The Sauce with Maya Gurantz and Rebecca Cohen

So we’re all freaking out in this final stretch before Election Day 2024. Rebecca and Maya revisit our episode on the Trump Cult from four years ago, recorded right before Biden’s inauguration, which we then thought—perhaps naively—would be the last one we’d have to do. We listen to it again and ask: why are we still here?— finding answers in Trump’s Nazi Rally at Madison S...

On the one hand, a demented felon on a cross country tour, swaying and screaming nonsense into the void. But on the other hand–wait, HOW IS THERE ANOTHER HAND? Rebecca and Maya assess Trump’s increasingly fascist language, rapidly deteriorating coherence, and try to wrap our heads around how this can even be close. And the JD Vance Self Owns JUST KEEP COMING.

We all know Trump is a fascist, but lately he and JD Vance have taken it to a whole new level. Maya and Rebecca break down the unvarnished neo-Nazi talking points in their recent rhetoric and ponder the question: Is white nationalism really an effective campaign strategy?

What did we want to see in last week’s Debate between TFG and VP Harris? Nothing that would make us want to puke. Maya and Rebecca talk about the impossibility of debating Trump, the things Kamala actually made possible, and whether our brains have been too broken by all of this to even see clearly anymore. And the JD Vance self-owns JUST KEEP COMING.

JD Vance and Tim Walz represent a stark contrast in not just donut-ordering skills, but also performances of masculinity. Maya and Rebecca compare the drastically different representations of maleness embodied by each VP candidate, uncovering what their rhetoric and political philosophies reveal about their attitudes toward gender roles, and examining how it all connects to right wing attacks agai...

As the DOJ indictments on Russian interference in right wing media and politics begin rolling out this week, Maya and Rebecca thought it would be a good time to share this episode about the changing roles Russia has played and continues to fill in the American cultural imagination.

It doesn’t take a geriatrics expert to see that Donald Trump is deteriorating. Is it just normal aging, or something… else? Maya and Rebecca investigate Trump’s lapses in memory, behavior and language and ask how well they match up with the medically defined symptoms of dementia.

Couch sex, race baiting, menstrual tracking—MAGA-world is melting down while the Dems are energized and in array. Maya and Rebecca dig into this wild few weeks and ask: why are couch jokes so funny? And why are these people so fucking weird?

It’s KAMALA FOR PRESIDENT! Maya and Rebecca are wildly gratified to have our favorite political analyst Kaitlin Byrd back on to talk about the handoff from Biden, the instant national sea change it triggered, and our theories on what happened behind the scenes, how Veepstakes will go down, and what Vice President Harris will wear at the Convention.

Friends, LET’S BE READY. As Kamala Harris accepts the mantle of the Democratic nomination, Maya and Rebecca open up the time capsule and share our Kamala episode from four years ago when Biden first selected her as VP. We’re eerily prescient about the specific ways the left, right, and center would attack Kamala—attacks we’re already seeing again, and expect to see more of in the...

Happy (Possibly Last) 4th of July! In the wake of the recent horrifying decisions by the Supreme Court on presidential immunity and Chevron deference, Maya and Rebecca thought it was important to repost our episode from 2023 about the Supreme Court, our idealized notions of what it’s supposed to be, it’s real history, and the far right’s decades-long project to capture the court and su...

We followed every moment of Trump’s first criminal trial, and now that the verdict is in, boy is there a lot to talk about. From Trump falling asleep (and farting himself awake), to his defense team’s dumbest moves, to the electoral implications of 34 felony convictions, Maya and Rebecca dive into the all pleasures and surprises of watching this real-life procedural drama unfold.

Grunge is dead (again). As Maya grieves the death of iconic producer Steve Albini, she and Rebecca break down whether this Gen-X’s John Lennon moment, if the concept of “selling out” means anything anymore, and why edge lord humor just isn’t the same as it used to be.

Dune is Rebecca’s favorite novel, but Maya is a pure 100% Dune virgin. We watched Denis Villeneuve’s massively popular adaptation of this legendary, and legendarily unfilmable, sci fi epic to see if we see any of the same things. Does it work as a movie series? As an adaptation? As a meditation on the white savior narrative?

There is too damn much to talk about so we try to talk about it ALL! In this episode, Beyonce Goes Country, Tradwifes Go Viral, OJ Simpson Goes Dead, and Rebecca and Maya just try to keep up. We break down Cowboy Carter, the weird fantasy of white housewife cosplay, and the legacy of a famous wife-killer.

After taking a much-needed break from TFG, Maya and Rebecca catch up on Trump’s troubles: legal, financial, political, and psychophysical. How fucked is he? How worried should we be? What’s the most productive way to direct our anxiety between now and November?

Depending on whom you ask, Academy award winner Poor Things is either a feminist masterpiece about an empowered woman, or a male fantasy about a baby-minded fuck toy. Maya and Rebecca attempt to bridge the gap, asking the really important questions: Why is Yorgos Lanthimos so obsessed with old-timey whorehouses? Is this quirky visual style more or less irritating when Wes Anderson does it? And is...

College presidents forced to resign. Faculties gutted. Anti-DEI legislations cropping up nationwide. There’s no doubt about it–Right Wing activists are attacking Higher Ed, trying to “capture, restructure, and reform” centers of learning. Georgetown political scientist and Women’s Studies professor Nadia E. Brown joins us to help us understand this moment, what makes...

Intellectual expansion! Youthful passion! Exploited innocence! Genius writer, musician, and professional flame-throwing shit-starter Meredith Yayanos, comes on to talk about their problematic fave: Liberal Arts Education. What does college MEAN in the social imaginary? What did it mean to us? Cronyism, elitism, pranks, nubility, narcissistic faculty, racism, classism, date rape, Jeffrey Epstein, t...

Were we wrong about Taylor Swift? Actual, real live Swiftie Jenna Parrot responds to Maya and Rebecca’s takes about her favorite pop megastar. Can she help us understand Swift’s musical appeal, not to mention her cultural and political impact?

We can’t start the new year without talking about THE biggest pop culture story of 2023: Beyonce and Taylor Swift dominating American music, culture and even economics with their wildly popular, wildly extravagant Renaissance and Eras tours. Maya and Rebecca break down the star power, the spectacle and the songwriting, asking what makes these two megastars so powerful? And what does that rev...

Apparently there are some people we didn’t alienate with our last Israel episode? Well, if at first you don’t succeed… Maya and Rebecca dive back into Israel/Palestine and try, try again to understand why this topic is so hard to have conversations about.

Two drunk Jewesses (one with an Israeli passport) dive into the Hamas attack on Israel and the current catastrophe in Gaza, taking apart three major talking points that have been floating around and explaining why they’re all wrong.

Organized labor is so hot right now. With the UAW and SAG on strike – and more industries getting ready to join – Maya and Rebecca welcome multi-talented writer/producer/director Miles Kahn to go inside the recent Hollywood writer’s strike, analyze pop culture depictions of strikes, and uncover why unions having such a moment.

Wow, we did Nazi that coming! (Yes we did.) As Elon Musk beefs with the Anti Defamation League, Rebecca and Maya follow up on how he’s ruining Twitter and track how anti-Semitism on Twitter looks different in 2023 than it did in 2016.