This week, the ladies react to the ransacking of the federal government by Elon Musk and his fleet of DOGE dorks. Then, Kate and Leah speak with Jonathan Gienapp, professor of law and history at Stanford University and author of Against Constitutional Originalism: A Historical Critique, about what originalists get wrong about history and how the founders thought about the law.
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We're three weeks into President Donald Trump's second term, and already Democratic lawmakers are warning that we're in a constitutional crisis. They point to the fact that Elon Musk, an unelected billionaire, is getting a major say in how government agencies operate; the Trump administration shuttering USAID – an independent agency created by Congress – without Congressional approval; and the push to block funding that's already been appropriated. While federal courts have helped Democrats slow down some of Trump's more brazen actions, Vice President J.D. Vance fueled fears of a deeper constitutional challenge Sunday when he tweeted, 'Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power.' Kate Show, co-host of Crooked's legal podcast' Strict Scrutiny,' helps us make sense of the legal drama.
And in headlines: Trump sat down with Fox News' Bret Baier for the traditional pre-game Super Bowl interview, Hamas released three more Israeli hostages in exchange for nearly 200 Palestinian prisoners as the ceasefire continued to hold, and the Trump administration moved to shutter the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
We're talking about all the Super Bowl surprises — from the game to the halftime show to the commercials.
Also, the White House kept downsizing over the weekend. We’ll tell you what’s getting cut and what departments President Trump is targeting next.
Plus, two more winter storms are in the forecast, grocery stores are starting to put limits on eggs, and travelers are bargain-hunting to get vacations on a budget.
Those stories and even more news to know in about 10 minutes!
Join us every Mon-Fri for more daily news roundups!
TED Talks needs a new CEO… but TED is actually the deepest media biz we’ve ever seen.
Elon’s mission to disrupt the government hit a new level, that requires a new term… “Musking.”
Costco is now paying workers 2x the average… it’s the cost that pays for itself.
Plus, a record 22M Americans called in sick today (got a case of the Super Bowl Mondays).
$COST $WMT $SPY
Want more business storytelling from us? Check out the latest episode of our new weekly deepdive show: The untold origin story of… Monopoly 🎩. Subscribe to The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinks to listen.
“The Best Idea Yet”: The untold origin stories of the products you’re obsessed with — From the McDonald’s Happy Meal to Birkenstock’s sandal to Nintendo’s Super Mario Brothers to Sriracha. New 45-minute episodes drop weekly.
For people with two hands, one is usually dominant. On a molecular level, life takes this to the extreme. All of the DNA in earthly living things twists to the right, whereas the protein building blocks favor a kind of left-handed chemistry. But in recent years, scientists have worked toward a kind of mirror version of life. The technology to make mirror life likely won't exist for at least a decade. Still, a group of concerned scientists published a 299-page technical report calling for a stop to the science. New York Times science columnist Carl Zimmer explains how a mirror microbe could wreak havoc on life on Earth in the future.
Memecoins are having a moment, but who's making money off them? On today's show, how a dearly beloved internet squirrel found an afterlife as a cryptocurrency and how others, including President Trump, are trying to capitalize on online fame.
As a cable news host, MSNBC's Chris Hayes is in the attention business. But in today's interview, he says that he often feels like he's chasing rather than directing his audience's focus. In his new book, The Sirens' Call, Hayes argues that attention has become the information age's most finite resource, with damaging consequences for our politics, lives and collective alienation. In today's episode, Hayes joins NPR's Steve Inskeep for a conversation about the difference between attention and information, President Trump as a symbol of the attention economy, and whether MSNBC is struggling to maintain its audience.
To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday
Our Data Vampires series may be over, but Paris interviewed a bunch of experts on data centers and AI whose insights shouldn’t go to waste. We’re releasing those interviews as bonus episodes for Patreon supporters. Here’s a preview of this week’s premium episode with Julia Black, a reporter on The Information’s Weekend Team. For the full interview, support the show on Patreon.
Donald Trump has a lot of similarities—and something of a bromance—with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. And those who wish to resist Trump’s Orbán-like, right-wing strongman tendencies could learn something from the resistance in Hungary.
Guest: Gábor Scheiring, former member of the Hungarian parliament and assistant professor of comparative politics at Georgetown University Qatar.
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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme and Rob Gunther.
OA1123 - Insurrection enthusiast Donald Trump sure seems to be looking for an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 in a little-noticed section of one of his flurry of Inauguration Day executive orders. We review the history of how the Constitution and subsequent acts of Congress were written specifically to keep the President from deploying troops on US soil without a very good reason, and how and why the Act has been invoked 30 times in US history. When does civil disorder become an “insurrection” and when, if ever, can the President send in troops that a state hasn’t requested? And why is Trump so determined to declare an insurrection on the border?
10 USC 251-255 (colloquially known as “The Insurrection Act”)
