The Good in Us

I had the opportunity to speak with journalist extraordinaire and the longest-serving Black White House correspondent, April Ryan. April and I talked the state of American journalism and the trauma involved in pursuing that profession during Donald’s time in office, and we reminisced about School House Rock! [Transcript edited for length, clarity, and flow.] MARY April, I think you said it’s been...

JOYCE Did you see yesterday Pete Hegseth had this supposed Christian nationalist pastor to offer Christian prayer at the Pentagon? This is a guy who’s on record saying that the constitutional amendment that guarantees the three of us, all women, the right to vote it should be repealed. So, my coffee cup this morning says, “Votes for women.” MARY Beautiful. We should get one of those. KATIE This is...

As I wrote at the beginning of the week Ronda Cress, my wife (!) started a Substack recently called The Little Girl with the Big Voice . Two days ago, she launched a new interview series called “Big Voice Wednesdays.” I had the great pleasure of being her first guest. It was a little odd sitting in separate rooms speaking to each other via Zoom, but talking to her is one of my favorite things to d...

MARY: Steven, it’s really good to see you because I need some help figuring out what in the world is going on. As you’re probably aware, it feels as bad as 2025 was. It feels like America basically fell off a cliff on January 1st, 2026. STEVEN: I actually was out of the country until Friday night, the 2nd of January. And the third was the morning there was the invasion and attack of Venezuela. And...

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MARY Hello everybody. I’m with my friend Adam Parkhomenko. Adam has one of my favorite Substacks, The Alt Media . It’s fantastic and it’s hysterically funny just when you think the news is so bad that there is no humor to be found. ADAM We make it worse with curses. MARY Well, that’s one of my favorite parts about it. ADAM Thank you for that. MARY So, Adam, first, I wanted to talk a little bit abo...

To all of you who celebrate, Merry Christmas. I wanted to take a couple of minutes to thank all of you, the extraordinary people in this, The Good in Us community, who do more than I could possibly express to you to help keep me grounded and to keep me engaged in everything that’s going on. Happy Hanukkah to everybody who celebrated; Merry Christmas to everybody who’s celebrating today. Happy Boxi...

MARY: Hello everybody. It’s Mary Trump here with the great Ruth Ben-Ghiat and, luckily for me, my friend. Hi Ruth, how are you? RUTH: Hi Mary. I’m really glad to be in conversation. MARY: Especially as we are ending what has been what feels like perhaps the longest year we’ve lived through. Does that seem about right to you? RUTH: Oh, yeah. Every week is like a month. Every month is like a year an...

MARY: Hey, who’s here? It is the awesome Katie Phang. Katie, this week has been a millennium. At 10 o’clock on Monday morning I thought, it has to be Friday because we don’t have weekends anymore, do we? KATIE: Yes, you are correct. You used to feel like you got some respite from the insanity of the week on the weekend, but alas, no, the insanity is forever and a day. MARY: Remember the Friday nig...

MARY: Hey everybody. It’s Mary Trump here with my friend and fellow Nerd Avenger and journalist extraordinaire, Brian Karam. Brian, hi. BRIAN: Hi. Good to see you. MARY: Good to see you too. You actually got a little bit of downtime the last couple of weeks, so I’m glad for you because it’s been insane. Tell me what you think about this. We are living in very difficult, dark, troubling times, and...

MARY: Hey everybody. Look who’s here. Yes, indeed. It is the most awesome Joyce Vance who, as most of you know, has a brilliant Substack called ... What is it called? What’s it called? Oh shit. Civil Discourse. Civil Discourse. And you know the reason I got tripped up because I remember when you were starting it, I was advocating for calling it uncivil discourse. JOYCE: You had a role in naming my...

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There are two headlines on the front page of the New York Times today that got me thinking. The first is “U.S. Military Attacked a Boat off of Venezuela, Killing Four Men,” this is according to the “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth, a tough guy who sports white nationalist tattoos. The second reads: “Supreme Court Lets Donald Revoke Deportation Protections for Venezuelans.” The subhead of the second...

America’s toxic masculinity crisis was on full display today when Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense or, as he likes to say, Secretary of War, stood up in front of a room full of generals, admirals, and other senior military brass and lectured them about what it meant to be a real man. Hegseth himself is clean shaven, and he has a lot of white nationalist tattoos, so he knows whereof he speaks. Bu...

It is one of the great ironies of the American government that the Senate is one of the least democratic institutions in the country. This has become increasingly the case as the filibuster, which is an old racist tool that was ostensibly implemented in order to encourage bipartisanship, has instead become a way to thwart the majority. Even more significantly, as blue states become more populous a...

In 1961, Twilight Zone episode aired called “It’s a Good Life”. In it, Billy Mumy plays a seven-year-old boy who lives with his family on an isolated farm in Ohio. But the same people, all adults, are always in the house with them. These presumably neighbors from other farms. Despite the bucolic setting, however, the atmosphere is tense from the very beginning. Over time we begin to notice that th...

These are indeed the times that try men souls, because an assault on one of us, especially one person in particular, is an assault on us all. This week we have learned that not one, not two, but three horrors occurred at the U.N. It was indeed triple sabotage. And in the event you think I’m not being serious, we can see from a post written by the man himself. Yes, indeed at the U.N., Donald was th...

Remember that Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader, and Hakeem Jeffries, Minority Leader in the House, wrote a sternly worded letter to Donald demanding a meeting. Why? Well, because Schumer is desperate to avoid a government shutdown he believes he would be blamed for, which is an absurd conclusion for him to reach. As it turns out, Donald has no intention of meeting with them, and he wrote this...

In what I have no doubt was a sternly worded letter, Senate Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries demanded a meeting with Donald as if that’s going to be effective. We learned about this during Schumer’s interview this weekend with Dana Bash. She opened that interview with a question about something Donald posted on his failing social media site in which...

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Today the home and office of John Bolton were raided by the FBI. Bolton was head of the NSA during the first Trump administration, at least for a while. He is currently one of Donald's perceived political enemies. When asked if he knew ahead of time that the FBI was going to be raiding Bolton's home and office, Donald said he had no idea about it. Breaking news, he's lying. Let's dive in. Good eve...