Every weekday, The New Republic’s Greg Sargent brings you a fresh way of thinking about the biggest political stories of the moment, offered up in an entertaining, information-packed conversation with a leading lawmaker, journalist, or newsmaker. We go deep into the stories behind the headlines leading TNR and other news outlets—while making it fun and fast.
Trump’s Scamming at DOJ Accidentally Exposed by MAGA Dimwit Jim Jordan
24:37
Former special counsel Jack Smith just confirmed that he’d amassed extensive evidence that Donald Trump willfully and knowingly broke the law in stealing classified documents at the end of his first term. Smith’s report on this may never be released. But H...
Trump Erupts at ABC over Vance On-Air Fiasco as Presser Goes Off Rails
26:39
Speaking to reporters Tuesday, President Donald Trump seemed unusually crazed and power-mad, even for him. He imperiously refused to take a question from an ABC reporter as punishment for an interview with JD Vance that went badly. He boasted about cu...
MAGA Rage at “No Kings” Boils Over—and It Quickly Backfires on Trump
19:25
President Trump’s allies are suddenly raging over the October 18th “No Kings” protests. MAGA Mike Johnson and MAGA-fied Representative Steve Scalise are angrily sliming expected attendees as America-haters, antifa, Marxists, and terrorists. Other...
Trump ICE Raids Take Scarier Turn as Pritzker Issues Bombshell Warning
25:36
In this episode, we talk to Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, who shares striking new details about President Trump’s ongoing occupation of Chicago. What’s happening there has really gone off the rails: ICE launching hypermilitarized raids of apartment buildings. Children...
Trump Threats to Jail Foes Take Darker Turn amid Damning New DOJ Leaks
24:27
President Trump’s efforts to prosecute his enemies are suddenly looking even more lawless. Leaks to ABC News just revealed that Justice Department insiders doubt the validity of the prosecution of former FBI director James Comey. This comes after inside sources ...
Marjorie Taylor Greene Just Wrecked Trump’s Entire Shutdown Strategy
22:33
With the government shutdown fight dragging into its second week, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene rolled a grenade into the GOP camp. She erupted on Twitter, demanding to know why Republican leaders have no plan to help millions of people who will be hurt when expa...
Trump’s Own Tweet on Portland Backfires as Judge Deals Him Harsh Loss
24:11
Over the weekend, a federal judge blocked President Trump from deploying the National Guard in Portland. The judge blocked Trump from deploying the California National Guard to Oregon, too. Interestingly, the ruling cited Trump’s own tweet, which described Port...
Trump Press Sec Seethes as Fresh Polls Show Him Losing Shutdown Badly
25:26
Things are not okay in the White House. Numerous new national polls show President Trump and the GOP taking far more blame for the government shutdown than Democrats. One polling analyst flatly declared that the gap has reached double digits. Meanwhile, at...
Chris Murphy’s Extraordinary New Takedown of Trump Should Wake Up Dems
23:01
Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut has taken a lead role in forcefully sounding the alarm about Donald Trump. He’s urged Democrats to use their power creatively to constrain Trump’s abuses. But in recent days, Trump’s consolidation of authoritarian power has expanded. A...
Trump Accidentally Admits He Screwed MAGA Voters as Econ News Worsens
23:22
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump unleashed a strange Truth Social rant declaring straight out that farmers are getting hurt because China is not buying soybeans. Of course, Trump’s own trade wars are the reason for this, so he in effect admitted that his own pol...
Trump’s Rants to Generals Spiral into Madness as Dem Unloads: “Idiot!”
24:39
In a speech to military officials, President Trump went full fascist: He said America is under “invasion from within,” declared that the generals in the room will be enlisted in a “war” against that enemy, and bizarrely insisted that U.S. cities ...
Trump Press Sec’s Vile New Effort to Exploit Mormon Shooting Backfires
21:41
Investigators are still examining the motives driving Thomas Jacob Sanford, who opened fire on a Mormon church in Michigan, killing four people. Yet White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt quickly link the killing to an alleged rash of anti-Christian violence. ...
Trump Is a Weak, Failing President. 5 Brutal New Polls Tell the Story.
22:16
What if we told you that Donald Trump is a really unpopular president? Would that surprise you? It’s not something you hear much in the media. Yet in recent days new polls from the Associated Press, Gallup, Quinnipiac, Reuters, and the Economist ...
Trump’s Push to Jail James Comey Badly Undercut by Damning New Report
25:55
President Trump’s Justice Department is widely expected to indict former FBI director James Comey, someone the president has hated for years. Yet this push was just undermined when The New York Times reported a surprising turn of events: Career prosecutors reportedl...
Trump Just Accidentally Wrecked Fox’s Dumb New Lie about Jimmy Kimmel
25:35
After Jimmy Kimmel reappeared on ABC and spoke movingly about President Trump’s failed effort to oust him, Trump lost it on Truth Social and threatened Kimmel yet again. He also threatened to “test” his ability to bully ABC into yanking Kimmel a second tim...
Trump’s Angry, Unhinged Tirades at UN Rattle Experts: “Really Crazy”
25:37
President Trump gave a speech to the United Nations on Tuesday that was a geopolitical and psychological dumpster fire. In addition to signaling absolute contempt for our allies and for global institutions, he slipped into angry and solipsistic grievance. He bo...
Why Trump’s Angry New Tirade at Dems Unnerved Even His Own Advisers
20:04
Over the weekend, President Trump explicitly commanded Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute his political enemies in a crazed Truth Social tirade. He named the Democrats he wants prosecuted, and even openly boasted that he’d pushed out a veteran career prose...
Trump Drug Boat Bombings Take Darker Turn as Damning New Facts Emerge
23:13
Several weeks after President Trump ordered a military strike on a small boat in the Caribbean Sea, killing 11 people supposedly suspected of drug smuggling, this saga has gotten much worst. Last Monday, Trump bombed another vessel, killing three. Aga...
Trump’s Crazed New Rants Make Jimmy Kimmel Mess Look Even More Corrupt
27:00
This week, ABC suspended comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s show under pressure from the Trump administration. The ostensible reason: Kimmel supposedly spread disinformation about Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin. But then President Trump ranted to reporters on A...
Trump’s Epstein Spin Collapses as Kash Patel Buckles Under Questioning
23:35
As the Jeffrey Epstein scandal has worsened, President Trump’s story has been that it’s all Democratic “hoax,” and that his signature on that lewd drawing in Epstein’s birthday book is a “forgery.” But at a congressional hearing Wednesday, FBI director Kash Patel fa...
Trump Explodes in Rage at Journos as Shock Poll Exposes a Key Weakness
23:39
President Trump seems even more angry at the media than usual. His lawyers just filed a lawsuit against The New York Times that First Amendment lawyers are dismissing as a total joke. The suit, however, is also chock full of angry rants that appe...
Kash Patel Is Such a Fiasco for Trump that Even Fox Just Admitted It
23:53
In a surprise, Fox News is reporting that the knives are out for FBI director Kash Patel due to many recent missteps, including the botching of key facts about the hunt for Charlie Kirk’s assassin. That this is being featured by Fox News may be a sign of h...
Trump’s Threats Darken on Fox News as MAGA Rage over Kirk Boils Over
23:26
In an appalling move, President Trump went on Fox News and openly suggested that far-right political violence is typically justified as a response to left-wing extremism. This functionally tells Trump supporters that it is now open season on the liberal-le...
Trump Drug Boat Bombing Takes Darker Turn as Damning New Info Emerges
19:09
Questions are mounting about President Trump’s decision to bomb a small boat in the Caribbean Sea, killing all 11 people on board. The administration says these were drug cartel members who posed a threat to the United States, but many legal experts have conclu...
Nancy Mace Erupts in Fury on House Floor after Dem’s Speech Hits Home
21:33
GOP Congresswoman Nancy Mace lost her temper on the House floor on Wednesday. It all started when Mace unleashed a long, vile tirade about transgender Americans. After that, Congresswoman Sara Jacobs, a Democrat, offered some cutting criticism of the absur...
Trump Press Sec Seethes as Epstein Spin Falls Apart in Briefing Fiasco
23:29
House Democrats have released Jeffrey Epstein’s “Birthday Book,” and it’s brutal for President Trump. His note to Epstein is real and it appears to bear his distinctive signature. There’s also an image of Epstein holding a big check that dis...
Trump’s Corrupt Firing of Lisa Cook Backfires as Brutal New Poll Hits
21:27
There’s been an amusing turn in the saga involving President Trump’s vile effort to remove Lisa Cook as governor of the Federal Reserve. Trump has relied on his flunkies to cook up allegations of mortgage fraud against Cook—and other foes as well—but now&n...
Raging Trump Suddenly Facing Worsening Legal Losses on Many Key Fronts
19:39
President Donald Trump’s losses in court are suddenly piling up on many crucial fronts at once. Most of his tariffs were just ruled illegal, prompting him to explode in fury. An appeals court blocked Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act for depor...
Fox News Accidentally Makes RFK Fiasco at Hearing Even Worse for Trump
26:27
At a Senate hearing on Thursday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. got massacred by harsh questioning from Democrats and Republicans. They called out his anti-vax views and condemned his decapitation of our public health sy...
Epstein Survivor Nukes Trump in Emotional Speech as WH Quietly Panics
24:17
The pressure is escalating on President Trump and Republicans to release the Jeffrey Epstein files. Survivors of Epstein’s sex trafficking spoke out on Wednesday, and one of them, Haley Robson, directly took on Trump in a very powerful way. She denounced him fo...
