Systemic Error Podcast

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller looks on at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO summit in Gyeongju, South Korea on Oct. 29, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein The Bureaucracy of Making Children Disposable The Power Is Federal The central fact is not that Stephen Miller holds harsh views. It is that the Trump administration gave those views institutional reach. According t...

Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel hold a press conference to discuss Tren de Aragua developments at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 1, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein The Attorney General’s Deadline Was Not an Emergency Until It Applied to Him The Record Is Delay The dispute is not complicated. According to journalist Katie Phang’s attor...

FILE PHOTO: A model of U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed triumphal arch, on the final day of The Great American State Fair on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 10, 2026. REUTERS/Kylie Cooper/File Photo A Monument to Militarized Vanity The Arch Becomes an Arsenal Donald Trump says his proposed triumphal arch near Arlington Memorial Bridge will now double as a military complex s...

U.S. President Donald Trump smiles during an announcement about “Trump accounts”, in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., December 2, 2025. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo The Chatbot Is Not in Charge. The President Is. A Joke About the Wrong Power The column presents a comic conversation with ChatGPT about elections, gasoline prices, the Kennedy Center, presidential ai...

California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks as he meets voters and local leaders while campaigning for Democrats ahead of mid-term elections in Aiken, South Carolina, U.S. September 4, 2026. REUTERS/Sam Wolfe California Builds a Firewall Against Presidential Election Sabotage The Power Is Federal California voters are not the actors threatening to destabilize this election. Neither are local election...

US President Donald J. Trump makes an announcement on healthcare in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., US, September 18, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci The White House Still Has the Power—That Is Why the Press Ban Matters Retaliation Is the Story According to the report, President Donald Trump said he would ban CNN, MS NOW, and Politico over what he called “fake news,” and their rep...

US President Donald Trump waves as he hosts a dinner at the White House in Washington, D.C., US, September 17, 2026. REUTERS/Annabelle Gordon The Presidency as a Personal Cashier A Campaign Promise Without a Government Donald Trump’s proposed $5,000 payment to every American adult was presented not as legislation but as a personal reward contingent on Republican midterm victories. The offer follow...

REUTERS/Hannah Beier Trump’s Inflation Is Policy, Not Misfortune The Damage Has an Author Donald Trump promised to lower prices. Instead, the policies described in the reporting—mass deportations, new taxes and war with Iran—are raising the cost of energy, food and ordinary commerce. Diesel has already broken price records, gasoline is following, and inflation stands at 3.4 percent. That is enough...

U.S Vice President J.D. Vance and other cabinet members watch as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during the Republican National Midterm Convention in Dallas, Texas, U.S., September 9, 2026. REUTERS/Eric Lee/Pool The Presidency as a Protection Racket The Offer Donald Trump is telling voters that Republican victories could put $5,000 in their pockets. He has paired that promise with another messa...

President Donald Trump looks down as he participates in a call with service members. (REUTERS) The Price of Presidential Impunity Power Was the Point Donald Trump entered office claiming the authority to act first and disregard restraint. The policies cited in the reporting—tariffs and a war—were not imposed by shoppers confronting higher prices. They were presidential choices, enabled by a Republ...

Clarence Thomas attends the swearing-in ceremony of Pam Bondi as attorney general at the White House. Photograph: Kent Nishimura/Reuters The Courtroom Is the Product A Litigation Machine, Not a Mystery Raw Story reports that Consovoy McCarthy received more than $33.5 million from nonprofit networks associated with conservative activists, according to tax filings analyzed by the progressive researc...

U.S. President Donald Trump takes questions from media at a press briefing, in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 25, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo The National-Security Excuse for Trump’s Monument to Himself A Vanity Project in Tactical Gear Donald Trump wants a 250-foot triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery. Facing opposition, he now claims the structure is needed to house drones,...

REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst Impunity Is the Policy The Lie Protects the Decision-Maker The immediate story is simple: the president publicly minimized an Iranian attack while service members documented extensive damage, deaths, hospitalizations, and destroyed aircraft. The Pentagon’s inspector general put reported losses at $3.7 billion. Troops absorbed the consequences; Donald Trump controlled the acc...

US President Donald J. Trump looks on as he makes an announcement on healthcare in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., US, September 18, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci Declaring Trump Defeated Is How Institutions Excuse Their Surrender The Victory Lap Comes Too Early Peter Wehner and Jonathan Rauch argue that Donald Trump’s second-term effort to remake American society has already fa...

REUTERS/Evan Vucci Larry Rhoden’s Press-Freedom Promise Has a Presidential Exception The Ban Is the Story President Donald Trump announced that CNN, Politico and MS Now would be barred from the White House, accused them of reporting “fake news,” and later defended the decision while South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden stood beside him in the Oval Office. The three organizations subsequently sued to res...

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles looks at her phone during a speech of U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., on June 11, 2026. REUTERS/Daniel Heuer The Press Ban Was Trump’s Decision, Not Susie Wiles’s Failure to Babysit Him The Order Came From the President CNN reported that President Donald Trump barred CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the Whi...

U.S. Representative Lauren Boebert (R-CO) leaves after the House of Representatives passed a war powers resolution on the ongoing conflict with Iran on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 23, 2026. REUTERS/Eric Le The Scandal Is the Power, Not the Sex An Allegation Is Not a Verdict An ethics complaint accuses Representative Lauren Boebert of sexual relationships with three staffers and of...

U.S. Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) speaks with members on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., October 23, 2025. REUTERS/Kylie Cooper The Illegal-Orders Machine Protects the President, Then Punishes the Warning Congress Was Cut Out on Purpose Representative Thomas Massie’s impeachment resolution accuses Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of continuing war in Iran without congressional authorization, co...

WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 8, 2020: Woman Wearing MAGA Hat at the Million MAGA March. (Photo credit: Cavan-Images / Shutterstock) The Rolex Is Not the Scandal. The White House Is. A Government With a Gift Economy A small circle of White House insiders—including Steve Witkoff, Susie Wiles, and several people in Vice President JD Vance’s office—reportedly received custom Rolex watches marked with a s...

U.S. President Donald Trump attends an observance ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon, in Washington, D.C., September 11, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY The Bubble Is Not the Government A Diagnosis That Lets Power Off the Hook The reported conversation offers a seductive explanation for Donald Trump’s conduct: he lied so persis...

(Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector) Alabama Republicans Aren’t Losing Control. They’re Losing the Luxury of Apathy. The Panic of the Powerful Alabama Republicans control the state government, hold a legislative supermajority, and have not lost a governor’s race since 1998. Yet weak Republican primary turnout and increased Democratic participation have party candidates openly nervous about November....

Large plume of black smoke rises from the fuel storage area at King Khalid International Airport, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, September 19, 2026. Picture taken with a mobile phone. REUTERS/Stringer The Chokepoint Is Real. The Election Panic Is the Misdirection. What Happened The Houthis claim they attacked Riyadh and Saudi energy sites while expanding control over the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and threate...

White House/screen grab The White House Silenced the Record, Then Called It Coverage Nine Minutes of Static At a Monday ribbon-cutting on the South Lawn, President Donald Trump spoke beside Marine One, but the White House’s only live feed carried unusable audio. Television networks had suspended their customary pool coverage earlier that day, and Trump took no press questions. The public received...

Former White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Karl Rove looks on ahead of a funeral service for former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, at Washington National Cathedral, in Washington, D.C., U.S., November 20, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst Karl Rove’s Trump Impression Is Not an Accountability Mechanism The Joke Replaced the Record The immediate story is simple: Donald Trump called Karl Rove a...

REUTERS/Nicolas Economou AI Is the Bait. Corporate Power Is the Trap. A Strange Alliance, a Familiar Anger Robert Reich reports that Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon appeared at the same Washington conference to attack AI, data centers, and the corporate interests behind them. Their convergence does not amount to a shared politics. It shows that public anger over AI has become too potent for either...