Systemic Error Podcast

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 4, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst The Press Secretary’s Exit Interview Is Not Evidence An Anecdote in Search of Facts Former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Sean Hannity that White House briefings are “performative,” reporters chase television soundbites, and unnamed journalists privately apologized for q...

U.S. Congressman Byron Donalds speaking with attendees at the 2022 AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona. Image via Gage Skidmore. Byron Donalds Built His Campaign on Trump. Now Trump Is Becoming Fine Print. The Vanishing Endorsement With 42 days left before Florida’s 2026 general election, Republican gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds has stripped at least eight prom...

U.S. first lady Melania Trump walks next to a humanoid robot as she hosts a roundtable event on the second day of the inaugural Fostering the Future Together Global Coalition Summit, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 25, 2026. REUTERS/Kylie Cooper Congress Is Not Powerless Before AI. Its Leaders Are Choosing Delay. The Decision Belongs to the People Holding the Gavel Raw Story re...

President Donald Trump and justices from the Supreme Court, Image via Screengrab / NBC. Trump’s Complaint Is Not Judicial Betrayal. It Is Judicial Independence. The Evidence Writing in The Hill , former federal prosecutor James D. Zirin identifies Donald Trump’s attacks on judicial independence as the gravest misconduct of his second term. Zirin cites Trump denouncing Supreme Court justices Neil G...

US President Donald J. Trump in Washington, D.C., US, September 18, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci Kansas Republicans Built Their Own Trap A Red State Is Not a Blank Check Kansas remains structurally Republican: it has not backed a Democratic presidential nominee since 1964 and has not elected a Democratic senator since 1932. Donald Trump carried the state in three consecutive presidential elections, wh...

U.S. Sen. Mike Lee at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida on July 22, 2022 (Gage Skidmore/Flickr) The Blue Slip Fight Is About Power, Not Procedure A Veto Trump Cannot Control Politico reports that Donald Trump has pressed Senate Republicans to abolish the “blue slip,” a Judiciary Committee tradition allowing home-state senators to block district court judges, U.S. attorneys and federal...

President Donald Trump attends a maternal health event in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., May 11, 2026. REUTERS Evelyn Hockstein The Presidency Is Not a Body-Language Puzzle A Diagnosis the Reporting Cannot Support An article built around psychologist John Paul Garrison’s video commentary claims that Donald Trump’s altered eye contact and response to negative coverage may i...

Wolf Blitzer and Pamela Brown/CNN The Presidency Is Power, Not a Ratings Entitlement A Petty Dispute, Inflated Into a Political Drama The report says President Donald Trump objected to CNN correspondent Kaitlan Collins covering his United Nations appearance after barring CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House press pool. CNN’s The Situation Room did not carry the speech during its 10 a.m....

President Donald Trump addresses the 80th United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York City, NY, September 23, 2025. REUTERS/MIKE SEGAR A Spasm Is Not a Diagnosis—and Speculation Is Not Accountability The Claim Reporting on Donald Trump’s address to the 81st session of the United Nations centered on an interpretation by clinical and forensic psychologist John Paul Garrison. Aft...

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Michigan on July 27, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci Distrust Is Not the Actor. It Is the Aftermath. The Story Behind the Polling The reporting describes former Trump supporters abandoning him over the handling of the Epstein files, the reported war in Iran, rising diesel prices, and economic claims they no longer believe. A New...

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh listens to remarks at U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s residence during a visit by Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Micheal Martin, ahead of St. Patrick’s Day, in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 12, 2025. REUTERS/Leah Millis Missouri’s Map Fight Is a Contest Over Who Gets to Create Electoral Chaos The Power Sits With the Courts Missouri officials had printed...

U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 15, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci Republicans Built the Squeeze. Farmers Are Paying for It. A Price Crisis With Authors The immediate dispute is over diesel: with Grassley citing a price of $6.57 in Iowa in a September 19 post, he urged President Trump to embargo exports. But The Hill’s reporting places that demand insid...

Then-Maine Governor Paul LePage speaks at the 23rd Annual Energy Trade & Technology Conference in Boston, Massachusetts, November 13, 2015. (REUTERS/Gretchen Ertl/File Photo) Paul LePage Discovers Due Process at His Own Dinner Table One Case Made the System Visible Former Maine Gov. Paul LePage, now running for the state’s open 2nd Congressional District seat, says his son’s father-in-law is being...

Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) speaks during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office building in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 9, 2021. Stefani Reynolds/Pool via REUTERS The Scandal Is Not Susan Collins’s Anger A Serious Allegation, Not a Proven Scheme ProPublica reported that Martin Kao, a former defense contractor...

U.S. Senator Susan Collins speaking with attendees at the 2018 Small Business Expo at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo credit: Gage Skidmore / Flickr) The Allegations Remain Unproven. The System That Could Test Them Was Dismantled. A Case Cut Short ProPublica reports that Martin Kao, the former CEO of defense contractor Navatek, told federal investigators in 2022 that his...

Rev. Nelson Johnson, Joyce Johnson and Lewis Brandon (l-r), survivors of the Greensboro Massacre, pose next to a historic marker unveiled in 2015. (Courtesy Beloved Community Center, used with permission.) The Greensboro Massacre Was Not an Intelligence Failure The Violence Was Foreseeable The newly released FBI records add detail to an already damning institutional record surrounding the Greensbo...

US President Donald Trump, riding inside “The Beast”, arrives at Gracie Mansion for a meeting with New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, in the Upper East Side neighborhood of New York, September, 21, 2026. REUTERS/Bing Guan The Spectacle Is the Cover; Institutional Power Is the Story Racism With a Government Seal Raw Story columnist Jason Miciak describes a September 2026 sequence in which Texas Republi...

U.S. President Donald Trump looks at media members after returning to the White House from Scotland, Britain, in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 29, 2025. REUTERS/Umit Bektas The Arsenal Has a Credibility Problem The Contradiction Is Official Donald Trump says the United States has “more munitions than we could ever possibly think of using.” His own Pentagon inspector general reported “strategic inve...

U.S. Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz speaks during an event on screen time harm in children at the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 1, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci Coverage Is Not Fraud Because the Patient Stayed Healthy The Administration Holds the Lever Reporting on September 22, 2026, described the Trump administr...

FILE PHOTO: US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters as he arrives to attend the 81st United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York City, US, September 22, 2026. REUTERS/David Dee Delgado/File Photo Trump’s Polling Collapse Is an Accountability Story, Not a Political Weather Report The Numbers Are the Context CNN reported that Donald Trump’s approval stood at 75% among Republ...

U.S. President Donald Trump watches a match during the UFC 327 event at Kaseya Center in Miami, Florida, U.S., April 11, 2026; REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque. The Justice Department Is Not a Campaign’s Poll-Watching Army The Power Sits in Washington The central fact is not Donald Trump’s frustration with unfavorable polling or anticipated midterm losses. It is that his administration controls the Justice...

President Donald Trump on August 27, 2026, at Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base in Houston, Texas (Photo Credit: NASA/John Kraus) The White House Wants a Loyalty Test for Journalism Access as an Instrument of Power According to Politico’s reporting, President Donald Trump barred MS NOW, CNN, and Politico from the White House while openly tying access to favorable coverage. In a Monday Truth Socia...

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 12, 2025. REUTERS/Leah Millis Missouri’s Map Fight Is a Struggle Over Who Gets to Override the Voters A Manufactured Election Crisis Less than six weeks before the November 2026 election, Missouri reportedly still lacked a settled congressional map. Politico described a third emergency trip to the U.S. Supreme Court after...

Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche testifies before a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on his nomination to be attorney general, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 15, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst The Mortgage Police Turn Their Lens Inward A Regulator With a Political Target List The Wall Street Journal reports that Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pu...

MS NOW veteran anchor Rachel Maddow (YouTube screengrab) The White House Is Using Access as a Weapon The Decision Came From the President According to the reporting, President Donald Trump demanded that MS NOW, CNN, and Politico be barred from the White House after accusing them of “fake news.” The White House carried out that demand. The targeted outlets reportedly sued, and the White House press...