The Gist

On The Gist, who oh who will govern the state of Virginia? In the interview, when Roger McNamee jumped in as an early investor in Facebook, he might not have figured he'd end up testifying about the company in front of Congress. McNamee charts Facebook's worrying evolution in his new book: Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe . In the Spiel, the State of the Union address is like baseball...

On The Gist, Gov. Andrew Cuomo still doesn't understand puns. In the interview, Lauren Greenfield has been documenting the wealthy for the past 25 years and has finally turned that into her new film Generation Wealth , an exploration of the rise of wealth culture and the implications it has on those immersed in it. Can money really make you happy? Is there any way for the rest of us to ascend to w...

On The Gist, parsing president Trump's one-on-one press interviews may be a fool's errand, but at least it's a fun one. In the interview, the Washington Post's Greg Miller has reported from the murkiest depths of the Trump swamp. He's on The Gist to talk about Russia's connections to the Trump campaign, the challenges of covering a hostile White House, and what he suspects Putin really has on Trum...

On The Gist, throwback to Mike Pesca's unnecessarily censored yearbook quote. In the interview, Seth Crossno, also known by his online persona William Needham Finley IV , thought it would be fun to go to the Fyre Festival with his buddies. And while the festival might have been a mess, being a part of two competing documentaries about the experience and winning a lawsuit about it was quite the tri...

On The Gist, get off of your phone and out of my way when it's snowing. In the interview, there's no one right way to raise a child, but a few hacks sure help. Podcaster, author, and mother Hillary Frank gives you permission to do what it takes to make your kid's childhood easier on you , including turning tasks into games and telling white lies (call pork "chicken" if that's all they'll eat). Hil...

On The Gist, this one is brought to you by the letter T. In the interview, does using a stool really help your stool? Can the Squatty Potty offer any actual health benefits or is that smooth dookie all in your mind? Maybe the contraption's popular just because it rhymes… Anyway, Maria Konnikova is here to judge, appropriately, whether that is bullshit. In the Spiel, Medicare is only a minefield if...

On The Gist, "the big game" is a dumb way to refer to the Super Bowl. If you were to pick a moment in U.S. history that put it on the path to polarization, you could do worse than Watergate. What followed were the blue and red bubbles staked out by CNN in the '80s, Fox News in the '90s, and social media in the 2000s. Princeton professors Kevin Kruse and Julian Zelizer lived through that history, c...

On The Gist, Nancy Pelosi is a skilled politician, sure… but she's scoring her wins against an incompetent one in president Trump. In the interview, we obsess about the lives of stars, but what about their not-so-famous siblings? Comedy Central's The Other Two focuses on the brother and sister of a pre-teen who rocketed to pop stardom. Drew Tarver plays one of those siblings, and discusses what it...

On The Gist, pairing 2020 candidates with this or that Oscar-nominated film. In the interview, don't take a shot every time Donna Brazile calls herself one of the Democratic Party's "original gangsters." But it's true: she's been at the heart of its workings for decades. In 2020, she plans on keeping out of the Democratic primaries, all while keeping up with the many rule changes they've adopted s...

On The Gist, Necco Wafers are out this Valentine's Day, but don't shed a tear. In the interview, some movies live for the twist. Steven Knight's latest film, Serenity , is ostensibly about a sea captain's Melvillian obsessions. Knight joins us to talk about how Matthew McConaughey gets it right, Saint Lucia, and writing screenplays in a detached state of mind ("It's almost like accessing whatever...

On The Gist, you can't give Ann Coulter a win. Rick Pitino is a former American basketball coach who experienced a number of scandals in the past few years, leading him to leave America for the Greek Basket League. But how did a renowned basketball coach find himself coaching in Greece? Journalist Michael Sokolove is here with the story. Sokolove's new book is The Last Temptation of Rick Pitino: A...

On The Gist, Joni Ernst's divorce filing. When Jessica Hopper started out writing about music, trolls and affronted fans didn't tweet at you; they wrote you a letter. The world's move to digital has changed that, and helped bring about the #MeToo movement (notice the hashtag?). But despite R. Kelly's fall, Hopper says the rest of the music industry may prove resistant to change. Hopper is the auth...

On The Gist, BuzzFeed's new report on Trump. Earlier this week Rep. Steve King was denounced by much of his party because of remarks he gave to the New York Times about white supremacy. He may have misspoken or chosen to change his wording if given the chance, but according to the Storm Lake Times' Art Cullen, who has been covering King for years in Iowa and recently wrote about King in the Guardi...

On the Gist, the knife-wielding skills of Nancy Pelosi. In the interview, An Xiao Mina has tracked the meme from its goofy origins to its use in anti-authoritarian protest and (more recently) disinformation. What's next, and how can we minimize the harm caused by the internet's worst actors? An Xiao Mina is the author of Memes to Movements: How the World's Most Viral Media Is Changing Social Prote...

On The Gist, Kirsten Gillibrand running for president. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently floated the idea of a 70 percent marginal tax rate on America's highest earners. That's bad for millionaires, but is it even that good for everyone else? The New Yorker's Adam Davidson argues it isn't: High taxes wouldn't rake in that much cash, and they might even scare taxpayers out of the country. Still, he...

On The Gist, 'twas an eventful news day (William Barr, opioid fatality statistics, Brexit … ), but Mike's got a big Spiel to fry. In the interview, Greg Jaczko served as chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission under Obama—and soon grew disillusioned with nuclear energy technology itself. He joins us to explain what changed his thinking and where to turn for tomorrow's energy. Jaczko's n...

On The Gist, president Trump is far from tough on Russia, and too many news talk shows let his allies make that claim. In the interview, Jennifer Traig thought she knew what she was getting into when she became a parent, until "washing diarrhea out of neckfolds" came along. In her latest book, she turns to history to sort the parenting techniques and philosophies that are worth keeping from those...

On The Gist, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's star power isn't something to fear. Especially if you're a Democrat. "The world is a very dangerous place!" as a statement from President Donald Trump's desk once put it. Eurasia Group president Ian Bremmer gets that, which is why his firm writes a list of top geopolitical risks at the start of every year. In 2019, these include America's response to growing...

On The Gist, costs and benefits in the government. In the interview, Matthew Heineman is here to discuss his new film A Private War . Though usually a documentary filmmaker, this time around he tried his hand at a feature. Focused on the life of journalist Marie Colvin, it's surprising how many documentary techniques Heineman employed when making the film, which uniquely fits the story being told....

On The Gist, the days are getting longer, the brand names shorter. In the interview, millennial whisperer (or, you know, just plain millennial) Anne Helen Petersen recently diagnosed "the burnout generation" in a viral feature for BuzzFeed . Student debt, the 2008 financial crisis, relatively low levels of family wealth—all have contributed to their dire straits. But could their biggest burden be...

On The Gist, do presidential addresses change anything? In the interview, NPR's David Folkenflik joins us to talk about Donald Trump's Oval Office address. Should the networks give airtime to someone so averse to facts, even if he is the president? Is there any precedent for this? And what repercussions for lying will Trump face, if any? In the Spiel, 5G networks. This episode is brought to you by...

On The Gist, news networks should do us a favor and not air Trump's prime-time speech on Tuesday night. In the interview, Greg Sargent is an indispensable voice for anyone looking to grasp the inner workings of American democracy. In his new book, he argues that compromise is possible even on issues as stark as voter suppression (the implementers are all Republican on this one, folks). Sargent's b...

On The Gist, works produced 75 years ago are now entering the public domain. And some are what 2019 would call "problematic." David Bowie once sang that we can all be heroes … but villainy is where it's really at. In the Ringer podcast Villains , host Shea Serrano and his guests analyze film's best baddies to figure out their true motives and chances at redemption. What makes The Silence of the La...

On The Gist, what do Kim Jong-un's letters and Shaquille O'Neal sneakers have in common? In the interview, you've likely heard of microplastics, but are they something to worry about? Maria Konnikova is here with answers in another round of "Is That Bullshit?". Konnikova is the author of The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It . . . Every Time . In the Spiel, and in New York City, even shutting do...

On The Gist, the government shutdown continues. In the interview, impeachment proceedings have never removed a president from office (in Bill Clinton's case, they even offered a bump in approval ratings). So is it really the best route for those who see nothing but rot in Trump's presidency? Lawfare Institute COO David Priess surveys the options in his latest book, How to Get Rid of a President: H...