The Gist

Jim O'Heir, who played Jerry (or was it Larry?) on 121 episodes of TV's Parks And Recreation, is out with a new book, Welcome to Pawnee: Stories of Friendship, Waffles, and Parks and Recreation . We discuss. Plus, a predictive algorithm tells us who the rest of the Trump appointees are. For instance, Koko The Gorilla for Under Secretary of Defense for Budgeting and Procurement. Produced by Joel Pa...

NY Governor Kathy Hochul was in favor of congestion pricing before she was against it, now she's for it again. She's in a race against an incoming administration in order to implement her ever-changing plan to tax drivers. The New York Daily News ' Harry Siegel joins us to assess the political plays and traffic delays. Plus, long-range missiles for Ukraine irk Vladimir Putin to the point of nuclea...

Music can heal. This explains the song "You dropped a balm on me". Dan Levitin's new book, I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music as Medicine , sells it out in even greater detail. Plus, there was nothing Democrats could do in the face of inflation, except maybe, not have caused so much inflation. Produced by Joel Patterson and Corey Wara Email us at thegist@mikepesca.com To advertise on the show...

Normally, each weekend on Best Of The Gist, we listen back to an archival Gist segment from the past, then we replay something from the past week, but this weekend we're scraping that formula and instead listening to an interview Mike did with a podcast called The Commercial Break , hosted by Bryan Green and Krissy Hoadley. It's a fun conversation, and we hope you enjoy it. Produced by Joel Patter...

Django Gold is a stand-up comedian, a former writer for The Late Show With Stephen Colbert , and a veteran of The Onion . In his stand-up special " Bag of Tricks ," he explores not being cool, show-off toilet seats, and the privilege of owning multiple pairs of scissors. His comedy has been described as "cynical and bizarre" but also "surprising, insightful and properly deranged." We discuss the r...

The nomination of Matt Gaetz to be United States Attorney General is shocking, confusing, and tumultuous, but not necessarily a non-starter. Plus, the Democratic Party is the HR department of politics. And, with government efficiency in the news, Richard Coffin of USAFacts stops by to give us the actual facts on where there is fat (or even muscle and sinew) to cut in the Federal budget. Produced b...

Peter Hegseth is Donald Trump's nominee to be Secretary of Defense. It's an impossible job, one that he can't possibly fulfill, and maybe that's the point. Plus, Israelis in Amsterdam chased and beaten, but some in the press say they (more or less) deserved it. And we are joined once more by Ben Wittes of Lawfare to talk about Trump's possible prosecutions. Produced by Joel Patterson and Corey War...

Ben Wittes, Editor-in-Chief of Lawfare , discusses what Trump can actually do and where the protections are for those he's threatened to criminally prosecute—Kamala is probably safe, but Jack Smith could be quite inconvenienced. Plus, Kristi Noem for DHS, and to California ballot counters: your torpor is not a virtue. Also, today The Atlantic published Mike's piece about the "HR-ification" of the...

Revelations from campaigns that could have been shared a while ago are being unearthed now. It turns out CNN knew Kamala Harris wasn't inspiring Pennsylvanians, but ... now they tell us! Plus, Seth Moulton gets pilloried for saying Dems need to talk about more issues openly. And Vic Michaelis of Very Important People stops by. VIP is an amazing show on Dropout TV, in which improvisers in heavy mak...

This weekend on Best Of The Gist, we listen to part two of our interview with Washington Post investigative reporter Albert Samaha about his deep dive into the NIL economy . Then we rewind exactly eight years, to the morning America woke up to realize Donald Trump was President. Produced by Joel Patterson and Corey Wara Email us at thegist@mikepesca.com To advertise on the show: https://advertisec...

Donald Trump knows how to speak so he's heard. Democrats ... much less so. Plus, there are many legitimate recriminations for the Democrats to engage in, but "Elon Musk's money made things unfair" is not one of them. And we speak with Albert Samaha of the Washington Post about the hidden economy of college sports . Produced by Joel Patterson and Corey Wara Email us at thegist@mikepesca.com To adve...

The polls were really very accurate, despite what the Nate-haters say. Amy Walter, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the Cook Political Report , explains why a clean sweep was not a surprise, assuming you understand concepts like margin of error and correlation. Plus, the offended Puerto-Rican vote failed to materialize, and unmarried women were overwhelmed by the voting preferences of their dads,...

Donald Trump has won, his coalition is actually more diverse than any Republican since Nixon, and his share of the popular vote could be larger than any Republican since George H.W. Bush in 1988—it was certainly the largest in 20 years. Today, Mike has a critique of the media, hope for the republic, and a pair of interviews. First, he talks with not-Trump-nor-Harris voters Kemele Foster, of The 5t...

Nah, its the election. We advise against supposed bellwethers, and the scrutinization of early exit polls. Plus, the march of progress by so many statistical measures will happen and has happened, no matter who is President. In today's interview, we're joined by Damon Linker for a conversation replete with wisdom and insight regardless of who wins. And it's clear who has already won ... why, it's...

Kathy Boockvar, former Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, fought back an orchestrated, well-funded, and dangerous scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election in her state. She shares her playbook for this go 'round. Plus, the last week of the election went quite poorly for Donald Trump. Why did he dress like a Garbage man? That said, he didn't say what they said he said about s...

Each weekend on Best Of The Gist, we listen back to an archival Gist segment from the past, then we replay something from the past week. This weekend, though, we're kicking it old school, with two segments from 2014. First up, Mike's now-10-year-old interview with Casper Kelly creator of the epic and addictive Adult Swim video Too Many Cooks . Then, with endorsements in the air, we listen back to...

Our third installment of Funny You Should Mention welcomes Sam Jay, former SNL writer, Tom Brady Roaster, host of HBO's Pause with Sam Jay , and stand-up comic behind such specials as Netflix's 3 In The Morning and HBO's Salute Me or Shoot Me . Sam and Mike talk cops, racism, white vs black people money management, and a joke she'll discuss but won't be telling again. Produced by Joel Patterson an...

Everyone's getting out of the presidential endorsement business, but The Gist , sensing a market opportunity, is wading in! Plus, Bloomberg's Akshat Rathi is back to discuss EVs, the energy needs of the AI revolution, and the banning the domestic extraction of oil? Produced by Joel Patterson and Corey Wara Email us at thegist@mikepesca.com To advertise on the show, visit: https://advertisecast.com...

Joe Biden calls Trump supporters "garbage," only he didn't mean it, probably, though he did say it, literally. Ugh. Pennsylvania Puerto Ricans are in play! Plus, Trump and Harris' dueling energy policies, and a conversation with Akshat Rathi, reporter for Bloomberg News, host of Bloomberg's Zero podcast, and author of Climate Capitalism: Winning the Race to Zero Emissions and Solving the Crisis of...

Four members of the Gen Z cohort, who will be voting in their first Presidential election cycle next week, talk with Mike about America In One Room: The Youth Vote , a deliberative poll and group experiment in direct democracy that was conducted back in July. They'll discuss who they are voting for and why, learning to listen to each other, and how to convince other young people on political issue...

A joke at a punch rally gets pilloried. And a full-show interview with Musa al-Gharbi on his book We Have Never Been Woke : The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite . This is the conversation all the symbolic capitalists have been waiting for! Produced by Joel Patterson and Corey Wara Email us at thegist@mikepesca.com To advertise on the show, visit: https://advertisecast.com/TheGist Subscribe t...

Each weekend on Best Of The Gist, we listen back to an archival Gist segment from the past, then we replay something from the past week. This weekend, we do neither. Instead, we listen back to Mike's 2008 NPR interview with Philip Zimbardo, the psychologist who became famous for his Stanford Prison Experiment. Zimbardo died earlier this month. Then we listen to Mike's recent interview with NewsNat...

To say that comedian Gary Vider's dad was an "unorthodox" parent is to misunderstand the word "unorthodox." His parenting toolbox included lying, deception, and fear, which is par for the course when you are a conman, but it can leaves scars on those close to you. Vider is out with a podcast about his dad and his childhood called #1 Dad . Also on the show, would you sell your vote to Kamala or Don...

Fred Kaplan has won a Pulitzer, been nominated for another, and he's covered the national security community for years. So he finally decided to just throw out the rules of non-fiction and write a novel ... about the end of the World, or almost the end of the world. A Capital Calamity is a tale of impending armageddon not with a bang nor a whimper, but because of a consultant. Plus, airlines have...

David Greenberg is out with the first biography of Congressman John Lewis , which offers an examination of the highly influential legislator's activism, congressional record, and how his theories of change themselves changed depending on the role he played. Plus, a recent This American Life episode about the Democrats' uncommitted delegates raised the stakes, but left out details. Also on the show...