The TAKE with Jerrod Zisser Podcast

Get full access to The TAKE with Jerrod Zisser at jerrodzisser.substack.com/subscribe

Think about what I am about to tell you. Federal agents walked into an active polling location in Syracuse, New York — in the middle of a primary election and confronted a poll site manager while she was working. They handed her a warning form and tried to get her to sign it. They told her to remove a months-old Instagram post or face possible state or federal prosecution. Now I have that post. An...

Get full access to The TAKE with Jerrod Zisser at jerrodzisser.substack.com/subscribe

Get full access to The TAKE with Jerrod Zisser at jerrodzisser.substack.com/subscribe

Good morning, While families are still trying to keep up with health care bills, grocery prices, rent, and daily costs, Washington is once again consumed by political fights, investigations, raids, and expensive projects. If you value fact-based independent reporting, consider becoming a paid subscriber to support this work and get full access to deeper coverage, detailed breakdowns, and subscribe...

On This World PRESS Freedom Day I want to talk about the Three hundred sixty-three journalists killed in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon over the last 940 days. Independant journalism survives because readers like you help support it. If you can please support my work by becoming a paid subscriber. 363 journalists. Sit with that number for a moment. Because it is specific. Because behind every on...

Good evening, Tonight’s stories all come back to one basic question: who gets to use power, and who gets to check it? If you value fact-based independent reporting, consider becoming a paid subscriber to support this work and get full access to deeper coverage, detailed breakdowns, and subscriber-only posts. Here’s the news: * Trump administration bypasses normal review for $8.6 billion in Middle...

Good morning, It is Saturday, and we are starting the day with a lot to make sense of. An airline collapse is leaving workers and travelers in the dark. The U.S. is pulling troops out of Germany. A major abortion pill ruling could limit access across the country. And on this day 15 years ago, America marked one of the biggest moments in the long fight after 9/11. If you value fact-based independen...

Good evening, I’m keeping this one brief because I’m heading downtown to cover the May Day event in San Diego. I’ll have more from the ground later, but before I go, there are several major stories moving right now. If you value fact-based independent reporting, consider becoming a paid subscriber to support this work. Here’s the news: * Trump mocked his own crowd in Florida. Trump spoke to suppor...

Good morning, This morning is about what happens when powerful people and powerful systems move fast, and the public is told to trust the process. If you value fact-based independent reporting, consider becoming a paid subscriber to support this work. Here’s the news: • Medicare data exposure: A Medicare provider database exposed some health care providers’ Social Security numbers, along with name...

Good evening, Tonight, the story is power. Trump and Republicans are trying to change voting maps in key states. Congress is struggling to do basic work. Prices are rising again. The debt is growing. The Coast Guard is under strain. And Trump is using his platform to attack the media and push another loyalty test around who is “fit” to lead. That is not normal government. That is scary. If you val...

Good morning, Today’s news is about power. Who gets to vote under fair maps. Who gets heard when workers and families stay home. Who gets to lead inside the Democratic Party. And who pays when war gets more expensive. If you value fact-based independent reporting, consider becoming a paid subscriber to support this work. Here’s the news: * Louisiana could redraw its House map before voters cast ba...

Good evening, Tonight’s news is about power — who has it, who checks it, and what happens when the guardrails start to bend. We have the defense secretary facing Congress after the Iran war began. We have the Justice Department moving to roll back gun rules. We have Pam Bondi now set to testify on the Epstein files after contempt pressure. We have a major Supreme Court voting rights ruling. And we...

Good morning, It is Wednesday, and today’s news is really about power. Who gets protected by it. Who gets investigated by it. Who gets ignored by it. And who gets turned into a symbol by it. Some of these stories are heavy. Some are political. One is almost absurd. But all of them point to the same larger question: when government power moves, who is watching? If you value fact-based independent r...

Good evening, Today’s news has a clear throughline: power is moving fast, and in several cases, it is moving in ways that deserve close public attention. We are seeing criminal charges tied to political speech, a passport redesign featuring Trump, a Justice Department filing that reads more like a political argument than a standard court motion, a fight with a major U.S. ally, and a civil rights a...

Good morning, This morning’s brief is about power and what happens when people at the top expect the public to keep paying, keep watching, or keep trusting without real accountability. If you value fact-based independent reporting, consider becoming a paid subscriber to support this work. Here’s the news: • Former lawmakers could still receive taxpayer-funded pensions: Former Reps. Eric Swalwell a...

I want to bring attention to something most people would never see unless someone was there looking for it. I spoke with Nick Benson, a Minnesota activist who says he has spent months going to the Minneapolis airport to document flights that he believes are being used to move immigrants out of Minnesota and into detention facilities in other states. If real-life reporting that documents human suff...

Good morning Everyone, Today is a special morning for me. It is my one-year anniversary of bringing you the news, and I just want to say thank you. Thank you for reading, for showing up, for caring about the truth, and for letting me do this work with you every day. I’m really excited, and tonight I’m going to celebrate the way I love to, with a movie and my favorite popcorn. This work means a lot...

In today’s late Tuesday news brief, I’m covering six major stories you need to know. We start with a growing split inside Trump’s own base, as more MAGA supporters push conspiracy theories claiming the assassination attempt against him was fake. Then we move to new ethics concerns surrounding the secret White House ballroom fundraising contract, which was only made public after a lawsuit and court...

Good morning everyone. I will be publishing your Morning News Brief later this afternoon. Have a wonderful morning. Get full access to The TAKE with Jerrod Zisser at jerrodzisser.substack.com/subscribe

HOW HATE RECRUITS: FRANK MEEINK ON EXTREMISM, TRAUMA, AND HOW PEOPLE GET PULLED IN In this episode, I sit down with Frank Meeink for one of the most important conversations I’ve had in a long time. Frank is a former neo-Nazi who now works to help people leave hate behind, and what he shared in this conversation stayed with me long after we stopped recording. We talked about how hate actually recru...

Get full access to The TAKE with Jerrod Zisser at jerrodzisser.substack.com/subscribe

Get full access to The TAKE with Jerrod Zisser at jerrodzisser.substack.com/subscribe

There are growing questions about a pattern that keeps appearing just before Trump makes market-moving announcements, with the latest example tied to oil futures trading ahead of a sudden shift in U.S. policy toward Iran. The focus this time is a burst of oil trading placed shortly before Trump announced a five-day delay to planned attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure. After that announcement,...

GOOD MORNING, AND HAPPY TUESDAY. A deeply troubling immigration story is drawing new attention this morning after a widely shared report said Mohammad Nazeer Paktyawal, an Afghan man who fought alongside U.S. special forces for more than a decade, died in ICE custody one day after his arrest. The post said he had legally evacuated to the United States, was living in his community, and was detained...