iran is a tragedy -the sense of triumph has already faded -is Hooman happy the Supreme Leader was killed? -Trump’s motive: regime change, or only regime adjustment? -a ring of fir...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com -Matt takes off his glasses, Kmele panics -Moynihan is furious we started a war during his aggressive vomiting window -The Great Unwrapping of Liberated Iranian Women as the most convincing reason for war -Marco Rubio sells the rationale in Möbius-strip logic -the Dee Snider Doctrine -The Death of the War Powers Resol...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com Journalist Nadav Eyal joins Welch and Moyniahn to game out the Iran strikes, why Gaza’s endgame is still murky, and why the “no boots on the ground” promise matters more than most hot takes admit. -Zen and the Art of Strategic Surprise -Everyone who’s anyone in the region knew this was going to happen. -Why the US was...

I first met Ken Layne sometime in 1991, back when Vanilla Ice ruled the pop charts, the Soviet Union was still a thing, and Canadians still had a reasonable expectation of winning the Stanley Cup. We have been collaborating and experimenting ever since -- a little newspapering here , some music there , various dot-com shenanigans , all of it in a spirit of adventure, learning, and hijinks. Ken has...

-Matt Welch’s Caribbean identity crisis at Da Pig Beach -The State of the Union aka a two-hour hostage note -A greatest hits, lowest lights compilation for President Camacho -The futility of “speeching” your way through a math-defying approval rating -You can’t talk your way through a 38% approval rating -Let the hockey boys drink -Dan Crenshaw is allowed to be mad -The RNC’s new guard of real fuc...