Following World War II, President Truman helped produce the modern national security state by creating the Central Intelligence Agency. Only later did Truman regret what he did, as the CIA turned into a monster that could never be tamed.
Flanked by half his cabinet and citing crimes against a DOGE staffer, Donald Trump announces that he’s deploying 800 National Guard troops to Washington and federalizing the city’s police department. Jon and Lovett react to Trump's desperate show of force, then break down his new plan to negotiate a Russia-Ukraine peace deal and JD Vance’s latest attempt to spin the Epstein files crisis as “full transparency.” Then, Lovett talks to The New Yorker’s David Kirkpatrick about his big new investigation into how much the Trump family is profiting off of the presidency.
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.
Insulin needles. Sleeping bags. Nutella. These are items Arwa Damon’s charity — International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance — has tried to send to Gaza and Israel has rejected. It’s a glimpse into the harsh reality of a humanitarian crisis with no end in sight. Today on the show, we talk to Damon about the economics of running a humanitarian nonprofit and what’s stopping more aid from reaching Gaza.
We begin by reading the last will and testament of Anas al-Sharif, a 28-year-old journalist for Al-Jazeera that was among those slain in Gaza by Israel yesterday. We then resume our Epstein coverage, including a look at his Manhattan lair and celebrity dinner guests. Then, two pieces on venture capitalists driven insane by The Computer and a story by Pamela Paul on conservative women…with careers? Stick around until the end for another Stroke of Genius and a special announcement from Chris.
Pre-order Seth Harp’s book The Fort Bragg Cartel here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/730414/the-fort-bragg-cartel-by-seth-harp/
And check out his book launch with TrueAnon at the Bell House this Wednesday: https://www.ticketmaster.com/an-evening-with-trueanon-and-seth-brooklyn-new-york-08-13-2025/event/300062F5CD8E3E2D
How do we define liberty? Hayek saw it as the absence of most (but not all) coercion, but that depends upon how one defines “coercion.” Murray Rothbard believed that Hayek was too willing to accept forms of coercion that were anti-freedom.
A radical thought experiment transforms the lives of a new breed of philanthropists, as they follow the logic of altruism to extraordinary lengths. The most famous convert to the Effective Altruism movement, Sam Bankman-Fried, is either a humanitarian hero, a con artist at an astonishing scale, or most bafflingly, both.
For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com.
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President Trump said he’s taking over Washington and announced he’s deploying the national guard to the city.
And he made another big promise: that his administration would take control of the DC police.
The President also mentioned other cities across the country with what he says are high levels of crime.
As President Trump pledges to use his executive authority to control law enforcement in the crime in the nation's capital -- there are questions about what happens now. And - what this might mean for other cities across the country.
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Hubert Henry Harrison was a writer, orator, & political activist who played a crucial role in the rise of Marcus Garvey and was a influential voice in the Socialist Party and in Harlem during the famed "Renaissance" of the early 20th century. And yet, as Dr. Brian Kwoba argues, Harrison has largely been erased from contemporary memory because he consistently challenged orthodoxy within both socialist and Black liberation circles, pressuring the Socialist Party to attend to the specific needs of America's most proletarian group -- Black Americans -- and scrapping with W. E. B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey over their reformist and imperialist turns, respectively. Harrison and his erasure provide a stunning example of what happens to leftist figures who are not so easily sanitized, and Kwoba's book Hubert Harrison: Forbidden Genius of Black Radicalism reveals a history that we are regrettably reliving today. This episode addresses how to break the cycle of the endless "race first vs. class first" debate, Harrison's heterodox views on sex and non-monogamy, & more.
On today's mailbag episode, we discuss whether the word "Zionism" should still be in use, what books are good primers for conservatism, and what we think explains the reasons you are a podcast follower. Give a listen.