Jen Psaki, Joe Biden's former White House Press Secretary and host of MS NOW's The Briefing with Jen Psaki, talks to Dan about the ways the Trump administration is trying — and failing — to sell its war with Iran to the American people. The two discuss the White House's meme-forward messaging campaign, MAGA media's break with the president over the war, and how Trump's cell phone interview habit is shaping media coverage. Then, Dan and Jen discuss how a series of contentious Senate primaries are reshaping the Democratic Party and whether "fuck Trump" is a strong enough message heading into the midterms.
For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email transcripts@crooked.com and include the name of the podcast.
Enjoy the details as Washington realizes he has to impress upon his soldiers how to act once they're in Boston. This is a very explicit effort to make sure the uncomfortable lines between Boston inhabitants who are leftover royalists, patriot residents, possible spies, and Continental soldiers are observed with as little drama as possible, and all conflict dealt with in legal avenues.
As Israel and the U.S. continue to fire missiles at targets within Iran, the American military and President Donald Trump are weighing the costs and benefits of putting U.S. boots on the ground in the Middle East once again.
Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s Department of Homeland Security confirmation hearing saw him clash with his fellow congresspeople. Despite the meeting’s testy tone, the committee cleared Mullin by a single vote, sending his confirmation to the full Senate.
And, in global news, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, announced this week that the Strait of Hormuz wasn’t technically closed to all traffic, just to ships controlled by the country’s enemies. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is leaning on Japan to send warships to the passageway, to counteract Iran’s efforts to control the flow of trade.
New reporting from The Guardian indicates that before the U.S. began bombing Iran, security officials from U.S. allies judged that, as talks between Washington and Tehran progressed, a peace deal was in reach.
The U.S. is at war with the leading state sponsor of terror, and Donald Trump appointed Markwayne Mullin—a man with no counter-terrorism experience—to help defend the homeland. At the same time, Hegseth is a meathead, and the shoe designer at the top of the FBI is preoccupied with visiting all the places on his bucket list. This is the moment for Democrats to argue that Trump has made the country very vulnerable. Plus, the administration apparently did not consider worst case scenarios vis-à-vis Iran, the Iraq War planners look like pros in comparison, Denmark was seriously preparing for an American invasion of Greenland, and is Israel's conduct contributing to the growing antisemitism problem?
On this episode of "The Federalist Radio Hour," Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, joins Federalist Senior Elections Correspondent Matt Kittle to chronicle the devastation linked to popular mail-order abortion drug mifepristone, preview the pro-life movement's get out the vote midterms strategy, and discuss how Democrats' radical abortion policies square with Americans' opinions on life in the womb.
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Contributing editor Eli Lake joins us on this Friday to discuss the media's emerging quagmire narrative a mere 20 days into the war with Iran and what an American victory will look like, and how the attempts to mollify Iran in the past have led to the current unlikely regional coalition. Plus, how the Middle East conflict impacts the Indo-Pacific region and the Ukraine war.
This week, the Senate is debating the contentious SAVE America Act, a strict voter identification bill that could overhaul who gets to vote.
President Trump has called it his “No. 1 priority,” threatening to not sign any other legislation until it is passed.
Michael Gold and Nick Corasaniti, reporters for The New York Times, discuss why some Republicans are standing against the president to block it, and the administration’s other plans to try to reshape the electoral process.
Guests: Michael Gold, a congressional correspondent for The New York Times, and Nick Corasaniti, a Times reporter covering national politics.
Naomi Klein saw where our politics was headed before most people on the left. Her 2023 book “Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World” is hard to describe. But among other things, it traces the new coalitions Klein saw forming on the right, the ways they were co-opting issues long associated with the left, and finding huge audiences and influence outside existing institutions.
The people and coalitions that Klein wrote about run our world now. We are all living in the mirror world. As she put it, it’s “doppelgangers at the wheel.” So I wanted to have Klein on the show to help understand how that happened, what the left failed to see at the time and the lessons the left should take from it now.
As Klein told me: “The thing about doppelgangers is, in literature, they’re always a message telling you a warning: You have to look at yourself. There’s something about yourself that you’re not seeing.”
Note: We recorded this episode before the war in Iran.
The Pentagon requests an additional $200 billion in funding for Trump's war in Iran. Jon and Dan discuss how Democrats in Congress should respond to the request, the administration's insistence that rising gas prices are nothing to worry about, and the resignation of a high-ranking intelligence official, Joe Kent, over the administration's decision to go to war with Iran. Then, they talk about Tulsi Gabbard's and Markwayne Mullin's explosive hearings on the Hill, AIPAC's impact on Tuesday's Democratic primaries in Illinois, and Trump's latest money-making venture — putting himself on a commemorative gold coin. Then, Juliana Stratton, the new Democratic nominee for Senate in Illinois, talks to Dan about her simple, effective anti-Trump message.
For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email transcripts@crooked.com and include the name of the podcast.
