Systemic Error Podcast

US President Donald Trump walks after exiting Air Force One at Chicago O’Hare International Airport, in Illinois, US, September 27, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard What happened RawStory reports that President Donald Trump is again willing to consider sanctions relief and the unfreezing of Iranian funds in exchange for substantial limits on Iran’s nuclear program. Unnamed U.S. officials told Axios tha...

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with Judge Amy Coney Barrett after she was sworn in as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S. October 26, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo What happened RawStory, citing ProPublica’s reporting, says the Trump White House considered requiring every mail ballot to travel by certified mail—a sys...

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a press briefing at the White House, on the one-year mark into his second term in office, in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 20, 2026. REUTERS Nathan Howard What happened AlterNet, citing The Wall Street Journal, reports that key parts of President Donald Trump’s economic program produced the opposite of his promised result: inflation rose, the 10-year Tre...

Photo: The Lyda Hill Texas Collection of Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith’s America Project, Library of Congress What happened AlterNet reports that Bulwark publisher and pollster Sarah Longwell believes Republican turnout could weaken in November because some GOP voters in her focus groups are angry about “the war” and gasoline prices. Rather than vote Democratic, she said, these dissatisfied Re...

President Donald Trump with members of the military at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware, March 7, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque What happened AlterNet reports that Pace University law professor and former New York anti-corruption prosecutor Bennett L. Gershman argued in a Hill op-ed that President Donald Trump and members of his administration should face International Criminal Court prosecu...

U.S. first lady Melania Trump visits the Smithsonian’s National Museum Of Asian Art in Washington, D.C., US, September 24, 2026. Finn Gomez/Pool via REUTERS What happened AlterNet reports that Trump biographer Michael Wolff argues Melania Trump has turned her limited public presence as first lady into a lucrative media product. In a Monday column, he characterized her official work as largely perf...

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque What happened The word is “corruption.” AlterNet argues that Donald Trump has helped unite Americans around it: cited polls found overwhelming majorities across party lines describing corruption as endemic or systemic, while separate surveys showed substantial concern about Trump’s use of presidential power for personal profit. The outlet cites an August Reuters/Ipsos poll i...

U.S. Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) looks on as U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Rand Paul (R-KY) presides over a vote whether to hold Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), in contempt for having invoked the Fifth Amendment in response to questions about the government’s COVID-19 pandemic res...

U.S. President Donald Trump and his executive assistant Natalie Harp exit Marine One at the Ellipse near the White House, in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 16, 2026. REUTERS/Annabelle Gordon What happened RawStory reports that President Donald Trump briefly looked away from the Tennessee–Texas football game at Neyland Stadium on Saturday to view a laptop held up by aide Natalie Harp. Photographs f...

REUTERS/Nathan Howard What happened AlterNet columnist Robert Reich argues that Donald Trump’s political position was weakening five weeks before the midterm elections. He cites September polling showing Trump at 37 percent approval and Republican confidence in the economy falling from more than 70 percent in January to 29 percent. He also points to Republican candidates distancing themselves from...

U.S. President Donald Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick react during a cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room at the White House, in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 27, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci What happened RawStory reports that cardiologist Jonathan Reiner warned that a meat-heavy diet can work against statin treatment and that sauerkraut’s sodium content can r...

Sep 27, 2026; Medinah, Illinois, USA; President Donald Trump addresses the gallery during the final round of the Presidents Cup. Mandatory Credit: Jerod Ringwald-Imagn Images What happened RawStory reports that President Donald Trump’s administration released a black-and-white advertisement on September 27, 2026, using footage and rhetoric from his 2024 campaign. Trump speaks of a “final battle” t...

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) listens as U.S. Representative Carlos Gimenez (R-FL) addresses reporters, on the day of a House Republican Conference meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on July 14, 2026. REUTERS/Ken Cedeno What happened RawStory reports that New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman told the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin that Republicans she speaks with expect serious...

FBI Director Kash Patel testifies before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 16, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst What happened RawStory reports that FBI Director Kash Patel posted a campaign-style infographic on September 27, 2026, boasting that he had made 101 calls to “foreign partners” during...

US President Donald Trump speaks during the Presidents Cup at the Medinah Country Club, in Medinah, Illinois, US, September 27, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard What happened RawStory reports that an attendee at the Presidents Cup in Medinah, Illinois, appeared to shout a profanity-laced accusation at President Donald Trump during his Sunday remarks. The words are not independently established in the r...

(Official White House Photo by Molly Riley) What happened AlterNet reports that New York Times contributing writer Molly Jong-Fast described Donald Trump’s White House as a “sycophancy Olympics,” where officials compete through imitation and televised praise. The “living diet” in the headline refers to a reportedly shared regimen of meat and sauerkraut followed by several senior administration fig...

NASA / VIIRS data courtesy of NOAA. What happened AlterNet, republishing Grist, reported that a developing El Niño had pushed temperatures in the Niño 3.4 region of the Pacific to 3.11 degrees Celsius above normal, surpassing the peak recorded in November 2015. Forecast models cited in the article put the chance of the event remaining “very strong” through the end of that year at 90 percent. The r...

FILE PHOTO: Federal agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conduct an immigration enforcement operation in Pine Grove, Minnesota, U.S., January 28, 2026. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo What happened RawStory reports that ICE officers nationwide received verbal instructions over the weekend to temporarily stop arresting undocumented immigrants unless they had criminal conv...

U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) listens to an aide during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on health care costs on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., November 19, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst What happened Former Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock told MS NOW that Republicans had effectively stopped trying to improve their November prospects and were instead attempting to “make the patient c...

B‑1B Lancer bomber at the RAF Fairford airbase, which hosts US Air Force personnel, in Fairford, Gloucestershire, Britain, September 27, 2026. According to the police, security measures were increased around the air base after police arrested several men on suspicion of offences under the Explosives Act. REUTERS/Toby Shepheard TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY What happened RawStory reported that residents of...

REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein What happened RawStory reports that former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene accused Republicans of using reports of a migrant caravan to frighten voters before the 2026 midterms because “nothing else is working.” Her September 27 post responded to activist Anthony Aguero’s claim that more than 400 migrants, predominantly Honduran, had entered Mexico and were heading toward the...

U.S. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) speaks to reporters in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump saying he may temporarily drop the nomination of Todd Blanche to be U.S. attorney general, as he arrives for a vote at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 30, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein What happened The “colossal mistake,” according to Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, was...

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 What happened RawStory reports that former senior CIA officer Marc Polymeropoulos warned that the Trump administration’s reassignment of federal law-enforcement resources from counterterrorism to immigration enforcement could in...

US President Donald Trump attends the Presidents Cup at the Medinah Country Club, in Medinah, Illinois, US, September 27, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard What happened RawStory reports that President Donald Trump told Axios he was “always thinking about” resuming strikes against Iran after rejecting Iran’s latest proposal to end the war. He also predicted further negotiations that week but said Iran h...

Nicki Minaj Anton Oparin / (Shutterstock.com) What happened RawStory reports that musician Nicki Minaj urged Americans to “vote red” during a Saturday Fox News interview with Lara Trump. Minaj briefly laughed and offered a joking “nah,” but Trump embraced the endorsement and called it a sales pitch to American voters. Minaj also encouraged viewers to research local candidates before voting. Accord...