Political Junkie Podcast

We begin with a clip from the 2016 campaign trail in which presidential candidate Donald Trump discusses a Black supporter and invites rally-goers to “look at my African American.” At this point in MAGA history, influencer Candace Owens still identified as a liberal. By late 2017, she had transitioned to a conservative identity and become a leading voice in the MAGA movement.And you will want to listen from the beginning for a special announcement from Neil!Candace Owens speaking with the 2023 Young Women's Leadership Summit hosted by Turning Point USA in Grapevine, Texas. Photo credit: Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons.In the News:* This week, prices on the global crude oil market cracked $120 a barrel, an almost 90% increase since Donald Trump started a war on Iran. This is a shock to the global economy. At United States, gasoline pumps, prices have risen an average of .27 a gallon with states like California, Florida and Pennsylvania seeing much higher prices. Trump’s reassurances that U.S. oil independence will shield American consumers from higher prices are false. Because it is traded on a global market, the price of oil is the same regardless of where it is pumped. Americans should expect to see rising prices, from utility bills to food. And with 61% disapproval on Trump’s handling of the economy, Republicans may see their path to retaining a majority in the 2026 midterms extinguished.* Speaking of the economy: in Maine and Ohio, where Democrats have targeted two Republican incumbents, recent polling suggests MAGA economic policies hurt voters. In Maine, Democratic Governor Janet Mills is polling even with Republican incumbent Susan Collins. Democrat Graham Platner also polls only two points behind Collins—and it is Platner who seems to have momentum. In Ohio, Sherrod Brown polls two points ahead of Jon Husted—Husted, although uncharged, is also enmeshed in a major corruption case.* As Senator John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton gear up for their Republican primary runoff, a Democratic poll with a Trump +14 sample shows James Talarico in a statistical dead heat with either opponent. Are conditions ripe for Democrats to snatch a Texas Senate seat too?* It looks like frenemies Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, fixtures in the Democratic House leadership for decades, will fight one last battle. Pelosi has endorsed Harry Dunn, a former Capitol Police officer who testified about the January 6 coup against a former Hoyer aide, state delegate Adrian Boafo, in the primary for MD-05 Hoyer will vacate in 2027. Dunn lost a previous congressional bid in 2024, also endorsed by Pelosi; there are currently 22 other candidates vying for the Democratic line on November’s ballot.Your hosts:Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller.Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024).Turning Point USA founder and Director of Communications Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens, then Director of Urban Engagement for the organization, during a visit to Texas State University in San Marcos On October 24, 2018. Photo credit: Carrington Tatum/ShutterstockNews focus: Who is Candace Owens, and why is she saying these terrible things about Erika Kirk?* Candace Owens, who is only 37 years old, began life as a Connecticut liberal in Stamford, CT. She became locally famous for filing a lawsuit in federal court alleging that, as a senior in high school, she was not protected from racist bullying. The Stamford School Board settled the lawsuit for $37,500.* After graduating from the University of Rhode Island, Owens worked in journalism, finance, and marketing. She founded SocialAutopsy.com, a web site where users could report bullies, in 2016. However, Social Autopsy was identified by internet activists as an asset for doxxing and trolling. Owens then waged an aggressive campaign against two of these critics, feminist gamers targeted in GamerGate. Owens claimed that Zoe Quinn, a GamerGate victim, targeted her with doxxing and racist hate mail and a Quinn ally undermined Social Autopsy’s fundraising efforts. This moment marks Owens’s conversion to conservatism and conspiracism.* In 2017, Owens launched a site called “Red Pill Black,” marketed as a rebuttal to the Democratic party’s record on race. A frequent guest on Fox News, Owens described liberal policies as a long-term strategy to make Black Americans dependent, a perspective she elaborated on in a 2020 book, Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation.* Also in 2017, after Turning Point USA was exposed as a cauldron of racism. She became a Trump supporter, Owens went to work for Charlie Kirk. Trump noticed her in 2018 after she and Kanye West appeared on TMZ to defend the right of Nazis to hold public demonstrations and assert that remaining in slavery was a choice that African Americans made.* But Owens was also becoming increasingly antisemitic: she was forced to resign from TPUSA in 2019 after praising Adolf Hitler and defending Kanye West’s antisemitic statements.* Nevertheless, Owens joined The Daily Wire in 2021 as editors Ben Shapiro and Jeremy Boering defined the issues of the current right-wing culture war politics, most prominently anti-vaccine, anti-trans, and anti-DEI campaigns. But much of this is also nested in Owens’s allegations of longstanding CIA and state-sponsored conspiracies to destroy America. Owens’s antisemitic conspiracy theories, which intensified after October 7, 2023, caused Shapiro to break with her: her podcast is now on YouTube.* Owens’s current campaign against TPUSA and its CEO, Erika Kirk, stems from new conspiracy theories that position Erika Kirk as an ambitious gold-digger who married Charlie to take control of the multi-million dollar nonprofit. Owens maintains that Kirk’s killer was in league with larger forces--the FBI, the Mossad, antifa, Egypt, France, Donald Trump or Kirk enemies within TPUSA itself—or that Charlie Kirk is still alive.* In 2025, Owens broke with Trump over his support for Israel. Currently, she is also currently being sued by French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte over her claims that Brigitte Macron is a trans woman.* Owens sat down for a four hour meeting with Erika Kirk in December 2025 to iron out their differences. It didn’t work. Recently, Owens dropped a 6-episode YouTube series called “Bride of Charlie” in which she portrays Erika Kirk and her whole family as fraudulent.What we want to go viral:* Neil can’t stop thinking about Heath W. Carter, “Americans Should Stop Using the Term Christian Nationalism,” (The Atlantic, March 9, 2026), and book Carter reviews, Matthew Avery Sutton, Chosen Land: How Christianity Made America and Americans Remade Christianity (Basic Books, 2026). Weaving religious values into the nation’s policies and priorities is too often configured as backward looking and repressive, but the quest for a Christian America has, and still can be, one that attends to humanity and love.* Claire wants you to read Sarah Weinman, Without Consent: A Landmark Trial and the Decades-Long Struggle to Make Spousal Rape a Crime (Ecco, 2025), about Greta Rideout’s 1978 accusation that her husband had sexually assaulted her. This was a crime that could not even be charged in most states at the time, much less believed by many police and jurists—but because of Rideout’s courage, and the support of a feminist legal establishment, marital rape is now a crime in all fifty states.Political Junkie is a reader-supported publication. You can subscribe for free or support us for only $5 a month and never miss a pod drop. You can also become an annual supporter for $50/year and choose Neil’s Coming Out Republican or Claire’s Political Junkies: as a welcome bonus.You can get all audio content by subscribing for free on Apple iTunes, YouTube, or Spotify. Get full access to Political Junkie at clairepotter.substack.com/subscribe

We begin this episode with a clip from a four-hour segment of testimony by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She appeared before the House Oversight Committee on February 26, 2026; former President Bill Clinton testified the following day.As Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton testifies before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Dec. 3, 2009. Image credit: Chad J. McNeeley/Wikimedia CommonsIn the News:* The big news this week is the Trump administration, minus Congressional authorization or an explanation, and in partnership with Israel, starting a war with Iran. You can see a timeline of the conflict here. Although the administration continues to insist that this will be a short war, there are no war goals or a timeline. Trump hints at regime change (hence the assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei in an Israeli air attack within the first 48 hours), as well as the Islamic Republic’s long history of sponsoring terrorism in the region. Trump also announced yesterday that he plans to be personally involved in choosing Khamenei’s replacement. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens and others are scrambling to get out of the region: there was no evacuation plan.* In related news, cracks in the MAGA coalition widen. On the extremely far right, influencer Laura Loomer has leapt to Trump’s defense, Groyper Nick Fuentes announced he will vote for Democrats in 2026 because Trump has broken all his promises, and antisemite Candace Owens blames the war on Israel. Hawks in the GOP have surfaced for a victory lap, while former Trump champions like Ann Coulter, Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson, who were high on the deportation supply, have crashed to earth. Trump’s response? MAGA is what he says it is.* War or no war, the midterms approach: on election day we saw incumbents in both parties struggling or knocked off. Democratic Governor Roy Cooper had a big win in North Carolina; incumbents on both sides of that state legislature’s aisle were pummeled. In Texas’s Senate contest, DemocraticState Representative James Talarico defeated Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, while incumbent John Cornyn faces a runoff with Attorney General Ken Paxton. Can Talarico win? * On Thursday, Trump fired ICE Barbie: could it be because Kristi Noem passed the buck to Trump for that $220 million ad campaign—about herself? She has been given a soft landing, a newly created job securing the Western Hemisphere, where she will be Marco Rubio’s problem.Your hosts:Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller.Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024).In an earlier moment of grace under fire, former President Bill Clinton and Secretary Clinton, now also a defeated presidential candidate, attend Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2017. Photo credit: Cristian L. Ricardo/Wikimedia CommonsNews focus: Hill and Bill—Still?* After months of negotiating that included threats to jail them, Bill and Hillary Clinton agreed to testify before the House Oversight Committee last week.* The Clintons were treated by, and responded to, the committee, quite differently. Hillary Clinton seemed annoyed and exasperated as she repeatedly said, in response to a battery of repetitive and stupid questions, that she knew nothing about Jeffrey Epstein, and had never visited any of his homes. Republicans also quizzed Clinton about Pizzagate and UFOs.* Former President Bill Clinton was charming, polite and voluble; he said he saw nothing, and did nothing, wrong when in Epstein’s company. As a point of interest, even the Daily Caller reported Ghislaine Maxwell’s claim, under oath, that Clinton never received “a massage.”* But why is the GOP still obsessed with the Clintons? Conspiracy theories about them first emerged during the 1992 presidential campaign, when Bill—then governor of Arkansas—seemingly came out of nowhere to win the Democratic nomination, then ejected a sitting Republican president. That campaign also featured the fracturing of the GOP by a serious populist candidate, Pat Buchanan, as well as rumors of serial infidelities.* In 1993, when White House counsel Vince Foster committed suicide, right-wing outlets promoted the story as a murder, paid for by the Clintons. Later, Bill Clinton was investigated and nearly impeached for real estate dealings and an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky; subsequently, former campaign worker Juanita Broadrick accused him of raping her.* Many of these investigations were generated by right-wing actors who Hillary Clinton characterized in 1998 as a “vast right-wing conspiracy.” They were, in fact, targeted by operatives who promoted outlandish tales about them.* Conspiracies were also spread by Fox News, new media actors like Matt Drudge, as well as operatives and ordinary people using free social media platforms.* By 2008, Ron Paul’s libertarian bid for the presidency highlighted the extent to which conspiracy theories powered the right.* These falsehoods gathered new life during the 2016 campaign, when MAGA influencers promoted rumors that she was hiding a terrible illness and a story, spread by Fox News’s Sean Hannity, that DNC staffer Seth Richie had been murdered by his employers (Fox later retracted this story to settle a lawsuit.) As election day approached, and Wikileaks dumped a tranche of Clinton’s emails into the public domain, Clinton conspiracists noted that many of them mentioned “pizza.” This morphed into accusations that the Democratic party was running a pedophilia ring out of Washington’s Ping Pong Cosmic Pizza.* Only last May, Donald Trump—for no apparent reason—dredged up an old video from 1994 called The Clinton Chronicles that falsely alleges the Clintons had numerous political enemies murdered.What we want to go viral:* Neil wants to endorse a walk on a college campus to enjoy the beauty of these places, but also to take in the infectious joy of diverse young people engaged in a common enterprise at an exciting and life-changing moment.* Claire wants you to read Ellen Cushing, “The McDonald’s CEO’s Big Burger-Eating Mistake,” The Atlantic (March 5, 2026), in which fast-food CEO Chris Kempczinski makes an unconvincing stab at eating his own product—and gives us a window into what the world of food influencers expects.Short takes:* Is Donald Trump about to lose the unreality shield that protects him from the consequences of wreaking havoc on a global economy? “It is unsettling how often Trump affects astonishing indifference, as though the most powerful man in the world were merely a spectator to events he himself has set in motion — and who in any case has little investment in the outcome,” Lydia Polgreen writes at The New York Times. “But that curious passivity reveals a darker truth. Trump seems to believe that he, like his fantasy America, exists on a different plane, utterly untouchable by the swirl of global events. The devastating consequences of his actions are not just someone else’s fault. They are someone else’s problem, too.” Not for much longer. (March 6, 2026)* At The Atlantic, Phillips Payson O’Brien argues that Secretary Pete Hegseth’s attitude that war is about relentless aggression may be degrading the United States’ military capacity by neglecting technology and strategy. “On multiple occasions after President Trump launched a massive air campaign against Iran this past weekend, retaliatory attacks by simply constructed Iranian drones have penetrated American defenses with serious results,” O’Brien writes. “In Bahrain, a lone Iranian drone penetrated the headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, which oversees 2.5 million square miles of the world’s oceans. The incoming weapon destroyed an AN/TPS-59 radar unit intended to provide 360-degree air surveillance for U.S. forces. In a moment, Iranian equipment that cost perhaps $30,000 devastated a piece of U.S. military hardware estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars.” (March 5, 2026)* It’s spring break in Florida—which is having a measles outbreak! “Florida measles (rubeola) cases increased five-fold from January to February, making Florida third-highest in the nation for measles this year, behind South Carolina and Utah, according to state and federal health data,” Laura Cassells writes at The Florida Trident. “In this high-stakes setting, state lawmakers voted Tuesday to send the Florida Senate a bill that guts school-age vaccination requirements, including the MMR shots that prevent measles, by granting a “conscience” exemption for any reason. The bill does not suggest that vaccines are unsafe nor recommend against their use, but is part of a conservative, anti-regulation movement in Florida.” (March 5, 2026)Don’t miss new drops from Claire and Neil. You can subscribe for free or support us for only $5 a month. You can also become an annual supporter for $50/year and choose Neil’s Coming Out Republican or Claire’s Political Junkies: as a welcome bonus.You can get all audio content by subscribing for free on Apple iTunes, YouTube, or Spotify. Get full access to Political Junkie at clairepotter.substack.com/subscribe

Thank you Theresa Smalec, John Stoehr, and many others for tuning into my live video with Ryan James Girdusky! At the end of last week, I had a chance to do a Substack live with Ryan Girdusky, a conservative political junkie who has many balls in the air at any given time. Ryan’s book with Harlan Hill, They’re Not Listening: How the Elites Created the National Populist Revolution (Bombardier Books, 2020) was one of the first to explain to a mass audience how and why national populist movements, from MAGA to Orbán, swept North America and Europe. His Substack, the National Populist Newsletter, tracks this phenomenon from a conservative perspective, including important data and sources, whether you are a reader on the left or the right. If you are a podcast fan, try It’s A Numbers Game, where Ryan breaks down politics according to how he understands the data.From left to right: Representative Marjorie Taylor Green (R, GA-14), Tucker Carlson, President Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., and Eric Trump on July 31, 2022, at the LIV golf Tournament, Trump National Golf Club, Bedminster,NJ. Photo credit: L.E.MORMILE/ShutterstockTogether, we talked about Jason Zengerle’s new book, Hated By All the Right People: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind (Crooked Media Reads,2026). A biographical study of Carlson, who rose to national fame as a Fox News pundit in parallel to Donald Trump’s emergence as a presidential candidate, it’s an excellent survey of the interconnections between radio, television, internet publishing as cable TV pushed Americans to extremes—and conservative journalism profited from their relationships to Donald Trump.Short takes:* You know by now that Ayatollah Khamenei was killed by an Israeli missile on the first day of Donald Trump’s attack on Iran. He was a pivotal figure in the calcification of Iran’s brutal totalitarianism, policy analyst Karim Sadjadpour writes at the New York Times. For almost 40 years, “this seemingly unqualified cleric who rose to the top almost by chance would become one of the world’s longest-serving autocrats, confounding every American president since George H.W. Bush,” Sadjadpour writes. “He would at one point become the most powerful man in the Middle East, dominating five failing lands — Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Gaza. This ambition and hubris also eventually led to his downfall. He came to govern with the hypervigilance and brutality of a man driven by the idea that much of his own society and the world’s greatest superpower sought to unseat him — which, in the end, it did.” (February 28, 2026)* Did Representative Jasmine Crockett (TX-30), on track to win the Democratic Senate primary in the Lone Star State, have Atlantic reporter Elaine Godfrey removed from her Lubbock rally last week? Crockett says no, Godfrey says yes. “After Crockett finished speaking, I attempted to join a closed-door press scrum with the congresswoman that was open to the other reporters at the rally,” Godfrey writes. “But I was turned away, so I walked over to interview people in the crowd. That’s when I heard my name from the same woman with the badge at the entrance—and hit ‘Record’ on my iPhone. She asked me to leave, and armed security guards escorted me from the property.” You can listen to the audio if you click the link: the Crockett campaign has yet to issue a full statement on what happened. (February 27, 2026)* Mary Walsh, a producer and 46-year veteran at CBS News, has left the building. Saying that the newsroom has been “told to aim our reporting at a particular part of the political spectrum,” she explained; “I don’t know how to do that.” Jeremy Barr at The Guardian broke the story, reporting that “On a staff-wide editorial call on Friday morning, Walsh received a glowing tribute from the CBS News president, Tom Cibrowski, as did another departing veteran producer, Kate Rydell, according to a staffer who participated. The two producers also received an emotional sendoff at the network’s Washington bureau on Thursday.” The CBS News division is now helmed by conservative Bari Weiss, and numerous unnamed sources claim to fear for their jobs if they do not bend the news to her viewpoint. (February 27, 2026) Get full access to Political Junkie at clairepotter.substack.com/subscribe

Last week, the federal Health and Human Services Administration website posted a video of HHS Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. working out with Trump-aligned musician Kid Rock. Titled “Rock Out Work Out,” it featured head-banging music and two retirement-age men goofing around, getting in hot tubs, saunas and cold plunges, playing paddle ball, eating healthy food (we think—they were promoting raw milk which can also be really unhealthy), and using exercise machines in a home gym. RFK Jr. was wearing jeans, his standard workout gear, and Kid Rock a pair of baggy black shorts. Both remove their shirts early in the video: the Secretary reveals his trademark testosterone-pumped torso, while the musician—well, looking like he has been living on Pop Tarts and Kool-Aid in one of ICE Barbie’s detention centers.But before I lean into the body-shaming, let me just say this: there was virtually nothing in the video that would cause an average American to be inspired to re-up at the Y or join the local food co-op. In fact there was no actionable information at all, other than: men, grab a piece of exercise equipment and go!Fortunately, historian Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, the author of Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America’s Exercise Obsession (University of Chicago Press, 2023) jumped into the fray almost right away from her perch at MS NOW.“This stunt is more than just a disgusting distraction; it signals the dark reality of what MAHA — Make America Healthy Again — now unapologetically embraces, rather than what it might have been,” Petrzela writes. “Rather than promising a wholesome, if highly idealized, world in which individual fitness and diet choices offer all Americans who are willing to work for it a path to civic and moral salvation, this video makes clear that to Kid Rock, RFK Jr. and the administration behind them, fitness and food are primarily props for alpha-male preening, entirely disconnected from any policy that will actually make more Americans healthier and happier, in their bodies or their lives.”We used the opportunity this strange video offered to dig a little deeper: what should an administration that really cares about Americans becoming healthier be doing? How and why has RFK Jr. misfired so badly on the common sense advice and policymaking that past presidents, Republican and Democratic, have promoted with grace and skill? Short takes:* Trump administration Border flak Greg Bovino deliberately dressed like a Nazi storm trooper in Minneapolis, but he’s not the only one: federal social media seems to be positively dripping with messaging and inside jokes that reference the Third Reich. “So how did a major American political party become a safe space for such people?” Tom Nichols asks at The Atlantic. Looking back as far as the Reagan administration, Nichols argues that the tipping point was the Tea Party movement that arose in 2010, political organizing that advocated for a big tent on the right. Since then, the GOP “has laid out a welcome mat for an ideology that Americans once had to defeat in combat, at the cost of millions of lives. If wannabe Nazis now confidently roam the halls of power—and the streets of American cities—it is because Republican leaders have made them feel at home.” (February 23, 2026)* While RFK Jr. dithers in the gym and looks for new fringe theories to promote, actual scientists released a study that points in one direction: teenagers should not smoke pot. “As marijuana use among teens has grown in the past decade, researchers have been trying to better understand the health risks of the drug,” Rhitu Chatterjee writes at NPR. “Now, a new longitudinal study finds that cannabis use among adolescents increases risks of being diagnosed with bipolar and psychotic disorders, as well as anxiety and depression, years later.” The numbers go down dramatically as the age of first use goes up. “Teens who reported using cannabis had twice the risk of developing two serious mental illnesses: bipolar, which manifests as alternating episodes of depression and mania, and psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia which involve a break with reality.” (February 21, 2026)* If you are conservative administration and you have lost the National Review—well, you have lost. Listing the string of disasters that have followed from Trump administration’s military attack on Minneapolis, NR writer Andrew McCarthy points out that “as any experienced law officer knows, a hostile environment calls for a soft touch. It must stress cultivation of relationships with local police; more numerous than the feds, they are also more sympathetic to immigration enforcement than are Democratic pols. Also required: understanding that what can be accomplished is severely limited by the assets available.” Instead, “Instead, Trump entrusted the Minneapolis mission to [Kristi] Noem, a sycophantic former South Dakota governor with presidential ambitions, whom he appointed to run the huge DHS bureaucracy despite her dearth of relevant experience.” (February 19, 2026)Political Junkie is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Political Junkie at clairepotter.substack.com/subscribe

Our show begins with Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, as he disputes the Trump administration’s account of Renée Good and Alex Petti’s murders in the Twin Cities and promises a thorough investigation.ICE and Border Patrol agents on Nicollet Avenue following the shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, MN on January 24, 2026. Photo credit: Chad Davis/Wikimedia CommonsIn the news:* There’s nothing that says investor jitters like the skyrocketing cost of gold—except perhaps the spike in silver prices. The New York Times reported this week that rising precious metal prices are partly due to Trump’s tariff policies and the uncertain effects of Europe’s pivot away from trade with the United States and towards India. But they are also an effect of China choking off silver exports: because of its capacity to conduct electricity, the metal is important to a number of technologies, and crucial to AI infrastructure. * On Wednesday, FBI agents searched an Atlanta election office and seized ballots at the center of Donald Trump’s false claim that he won Fulton County, Georgia—and the presidential election—in 2020. Trump is supported by allies on Georgia’s State Election Board, and claims to be acting at their request. Coincidentally, the FBI Special Agent in Charge in Atlanta was relieved of his duties just last week.* The war on trans people continues. This week, Utah moved to enacting a complete ban on gender-affirming care for minors, and the Trump administration has found San Jose State in violation of Title IX for allowing a trans woman to play on the women’s volleyball team between 2022 and 2024.* Amazon’s Melania documentary debuts in theaters across the nation on Friday, but all is not well. Most of the New York crew “requested that their names not be added to the film’s credits,” Eboni Boykin-Patterson reports at The Daily Beast. Director Brett Ratner, who has not made a film since he was accused of sexual assault in 2017, did it as a rush job, and was described by crew members as personally unclean, rude and generally a d*ck. Melania Trump, while boring, was nice, and revealed nothing about herself. Surprise. In other news: South Africa has canceled the film’s release and did not specify a reason; and Trump issued a proclamation on Truth Social that Melania is the greatest film ever made and will be required viewing in all history classes.Your hosts:Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller.Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024).Our news focus: The Trump administration’s Second Amendment problem* Jamelle Bouie speculated that Renée Good and Alex Pretti’s murders could be the Trump administration’s Gettysburg moment.* Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem claimed that Alex Pretti was shot after having “brandished” a gun at Border Patrol agents. There is consensus that is not true. Here is one analysis by Bellingcat, and another by the New York Times.* Here’s a full timeline of what led up to Pretti’s murder, and a historical account of the 100 year-old Border Patrol, and its routinely violent enforcement tactics. Since 2010, 364 people have been killed by Border Patrol officers, some across the border with Mexico.* The two agents who murdered Pretti have been placed on administrative leave.* Donald Trump has uncharacteristically distanced himself from the Pretti coverup, although ss of Wednesday, he continued to insist that Pretti should not have been carrying a weapon. Trump has relieved Greg Bovino of his role and sent Tom Homan, the so-called White House Border Czar to the Twin Cities to negotiate with local authorities. Homan is tasked with extracting concessions from Governor Tim Walz, including turning over Minnesota voter data to the Trump administration. Bovino has also lost access to his social media, and his future as a government employee is unclear.* Some Republicans have joined Democrats in criticizing Petti’s murder, and warned Trump that the extreme violence of immigration enforcement calls for an investigation. Democrats have responded to the outrages in the Twin Cities by threatening to shut down the government if Congress does not act to constrain ICE and the Border Patrol.* Vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse has also re-emerged as a lightning rod; the absent player? The Department of Justice.* Gun rights groups have split with the Trump administration over assertions that Pretti, a licensed gun owner, broke the law by bringing a gun and an extra magazine to last weekend’s demonstration. One of these organizations is the NRA, which did not defend cafeteria worker Philando Castile when he was shot by a police officer in the suburbs of St. Paul in 2016.* Here is a summary of Minnesota’s gun laws.* We also have statistics from Pew Research on gun ownership in the United States: about 40% of Americans live in a household with a gun, and 32% personally own one. Around 45% of Republicans and GOP leaning Republicans personally own a gun, as opposed to 20% of Democrats and Democratic Party-leaners. About 38% of White Americans own one and 24% of Black Americans; 40% of men, 25% of women; and 72% say they own a gun for personal protection. Only 20% of adults who live in cities own a gun, as opposed to 47% who live in rural areas and 30% in the suburbs. Whereas 71% of gun owners say they like having one in the home, only 30% of people who live with gun owners do; furthermore 40% of Democrats who do not own a gun can see themselves owning one in the future, compared to 52% of Republicans.* Another report says that as many as 30% of Democrats own guns, in part because of the volatile political climate.* Claire mentioned Bruce Springsteen’s new protest song, “The Streets of Minneapolis.”What we want to go viral:* Neil wants you to read Devon Provo’s “L.A. is ripping up 1,600 acres of pavement — but is it too little, too late?” (Los Angeles Times, January 28, 2026), about the Southern California city planners who hope to mitigate climate change by replacing pavement with plants and reorienting citizens to investing in living infrastructure.* Claire is immersed in Katie Benner and Erica L. Green’s new book about TM Landry College Prep in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, Miracle Children: Race, Education, and a True Story of False Promises (Metropolitan Books, 2026), and the story it tells about racism in education.Short takes:* FBI Director “Keystone” Kash Patel announced the capture of former Olympic snowboarder-turned-alleged-cocaine-trafficker Ryan Wedding in Mexico by a special Hostage Rescue team on social media. Only problem? It was supposed to be a secret. “Mexican law prohibits foreign law enforcement officers from being physically present in operations on Mexican soil, let alone take part in raids and arrests,” Hafiz Rashid explains at The New Republic. “Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum scrambled to perform damage control, as foreign intervention in Mexico is politically toxic. She said that there was no U.S. involvement in the operation and that U.S. agents in Mexico are limited by law.” (January 29, 2026)* Remember how MAGA influencers freaked out about being “shadow banned” on social media? Well, unsurprisingly, according to Kaitlyn Tiffany at The Atlantic, TikTok might now be shilling for the Trump administration. “Some people who attempted to upload content about anti-ICE protests or the killing of Alex Pretti alleged that the platform was intentionally blocking them from doing so,” Tiffany writes. “Others were able to get their videos uploaded, but alleged that TikTok was not distributing them. Still others noticed that they were unable to send the word Epstein in a direct message, a quirk so bizarre that it incited California Governor Gavin Newsom to repost a screenshot shared by an anonymous X account using the handle @intelligentpawg.” TikTok denies that any of this was intentional, and blames “the issues on a power outage at one of its data centers, which it said caused a “cascading” systems failure affecting all types of content (not just posts about Minnesota).” (January 28, 2026)* How’s this for an intriguing data set? As the numbers of women forced to bring pregnancies to term grows, the total number of abortions is also rising. “The increase in abortion numbers has been due not only to the herculean efforts of the provider community but also to the money that poured into clinics and support organizations immediately after Dobbs by Americans incensed by the loss of legal abortion,” David S. Cohen and Carol Joffe write at Ms. “‘Rage spending,’ as these donations became known, brought in millions of dollars needed for the huge costs associated with transporting thousands of people across state lines and paying for the abortion itself along with other costs.” But it is also true that forcing women to travel long distances simply makes the procedure less available to poor and working women. (January 21, 2026)Don’t miss new drops from Claire and Neil. You can subscribe for free or support us for only $5 a month. You can also become an annual supporter for $50/year and choose Neil’s Coming Out Republican or Claire’s Political Junkies: as a welcome bonus.You can also get all audio content for free by subscribing on Apple iTunes, YouTube, or Spotify. Get full access to Political Junkie at clairepotter.substack.com/subscribe

In this emergency episode of the Political Junkie podcast, I am joined by Michael Kazin, a prize-winning scholar and Professor of History at Georgetown University. Michael is an expert in American social movements and politics; his most recent book is What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022), but he has also written extensively about the American peace movement, the Progressive and populist movements, and the New Left. You can see all of his work here.The episode begins with a clip from a press conference on Sunday, January 25, 2026, in which Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar demands that ICE leave the state.A protest on January 7, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, immediately following the murder of Renee Good by ICE officer Jonathan Ross. Photo credit: Alejandro Diaz Manrique/ShutterstockYour host:Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller.The topics Michael and I touched on in today’s podcast included:* The murders of two Twin Cities residents: Alex Pretti, a 38 year-old White man, and an ICU nurse, and Renee Good, a 37 year-old White woman and mother of three. Good was shot in the face, and then twice more, as she attempted to leave the scene of a protest, while Pretti was shot in the back multiple times as he was being held on the ground by officers.* The roots of the Minnesota’s resistance in its long progressive past, and the networks established during the George Floyd protests in 2020. The organizations involved in the anti-ICE protests were clearly prepared--and some of the violence we are seeing from federal officers may be evidence that the activists are effective.* A recent poll shows that almost 20% of registered Republicans now want to abolish ICE: will this brutal crackdown will be a decisive factor in moving the electorate away from MAGA policies?* We mention the “credibility gap,” an old phrase from the Vietnam War years, a phrase that speaks to the out of control falsehoods coming out of Washington and the MAGA media. The Trump administration has responded to the crisis by flipping the narrative--claiming that ICE officers are really the victims, stating that they will not investigate the officers involved--and their media allies are pushing the same story. Is this fundamentally different from other Trump lies on some level, or should we expect many Americans to accept this as the “new normal?”* What Democrats should do right now, and what should those of us who are bracing for ICE in our own communities be doing.You can also get all audio content by subscribing for free on Apple iTunes, YouTube, or Spotify.Short takes:* Meredith Lee Hill reports at POLITICO that the White House may be pivoting: ICE chief Tom Homan is headed to the Twin Cities in what may be a move to displace the Border Patrol’s Gregory Bovino. “A growing number of Hill Republicans have been pushing publicly and privately for a lowering of the temperature, including from the federal government, after DHS agents shot and killed 37-year-old Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday,” Hill writes. “GOP lawmakers largely view Homan as a more practical enforcer of Trump’s mass deportation plans as some grow increasingly wary of how Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino are handling the campaign, according to six GOP lawmakers granted anonymity to discuss internal conversations.” (January 26, 2026)* “It’s not clear why the Trump regime chose to invade Minneapolis,” Jonathan V. Last writes at The Bulwark, speculating that the Trump administration could be having its Gettysburg moment. “But when the regime’s forces occupied the city they were surprised by the resistance they encountered. Not from Democratic politicians, or institutions, or the legal establishment. From ordinary people. The people of Minneapolis organized to protect their neighbors and provide oversight of the regime’s forces that the local government either could not, or would not, perform.” (January 26, 2026)* “Again and again, I heard people say they were not protesters but protectors—of their communities, of their values, of the Constitution,” Robert F. Worth writes in The Atlantic about what he observed in the Twin Cities. “As in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, Minneapolis has seen a layered civic uprising where a vanguard of protesters has gained strength as many others who don’t share progressive convictions joined in feeling, if not always in person. I heard the same tones of outrage from parents, ministers, school teachers, and elderly residents of an affluent suburb. Some of the quarrels that divided Minneapolis city leaders only a few weeks ago, over policing or Gaza or the budget, have faded as people have come together to oppose ICE.” (January 25, 2026)Items left at the site where Alex Pretti was murdered on Sunday. Photo credit: Darth Stabro/Wikimedia CommonsPolitical Junkie is a reader-supported publication. Can you support our work for $5/month? Get full access to Political Junkie at clairepotter.substack.com/subscribe

We begin with this clip: Bari Weiss, newly named chief of the CBS News Division and founder of The Free Press Substack, reintroduces herself and the network prior to a Town Hall with Turning Point USA’s Erika Kirk on December 14, 2025. Today’s theme music is Never Say Never, by Afternoonz.In the news:* The Department of Justice made it official on Sunday: despite the fact that a federal agent on the ground recommended a civil rights investigation into the shooting of Renee Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis, it is Good herself who is being investigated for allegedly assaulting a federal officer. Governor Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor James Frey, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and three other elected officials are also being investigated for interfering with ICE’s operation. In addition, five federal prosecutors in Minnesota resigned after being tasked with an investigation of Good’s partner; so have several DOJ prosecutors in Washington who have been excluded from the investigation. Because the FBI has taken over the case, and the evidence, the state of Minnesota has also been barred from investigating Good’s death. Radley Balko writes about how many conventions are the Trump administration is violating.* At Davos, President Donald Trump continued to insist on the United States taking possession of Greenland, an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. Trump appears to have ruled out military action, threatened tariffs instead, and now claims to have a deal. This roller-coaster ride sparked a sell-off of Treasury bonds by European investors. Although some Republicans have gotten on board with the United States annexing the territory, a bipartisan Congressional delegation traveled to Greenland to reassure its government, and meet with EU President Ursula von der Leyen.* Representative James Comer (R, TN-01), chair of the House Oversight Committee, pushed for a vote to hold former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in contempt of Congress and got one. Democrats on the committee crossed the aisle to rebuke the former first couple for refusing to appear to testify in the Epstein investigation. The Clintons argue that the subpoenas are invalid, even as their attorneys try to negotiate backstage for an off-ramp to the legal standoff.Your hosts:Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller.Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024).Image credit: OpturaDesign/ShutterstockDon’t miss new drops from Claire and Neil. You can subscribe for free or support us for only $5 a month. You can also become an annual supporter for $50/year and choose Neil’s Coming Out Republican or Claire’s Political Junkies: as a welcome bonus.You can also get all audio content by subscribing for free on Apple iTunes, YouTube, or Spotify.News Focus: Bari Weiss—Free Speech Activist? Journalist? Media Disruptor?* We start with a profile of Bari Weiss that sketches her biography, education, and professional accomplishments.* A staunch Zionist, Weiss graduated from Columbia University in 2007, having founded The Current, a campus magazine of politics and culture focused on Jewish affairs. She also waged a highly publicized campaign against Middle Pastern Studies Professor Joseph Massad, which spurred the creation of a special committee, Columbians for Academic Freedom, to examine the state of free speech on campus.* Weiss cut her teeth as a journalist at Haaretz, The Forward, and Tablet. From 2013-2017, she worked for Bret Stephens at The Wall Street Journal, with whom she was also having an affair. She followed him to the New York Times: it was part of an effort to diversify the editorial page following the departure of James Bennet, a resignation forced by staff outrage over the publication of an opinion piece by Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR).* When Weiss resigned from the New York Times editorial page in July 2020, she sent publisher A.G. Sulzberger a stinging letter of resignation, saying that the atmosphere at the paper was illiberal, that the editorial policy was determined by what left media critics on Twitter found acceptable, and that she had been bullied for her views.* Shortly after leaving the Times, Weiss married tech reporter Nellie Bowles, which she announced on Megyn Kelly’s podcast over a year later. Bowles now writes a column for The Free Press and is the biological mother of their two children.* In 2021, Weiss and Bowles co-created a Substack called Common Sense, which became The Free Press, a home for contrarian writing and an engine behind what became the pandemic-driven anti-woke politics that ultimately found a home in the MAGA movement.* In 2021, she also became one of the co-founders of the University of Austin, which accepted its first class in 2024. Since the institution has begun to stumble, she has distanced herself from the institution.* In 2022, Weiss was one of five pundits and four reporters (all from The Free Press) invited by Elon Musk to review internal Twitter archives relating to content moderation.* In late 2025, after David Ellison bought Paramount Skydance, he purchased The Free Press for $150 million, and installed Weiss as chief of the news division at CBS, believed by many to be a sop to the Trump administration.* Weiss’s tenure has been marked by early stumbles. In December, she pulled a 60 minutes segment on El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison, recently aired in full.* On January 6, Tony Dokoupil, former CBS Mornings co-host, made a disastrous debut in the anchor chair, replacing John Dickerson. The “Five Principles” Dokoupil articulated as the News Divisions guiding principles included “We Love America,” a sentiment that many though had little to do with reporting the news.What we want to go viral:* Neil had a lot to say about a series that has already gone viral, HBO Max’s “Heated Rivalry,” a show about two closeted, gay hockey players—one Russian, one Canadian—competing to be the best at the game, and having a secret affair.* Claire wants you to read Vijay Khurana’s The Passenger Seat (Biblioasis, 2025), a novel about two alienated, teenage, White teenagers who light out for the Territory and find themselves sucked into a dark and violent scenario of their own making.Short takes:* Political scientists call it the “ratchet effect:" that political power acquired is rarely relinquished, and becomes a permanent feature of any state institution. “There’s been no nation-halting constitutional crisis. No rupture dramatic enough to force a reset,” Theodore R. Johnson writes at The Washington Post. “It’s mostly business as usual for today’s branches: the executive flexing its authority, the legislature shrinking from its own and the judiciary shielding the presidency and loosening federal protections for the people. But the resulting imbalance makes it increasingly difficult to check an emboldened executive, especially when partisan loyalties trump most everything else. The greatest risk isn’t that the system will fail, it’s that its institutions — and the public — will grow accustomed to presidential excess.” (January 21, 2026)* Thanks for reading Political Junkie! This post is public so feel free to share it. Get full access to Political Junkie at clairepotter.substack.com/subscribe

At the beginning of this episode, we hear a clip from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about strategic uncertainty on February 12, 2002, as the Bush administration falsely argued that the United States was compelled to go to war in Iraq to seize weapons of mass destruction.Protesters march to the Pentagon on March 21, 2009 as part of an anti-war march and rally in Washington, D.C. Photo credit: Rena Schild/ShutterstockShow notes:* Jeremy discusses the movement against the War on Terror as a moral obligation, one that he participated in, but which he could not fully understand the dimensions of at the time.* Claire mentions the role that the War Resisters League, founded in 1923, played in the antiwar movement.* Jeremy and Claire discuss the significant participation of women, many of whom had extensive social movement experience, in the resistance to the war on terror.* Code Pink was a particularly effective and energetic feminist anti-war group that devoted itself to international civil society activism and highlighting the ways women’s experience in war provides a broader lens into the harms of state violence.* Jeremy points to Hillary Clinton’s support for the war, which was dismaying to many feminist organizations. You can read more about women’s participation in the War on Terror here.* The extreme violence of the War on Terror was, in some ways, epitomized by the sexualized torture and brutality inflicted on Iraqi prisoners by American men and women at the Abu Ghraib prison.* Claire and Jeremy discuss the violence of President Trump’s deportation agenda, and the administration’s assertions that ICE agent have absolute immunity, as a domestic extension of the War on Terror.* Jeremy outlines how the movement to stop the first Gulf War set the stage for strategies and groups that would oppose the War on Terror.* In a conversation about the moral injuries of war, Jeremy discusses the many ways in which soldiers suffer for their participation in war.* In a conversation about the forms of fellowship, friendship, and community in peace movements, Jeremy mentions Benjamin Heim Shepard’s book, On Activism, Friendships, and Fighting: Oral Histories, Strategies and Conflicts (Common Notions Press, 2025).Your host:Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller.Short takes:* It’s called “Blaxit”(short for Black Exit): Black Americans leaving the United States in higher than usual numbers. Historically, African Americans have often felt safer and freer abroad, but the trend of Black professionals seeking out relocation experts is growing. “This modern migration is seeing Black expatriates settle in countries like Thailand, Dubai, Ghana, Portugal, South Africa, Costa Rica, Mexico, Colombia, and more,” Karen Juanita Carillo writes. Predictably, MAGA hates dual citizenship. “In December 2025, Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno,” an immigrant from Colombia, “introduced the Exclusive Citizenship Act of 2025, which aims to prohibit dual citizenship. It requires Americans with multiple nationalities to renounce their foreign citizenship(s) within one year or face automatic revocation of their U.S. citizenship.” (January 15, 2026)* Can prediction markets change history—or allow insiders to profit from political decisions? Democrat Ritchie Torres (NY-15) says yes. “Hours before U.S. Army Delta Force commandos captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife during a nighttime raid in Caracas, an anonymous trader, using a newly created account on the prediction market Polymarket, wagered more than $30,000 that Maduro would be out of office by Jan. 31, 2026. The trader walked away with more than $400,000 in profit,” Torres writes in The Washington Post about government insiders finding yet another way to profit from the Trump presidency. “On Jan. 7, traders wagered on whether the White House press briefing would last longer than 65 minutes. The market assigned a 98 percent probability that it would. Then, with seconds to spare, the briefing was abruptly ended — delivering massive, near-instant payouts to those betting against the odds.” (January 15, 2026)* Former Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema has been named as a correspondent in a divorce proceeding. “In a complaint filed in North Carolina, the ex-wife of Matthew Ammel, who worked on Ms. Sinema’s staff for two years, accused the former senator of seducing him and breaking up their marriage,” Anni Karni reports at The New York Times. Heather Ammel asserts that Sinema sent her husband Matthew, her bodyguard, “suggestive photographs on Signal, the encrypted messaging app; chose him to accompany her on trips to Napa Valley and to the Sphere, an events venue, in Las Vegas; paid for him to enter psychedelic treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and other issues; encouraged him to bring drugs on work trips so she could guide him through a psychedelic trip; showered him with gifts and concert tickets; and eventually entered into a sexual relationship with him that caused him to leave his family.” Sinema has been divorced since 1999, left the Senate in 2024 about a year after the affair with Ammel allegedly began, and is openly bisexual. (January 15, 2026)Don’t miss new drops from Claire and Neil. You can subscribe for free or support us for only $5 a month. You can become an annual supporter for $50/year and choose Claire’s most recent book, Political Junkies: as a welcome bonus.You can also get all audio content by subscribing for free on Apple iTunes, YouTube, or Spotify.Political Junkie is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Political Junkie at clairepotter.substack.com/subscribe

News Summary:* Yesterday, 37 year-old Renee Nicole Good, a poet, mother of three, and a United States citizen was murdered by an ICE officer identified as Jonathan Ross, a ten-year veteran of the service. Good was confronted by ICE vehicles, and for unknown reasons, Ross ordered Good to get out of the car, where she was accompanied by her wife and dog. As Good she attempted to leave the scene, Ross shot her three times. Trump and other administration officials have repeatedly lied about the events surrounding Good’s death. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem labeled the victim a “domestic terrorist” and falsely claimed that the ICE officer had been endangered; as of today, Democrat-sponsored articles of impeachment are circulating in the House to remove her from office.* In the wake of an alleged multi-billion dollar scheme to divert federal dollars intended for Minnesota’s subsidized child care, Governor Tim Walz has dropped his bid for a third term. The state’s popular Democratic Senator, Amy Klobuchar, is said to be almost certain to run in 2026; if she wins, she or Walz will pick someone to fill her seat who could run in the special election to replace her. Will that person be from the Congressional delegation? Perhaps it will be the popular mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey? Or Keith Ellison, the former Representative from 05 and currently attorney general?* Donald Trump added his own name to the Kennedy Center, not only outraging the ginormous Kennedy family, but causing numerous artists scheduled to perform there to cancel.* In a 4-1 ruling, Wyoming’s Supreme Court has struck down two laws banning abortion in the state as unconstitutional, including the first law in the nation to ban chemical abortions. The court, all appointed by Republicans, cited a 2012 amendment approved by voters in the wake of the ACA empowering adults to make their own health decisions.United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House in Washington DC, April 7, 2025. Photo credit: noamgalai/ShutterstockNews focus: Marco Rubio, Venezuela, and the “Donroe” Doctrine* On the evening of Saturday, January 3, a special forces team from the United States supported from the air penetrated the compound in Caracas where Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores lived. After killing 31 members of a Cuban bodyguard, the team kidnapped Maduro and Flores. They were charged this week in New York with narco-terrorism.* While the official justification for Maduro’s kidnapping is unclear, as is Trump’s plan for “running the country,” Vice President Delcy Rodriguez has been sworn in as president—but is she on the same page as Trump? Yesterday, the New York Times obtained a 90-day emergency order issued by the government commanding the police to take into custody anyone who supports the “armed attack” by the United States.* Trump threatened attacks on two other sovereign nations in the hemisphere, Colombia and Cuba; and revived plans to annex Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of Denmark. Marco Rubio has amended Trump’s statements to say that the plan, for now, would be to purchase Greenland.* On Thursday, the Senate passed a bill invoking the War Powers Act with five Republicans voting aye: Rand Paul of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Todd Young of Indiana and Josh Hawley of Missouri.* Who is Marco Rubio? The son of Cuban exiles, he is only 54: he rose swiftly in Florida politics, becoming speaker of the Florida House of Representatives at 35. He was elected to the Senate in 2010, replacing Republican Mel Martinez, the first Cuban American in the Senate, and became well-known on the Foreign Policy Committee as a centrist.* But Rubio has always been a Cuba hard-liner. A challenger to Trump for the presidential nomination in 2015, he was once seen as the future of the GOP. But after Trump became president, as Secretary of State, Rubio has had to toggle between conservative principles and gaining influence in a now-populist and ideologically rudderless party.* President Trump and Secretary Rubio are now directly threatening Cuba’s sovereignty. Trump has suggested that cutting off Venezuelan oil will cause a fragile regime to collapse on its own, whereas Rubio represents a return of an exile opposition community that has remained organized in the last 60 years in Miami and Madrid.* Some see the pursuit of an aggressive foreign policy as a make-or-break moment for Rubio: insiders say he was responsible for pushing Trump to act aggressively on removing Maduro. There are implcations for the 2028 nomination: the heir apparent, Vice President JD Vance, has become almost invisible at a key moment; whereas Rubio, who was not very visible in Year 1, is everywhere, and seemingly in charge of Trump’s expansionism in the Western hemisphere.Your hosts:Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller.Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024).What we want to go viral:* Neil wants you to read Ruth Graham’s “Philip Yancey, Prominent Christian Author, Admits to Extramarital Affair” (New York Times, January 7, 2026) about a best-selling Christian author whose books in the 1990s compelled a general audience to think about grace and who has now fallen from grace. * Claire wants you to think about Vivek Ramaswamy’s “Social Media is a Trap for Politicians,” in which Ramaswamy cautions about the fast and inaccurate information that is reflected back to politicians from a platform populated by extremes. (The Wall Street Journal, January 5, 2026.)You can also get all audio content by subscribing for free on Apple iTunes, YouTube, or Spotify.Short takes:* The Heritage Foundation has produced new proposals to incentivize marriage and childbearing, including state-funded marriage boot camps. This “represents a sharp pivot for the organization away from its tradition of small government and free-market conservatism toward an ideology that embraces government intervention in affairs as private as procreation,” Brianna Tucker and Jacob Bogage report at The Washington Post. “Some of the proposals in the family report are part of the upheaval that’s shaken Heritage, an august institution with offices on both sides of the U.S. Capitol. Policy experts clashed over ideas that some staffers felt eschewed traditional conservatism or ventured so far into new territory that they made others uncomfortable, according to three people familiar with the paper.” (January 8, 2025)* MAGA’s latest obsession is that the United States can acquire Greenland through an arranged marriage between 19-year-old Barron Trump (who has taken to looking like a porcelain doll) and Denmark’s Princess Isabella, just turned 18. “While her post-graduation plans are unknown, it is unlikely the Nordic country is willing to barter its first princess in 60 years,” Laura Esposito writes at The Daily Beast. “For Barron’s part, this is hardly the first time MAGA has thirsted over his teenage love life. Last year, the New York University student made headlines for shutting down an entire floor of Trump Tower for a date.” (January 8, 2026)* The Pentagon has begun a review of women in combat roles, framed as an effectiveness study, but probably a prelude to excluding them from front-line jobs that convey the highest prestige, pay, and possibility for promotion. “Hegseth, an Army National Guard veteran with tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, opposed women in ground combat units while he was a Fox News host and author,” Tom Bowman writes at NPR. Hegseth withdrew these comments during his confirmation hearings. “Kris Fuhr, a West Point graduate who worked on gender integration for the Army Forces Command at Fort Bragg, N.C., said an Army study between 2018 to 2023 found that women performed well in ground combat units and, in some cases, had higher scores than male soldiers,” Bowman reports. “She called the upcoming Pentagon study ‘a solution for a problem that doesn't exist.’” (January 7, 2026)Thanks for being a subscriber! One of the ways you can support Political Junkie, and the work that goes into it, is to become a paying subscriber. Get full access to Political Junkie at clairepotter.substack.com/subscribe

Promotional photo of Imogene Coca and Sid Caesar from “Your Show of Shows,” August 30, 1952. Photo credit: NBC/Wikimedia CommonsFor this final podcast of 2025, we begin with a clip from “The Vitality Health Food Restaurant,” featuring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca as the recurring characters Charlie and Doris Hickenlooper; Howard Morris and Carl Reiner play bit parts. It was broadcast during the 1955 season of Caesar’s Hour on NBC: you can see the whole sketch here.Show notes:* Claire mentions Dick Cavett’s afternoon talk show: Cavett’s unique style was inspired by his admiration for, and study of, Sid Caesar.* The Catskills comedy scene, also known as the “Borscht Belt,” nurtured a generation of Jewish comedians who Caesar relied on, even though he himself spent little time in it.* David Margolick discusses how Sid Caesar navigated the heightened consciousness of antisemitism in the 1950s by downplaying the Jewish roots of his art.* Claire mentions the historical maleness of the comedy writers’ room, a phenomenon that—according to Tina Fey—lasted well into the late twentieth century.* The Dick Van Dyke Show was created by a Caesar writer, Carl Reiner, the father of the late Rob Reiner: the plot revolved around the antics of creatives in a fictionalized—and very cleaned up—version of the Sid Caesar Show writers’ room.* Caesar sustained the emotionally and physically crushing schedule of putting out a weekly show with alcohol and pharmaceuticals, something that was not all that uncommon for adult creatives and professionals in the 1950s.* David discusses the rivalry between Caesar and bandleader Lawrence Welk, who produced a more anodyne variety show aimed at middle America.Your host:Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller.Short takes:* New York City Mayor Eric Adams is getting ready to hand over the reins of government to Zorhan Mamdani, but will be in the news for some time to come. Numerous Adams staffers “are still facing criminal prosecution, lawsuits in state court, federal and local investigations, or some combination of all of the above,” Noah Schachtman writes at New York Magazine. “And while Adams is all grips and ‘What, me worry?’ grins in public, he continues to have some legal exposure of his own.” (December 26, 2025)* At The Atlantic, Jonathan Chait argues that no one should defend Bari Weiss for spiking the “60 Minutes” story on CECOT. Her reasoning is incoherent, Chait argues; worse, “Weiss is following a long-standing instinct to turn every Trump abuse into a debate, a generosity she does not afford targets on the left,” Chait writes. “The Free Press, which she continues to edit while running CBS News, publishes obsessively and unremittingly negative coverage of New York Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani, but holds symposia on Donald Trump. In defending the administration’s actions as debatable, she has misrepresented just how heedless it has been with the Constitution.” He has other reasons too: read on. (December 24, 2025)* The New Yorker’s Jay Caspian Kang has been following the debate about kids and social media since before Australia imposed a ban on the apps for youth under 16. Such a a ban is unlikely in the United States—but aren’t there other, more thoughtful approaches? The First Amendment argues that “we shouldn’t place arbitrary age limits on who gets to express themselves in the digital town square,” Kang writes, “and we shouldn’t require everyone who wants to express their opinions online to submit to an I.D. check.” In fact, the revolution has already begun by simply taking smartphones out of the hands of school-age kids without federal legislation. “The nascent anti-smartphones movement in America is decidedly nonpartisan, for the most part,” Kang writes. “It also has taken place almost entirely at the local and state level.” (December 23, 2025)Political Junkie is a reader-supported publication. Don’t miss new drops! You can subscribe for free or support us for only $5 a month. You can also become an annual supporter for $50/year and choose Neil’s Coming Out Republican or Claire’s Political Junkies: as a welcome bonus.You can also get all audio content by subscribing for free on Apple iTunes, YouTube, or Spotify. Get full access to Political Junkie at clairepotter.substack.com/subscribe

As we slide into the holidays, our politics podcast is on a three-week hiatus. But I have some terrific book chats lined up, each one accompanied by a short news summary. Neil and I will be back and ready to rock on January 9 to evaluate the fresh hell breaking loose in 2026!Country music star Dolly Parton arriving at a Hollywood premiere in January, 2012. Photo credit: DFree/ShutterstockWe begin this episode with a clip from a 1977 Barbara Walters interview, in which Parton skillfully parries a stereotype about White people who grew up poor in the American South.News summary:* The man who right wing influencer Milo Yiannopoulos has called “The most ostentatiously useless and embarrassing government employee in the history of the nation”—that’s right, Deputy Director of the FBI Dan Bongino—has resigned as of January. “Bongino expressed deep satisfaction earlier this month after the FBI arrested a suspect in the Jan. 6 pipe bombing case. He said he pressed the bureau to solve the case and got regular updates from the lead investigator,” Carol Leonnig and Ken Dilanian write at MS NOW. But as a podcaster, Bongino had stoked conspiracy theories that the pipe bombs were a false-flag operation. When asked by Fox’s Sean Hannity about the discrepancy, he said “that as a podcaster, he was paid to give his opinions, but now at the FBI, he was ‘paid to be your deputy director, and we base investigations on facts.’” Rumor has it Bongino is returning to podcasting. (December 18, 2025)* This week saw a furor about a two-part profile of Trump Chief of Staff Susie Wiles by Chris Whipple of Vanity Fair. Wiles, a political consultant who is normally very backstage, let drop a number of frank comments about the President and the clown car that surrounds him. The outrage has been predictable—except for White House attacks on photographer Christopher Anderson, whose closeup of Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, whose lip gloss did not conceal injection marks, presumably the residue of a cosmetic procedure. * The suspect in the mass shooting at Brown University, a Portuguese man who may also be responsible for the murder of MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro, has been found in. New Hampshire storage unit, an apparent suicide.Today’s guest: Martha Ackman, the author of Ain’t Nobody’s Fool: The Life and Times of Dolly Parton (MacMillan, 2025)* Claire notes some of the similarities between Dolly Parton and an earlier female artist Martha Ackman explored, Emily Dickinson. You can read about the famous reclusive poet in These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson (W.W. Norton, 2020).* Dolly Parton’s big break was on The Porter Wagoner Show. It was where she learned her craft, but also became aware of how fiercely she would have to fight to make a career in the male-dominated country music industry.* Dolly has described her childhood in her autobiography, Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business (HarperCollins, 1994).* Claire and Martha also discuss Dolly making books available to children through her Imagination Library.* Rumors about Dolly’s private life include speculation about whether she has been sexually involved with a close woman friend: she denies them. We discuss how Dolly’s support for the LGBTQ community, her unusually supportive husband who preferred the backstage, and the difficulty in describing love and loyalty between women, have fed such rumors.* You can learn more about Carl Dean, Dolly’s husband for almost 60 years before his death this year, here.* Claire notes that her favorite song is White Limozeen, from the 1989 album of hte same name, because it reflects her commitment to her family and community.Short takes:* Changes to Medicaid under H.R. 1 will affect Black and Brown communities disproportionately, but also whole institutions designed to serve low-income people. “Community health centers like Harlem United serve as the few sources of dental care for low-income populations in New York City,” Neela Jain reports in The Amsterdam News. “Across the city, many neighborhoods lack enough dental providers to meet the needs of populations eligible for Medicaid, according to the federal government,” Jain writes. “The majority of shortage provider areas are located in the city’s predominantly low-income communities of color.” (December 18, 2025)* Does Donald Trump want us all to get cancer? Liza Featherstone, citing numerous policies and regulations that have been abandoned across federal departments, says yes! “How can the Make America Healthy Again crowd put up with all this? They can’t,” Featherstone concludes at The New Republic. Some MAHA Moms “are now circulating a petition to fire EPA chief Lee Zeldin, who has allowed chemical industry insiders to relax restrictions on harmful chemicals. One of the groups circulating it, Moms Across America, is calling EPA the ‘Everyone Poisoned Agency.’ MAHA also takes issue—rightly—with Zeldin’s approval of new pesticides, including two that contain PFAS, a.k.a. ‘forever chemicals,’ which have been a major target of the MAHA movement.” (December 18, 2025)* In his shouty, untethered televised speech this week, President Donald Trump announced something he called “warrior dividends,” checks for $1,776 dollars that would go out to members of the military. In fact, according to Thomas Novelly at Defense One, Congress appropriated an extra $2.9 billion in reconciliation funds to supplement troop housing allowances, and Trump is just rebranding it as a holiday gift. “The $2.9 billion meant to subsidize the basic allowance for housing, the monthly payment to cover troops’ off-base expenses such as rent, mortgage, and utilities known as BAH, comes as some service members have struggled to make the most of the benefit,” Novelly writes. And it isn’t the only funding gone astray. “Senator Elizabeth Warren,D-Mass., and Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., issued a report last week highlighting $2 billion diverted away from the Defense Department and Homeland Security Department for border enforcement—including redirecting funds for barracks, maintenance hangers, and elementary schools.” (December 18, 2025)Political Junkie is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Political Junkie at clairepotter.substack.com/subscribe

We begin with influencer Milo Yiannopoulos on December 6, 2025, in conversation with ex-Congressman and pardoned felon George Santos on Tim Poole’s podcast.Sporting a sequined “Make America Straight Again” cap, self-described journalist and “ex-gay” Milo Yiannopoulos served as the Parade Grand Marshall for the Boston Straight Pride Parade and Rally on August 31, 2019. Photo credit: Maverick Pictures/ShutterstockNews Summary:* On Monday, Colin Allred dropped his Senate bid to run for Congress in the new, redrawn TX-33; this cleared the way for two-term Dallas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (TX-30) to compete with State Representative James Tallarico for the Democratic nomination: new polling shows her with an 8-point advantage. But there’s an interesting race shaping up on the Republican side: three-term incumbent John Cornyn is facing a challenge from a MAGA normie, two-term Congressman Wesley Hunt (TX-38) and whack-job Attorney General Ken Paxton, who survived impeachment for bribery and corruption in 2023 and settled federal securities fraud charges in 2024. Paxton leads Cornyn by 8 points, Hunt by 9: the nominee must win 50%, or face a run-off* Democratic candidates had another great election day on Tuesday, holding two state house seats in Florida, and flipping one in a Georgia district that Trump won in double-digits and the same candidate lost by 22 points a year ago: some analysts are blaming the gerrymander. A Democrat, Eileen Higgins, will be Mayor of Miami for the first time in 30 years. Around 20% of Little Havana voters who supported Trump shifting to the Democrats: Higgins won by 19 points.* In 2025, Democrats flipped 21% of GOP-held seats up for grabs in regular and special elections, won the largest majority they have had in the Virginia House since the 1980s, expanded control of the New Jersey Assembly, and torpedoed supermajorities in Iowa and Missouri. The GOP has not flipped any seats. In FL-11 on Tuesday, Ralph Massulo, Jr. held a Republican seat—but by a margin that is 18 points lower than Trump’s tally a year ago.* Democrats are now imagining districts Trump won in the single or low two digits in North Carolina, Florida, Texas, and California as potential flips, the total of targeted districts for 2026 is 39. And for the first time in modern history, Texas Democrats—a state party recently said to be dead in the water—are contesting every congressional seat in the redrawn map. In an odd twist, Trump’s pardon of Texas Democrat Henry Cuellar has moved TX-28 from tossup to Lean D (as per the Cook Political Report.)* In the face of the Senate’s failure to pass healthcare legislation, Mike Johnson is losing control of a GOP caucus running for the exits. On Wednesday, 16 Republicans cosponsored a discharge petition to extend ACA subsidies, demonstrating that the legislation can pass the House—also, that Leader Mike Johnson is losing control of his caucus. In addition, 13 Republicans joined Democrats to nullify a Trump executive order that eliminated Federal workers’ labor rights. Finally, just yesterday, after multiple visits by top Trump administration officials, including JD Vance, the Indiana legislature turned down the gerrymandering bill 31-19. Twenty-one Republicans voted against it.Your hosts:Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller.Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024).Right-wing influencer Candace Owens at a TPUSA event at Texas State University-San Marcos, 2018. Owens has since broken with the organization, and promotes conspiracy theories about Charlie Kirk’s assassination that have splintered the MAGA-verse. Photo credit: Carrington Tatum/Shutterstock News Focus: Is MAGA Cracking Apart?* The Daily Beast is reporting a full-blown social media war featuring deeply personal attacks, often from the fringe, on Trump and his allies.* Podcaster Candace Owens is spreading rumors online that Turning Point USA committed financial fraud, and that Charlie Kirk’s assassination is related to that. This week, the Treasury Department sent Erika Kirk a letter confirming that none of the four organizations under the TPUSA umbrella are being investigated or audited. The organization appears to have pulled in $85 million in the fiscal year ending in June, 2025.* Podcaster Tim Poole has gone after Owens, who also claims that Charlie Kirk assassin Tyler Robinson did not act alone: she has implicated the American military, Israel, financier Bill Ackman, and French President Emmanuel Macron. Her fans see efforts to stop or debunk her as further proof there is a conspiracy to cover up the “facts” surrounding Kirk’s death.* We have also seen Tucker Carlson going after Laura Loomer; Carlson taking fire from Texas Senator Ted Cruz for platforming white supremacist, misogynist, and self-declared incel Nick Fuentes; and Milo Yiannopoulos maintaining that Fuentes is gay.* Some of the rifts, while predictable, are self-inflicted wounds about sex, sexuality, and violence that go well beyond allegations of a Trump administrative coverup in the Epstein case. In the past year, numerous right-wing influencers have collaborated in propping up brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate, pornographers who have been charged with rape and sex trafficking in Romania and England. Members of Trump’s circle including, it seems, the President and two of his sons, have colluded to free them and put the brothers—whose penchant for sadistic sexual violence against women is well documented—back in business.* Another little corner of the right-wing world where everyone has their panties in a twist is what Michelangelo Signorile has dubbed “Gay MAGA.” Milo Yiannopoulos, who was canceled back in 2017 for talking enthusiastically about performing fellatio on a priest when he was a boy, characterizes himself as an “ex-gay,” and now operates a crisis management form, is currently waging an outing campaign against influencer Benny Johnson. Johnson is married with four children, and recently on Tim Poole’s podcast, he and pardoned fraudster George Santos tossed it out there that the late TPUSA founder and CEO Charlie Kirk was also a closeted gay man.What we want to go viral:* Neil wants you to listen to “Blood Relatives,” a new season of In The Dark, a podcast produced by The New Yorker and hosted by Heidi Blake, who reported the original 2024 story about then murder of a prominent English farming couple and the son convicted of the crime. But did he do it?* Claire wants you to read Jack B. Reardon and Abigail S. Gerstein, “‘For the Reinvention of Man’: How a Conservative Debating Society at Harvard Pushed Women From Its Ranks,” The Harvard Crimson (December 7, 2025), about how Trumpism is helping elite conservative manhood reclaim single-sex spaces at America’s most prominent university.Short takes:* As Joe Gruters, the chair of the Republican National Committee, makes his media rounds, he is setting expectations for 2026 way low—which tells you something about the upheaval and finger-pointing up on Capitol Hill. “This week, I spoke to a number of swing-state GOP operatives about Trump and the midterm environment,” Andrew Eggers writes at The Bulwark. “And they were pretty blunt. To them, the biggest reason Republicans seem bound for disaster isn’t historical midterm trends. It’s the world the president has built for them to run in—particularly when it comes to affordability.” As one anonymous source on the Hill said to Eggers, Trump’s economic message is “landing like doo-doo.” (December 12, 2025)* President Trump is now trying to get the massively unqualified Lindsey Halligan properly appointed as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Burgess Everett reports at Semafor, but neither of Virginia’s Democratic Senators seems likely to return the blue slip to support the nomination. Neither Tim Kaine or Mark Warner “explicitly confirmed they’ll block Halligan as they seek a nominee they could support; Warner said he’d meet with her but that it would be ‘very hard’ to support her,” Everett writes. “And Senate Republicans aren’t eliminating blue slips, despite Trump’s request, because they want input when a Democrat is president, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said.” (December 12, 2025)* At her Substack, Abortion, Every Day, Jessica Valenti reports that the Wisconsin legislation that sought to compel women to bag the residue of their medication abortions, then turn it over to the authorities as “medical waste,” is DOA in the legislature. “Students for Life has been drafting “clean water” bills for lawmakers across the country—legislation that claims abortion pills and pregnancy tissue are poisoning groundwater,” Valenti explains. “Republicans are furious and embarrassed: instead of looking like environmental protectors, they seem like creeps who want to sift through women’s bloody miscarriages.” As Bette Davis memorably said to a terror-stricken Joan Crawford in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?— “But you are.” (December 11, 2025)Political Junkie is a reader-supported publication. You can subscribe for free or support us for only $5 a month. You can also become an annual supporter for $50/year and choose Neil’s Coming Out Republican or Claire’s Political Junkies: as a welcome bonus.You can also get all audio content by subscribing on Apple iTunes, YouTube, or Spotify. Get full access to Political Junkie at clairepotter.substack.com/subscribe

We begin with this clip from a cabinet meeting earlier this week, in which Pete Hegseth described to a journalist his participation in a deadly September 2 strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug smuggling boat, and a second missile fired that killed first-strike survivors.Secretary of Defense fakes screwing in a sign misidentifying the Department of Defense of the Department of War, a name he likes because it sounds more lethal. Photo credit: U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Madelyn Keech/Wikimedia CommonsNews Summary:* In a closely watched special election, MAGA Republican Matt Van Epps defeated Democrat Aftyn Behn by 9 points in a race to fill a seat vacated by Republican Mark Green, in TN-07. Van Epps was endorsed by Trump; Behn, a former community organizer, was endorsed by DSA. Good news for Mike Johnson’s tiny majority; not such good news for MAGA 2026, since Trump won this district only a year ago by 22 points, and Democrats clawed back a bigger percentage of the vote in every county.* For the first time since 1988, the Trump administration declined to commemorate World AIDS day. The State Department issued a statement this week saying that “an awareness day is not a strategy,” but it is also the case that the Trump administration has no strategy beyond pretending that AIDS does not exist. Funding cuts to fight AIDS globally have declined by almost 40%. Almost all funding for domestic AIDS prevention has been eliminated for 2026, and programs aimed at developing a vaccine for the HIV virus have been eliminated.* In a story we have been following in one way or another for several weeks, Speaker Mike Johnson is holding on by a thread in the face of criticism from his caucus—criticism led out by very high profile women. Johnson’s foes include Elise Stefanik (NY-21) who has accused him of lying and “getting rolled” by Democrats. Stefanik has also launched her campaign for governor, which means she can’t run for her House seat in 2026.* As Democrats circulate a discharge petition to renew existing health insurance subsidies under the ACA for three years, Republicans can’t agree on how to respond to the hole they have dug for themselves. A new poll by KFF, a nonprofit health policy research shop, reveals that a quarter of those who are now insured through the ACA would drop their insurance completely, and about half say it would affect how, or even whether, they vote in the midterm elections. Although those polled had little faith in politicians of either party to solve the problem, the majority were critical of Republicans.Your hosts:Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller.Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024).Like other members of the Trump administration, Hegseth enjoys sporting uniforms he is not entitled to wear. Here, he cosplays as a fighter pilot at Naval Air Station Fallon, Nevada, on October 19, 2025. Photo credit: U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Madelyn Keech/Wikimedia CommonsNews focus: Lyin’ Pete Hegseth* Hegseth was a controversial nominee for SecDef in the first place: reports of financial mismanagement, sexual assault, and an unresolved alcohol addiction dogged the nomination process. He barely squeezed through with Vice President JD Vance casting a tie-breaking vote in a Republican-majority Senate.* A military veteran with two Bronze stars, Hegseth was one of a number of high-level Trump appointments plucked out of the Fox News pool: here is a short bio. At 45, he is on his third wife. Hegseth’s second wife was said to have requested aid for spousal abuse on more than one occasion. He was said to habitually drink to the point of passing out, and family members said they feared him when he was drunk.* Hegseth has also been characterized as a Christian nationalist, and is a self-admitted Islamophobe who believes that Western Civilization is under attack. He has at least two tattoos that suggest he is a white supremacist, and he is a member of the arch-conservative Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches. Not surprisingly, perhaps, Hegseth has initiated and presided over the expulsion of transgender people from the military, has women in combat roles as inherently unqualified, and has reduced the visibility of lesbian and gay people in the military service. He has characterized LGBTQ troops serving openly as part of a “Marxist agenda,” although Marx had little or nothing to say about homosexuals.* Hegseth’s command decisions have demoted a disproportionate number of Black and female officers, or forced them into retirement. A policy that bans beards is projected to prompt the resignation of significant numbers of Black men, who can develop a painful skin condition from shaving, as well as soldiers who wear beards for religious reasons. Last week, Hegseth barred all soldiers who currently have beard waivers from one of his speaking events in South Korea.* In a September meeting for which general and flag officers from around the globe were brought to Quantico, VA, Hegseth promoted the return of hazing, bullying and harassment as part of an effective training process. The U.S. military has worked to eliminate hazing since 1874.* More recently, Hegseth has announced that his department will sever all ties with Scouting America (formerly Boy Scouts of America) which, he claims, promotes DEI and is not a “boy-friendly” space.* Calls for an investigation into Hegseth’s running of the department have escalated in the past week after yet another deadly attack on a Venezuelan vessel, one followed up by a second strike to kill two survivors adrift in the water.* One important question is who authorized the second strike, which may violate the laws of war. But legal scholars have also questioned the legality of any strikes on people who, regardless of the Trump administration’s designation of them as terrorists, are still legally civilians.* But there are bigger issues: Signalgate is back! On Thursday, a Pentagon watchdog report concluded that in March, Hegseth violated his own department’s policies by discussing a military operation against the Houthis on a Signal app installed on his personal device. You can read the report here. In a bizarre twist, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell issued a statement that report exonerated Hegseth from charges that he breached security protocols, and in a xeet, Hegseth claimed “Total exoneration.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Vice President JD Vance may also be involved in the cover-up.* Also on Thursday, the New York Times filed a lawsuit that named numerous administration officials, including Hegseth and Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell. Prompted by new Department of Defense rules that require journalists to take an oath they will not report anything not been approved for release, the suit charges that this requirement violates provisions of the First and Fifth Amendments. The new requirement caused dozens of experienced reporters to walk off the job in October, only to be replaced by influencers and luminaries from right-wing propaganda outlets like Gateway Pundit, One America News, Turning Point USA’s Frontlines, The Federalist and LindellTV.What we want to go viral:* Neil is excited about Bobby Smith II’s essay, “History Shows How Cooking Can be a Pivotal Tool for Activism,” (Made By History, TIME, November 8, 2025). Smith tells the story of Georgia Gilmore, a Black female chef fired for her civil rights activism, turned her cooking skills to fund—and feed—the Montgomery Bus Boycott.* Claire is excited about James Reginato’s, “Oscar Wilde’s Only Grandchild Investigates the ‘Atom Bomb’ of the Oscar Wilde Scandal,” (Vanity Fair, November 28, 2025), which follows the Wilde family’s disintegration after the scandal of their patriarch’s arrest and imprisonment for homosexuality. Short takes:* Today, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship, one of the most consequential constitutional amendments passed after the Civil War to eliminate barriers to full Black citizenship. The Trump administration argues that the amendment was intended to apply to Black Americans and no one else, but that would repudiate a century of legal precedent. “In a landmark 1898 case, the Supreme Court ruled Wong Kim Ark, a man born to Chinese immigrants in San Francisco, was a U.S. citizen under the 14th Amendment,” Justin Jouvenal writes at The Washington Post. “Roughly 250,000 babies were born to mothers who are in the country illegally or on a temporary basis in 2023, the latest year figures were available, according to the Center for Immigration Studies, which aims to curb immigration.” (December 5, 2025)* A big driver behind MAGA back in 2015 was the populist revulsion for opportunistic wars, mostly driven by the toll the 20-year War on Terror took on working-class America. But how does Trump’s apparent eagerness for regime change in Venezuela jive with an “America First” agenda? “So far, Trump’s base supports his pivot to hawkish interventionism in Venezuela: 66 percent of MAGA Republicans would favor the United States taking military action in the country, according to a recent poll by CBS News and YouGov,” Conor Friedersdorf writes at The Atlantic. However, “Among Americans as a whole, fully 70 percent oppose a war with Venezuela. But assuming Trump does not usurp the constitutional order by trying for a third term, he will never again face voters, so if there are political consequences for a

We begin with a clip from a gaggle on Air Force One this week, in which a female reporter asked a follow up question about the Epstein files, and President Donald Trump responded by wagging his finger at her and saying: “Quiet, piggy.”Image credit: miss.cabul/ShutterstockThis week, we had trouble with our internet connection, which resulted in the loss of much of what Neil’s valuable contributions to the second half of the show.News Summary:* A Reuters/Ipsos poll released this week shows that Donald Trump’s approval rating has fallen to 38%, the lowest it has been since he began his second term. He is five points underwater from November alone, but here are the numbers broken out: Only 41% of Americans approve of his handling of immigration; only 34% approve of his handling of the economy (Biden’s number at the end of his presidency), but down 39 points from January 2025. Marist shows Democrats with a 14-point lead on a generic ballot going into the 2026 midterms.* The vote counting in Seattle has ended, and socialist Katie Wilson, cofounder of the Transit Riders Union and a politics newbie, has unseated incumbent Democratic mayor Bruce Harrell. She’s 43, and lives with her husband and toddler daughter in a 600 square foot rental: sadly, Seattle has no official mayor’s residence. Virginia Heffernan has made the argument that millions poured into fighting progressive and socialist candidates motivates young voters to move left.* “He is a democratic socialist who once called for defunding the police. She is a data-centric billionaire heiress who has sharply criticized laws to relax bail.” That’s a quote from Wednesday’s New York Times about New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s decision to ask Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch to stay on, and her decision to do it. * David Maltinsky, in training as a special agent at the FBI, was pulled from his class in October, three weeks before graduation. Why? Because he hung a Pride flag when he was a civilian tech employee at the agency’s Los Angeles office after the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016. Maltinsky, who is gay, is now suing the FBI and its director Kash Patel.Your hosts:Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller.Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024).You can get all audio content directly by subscribing for free on Apple iTunes, YouTube, or Spotify.Representative Thomas Massie (R, KY-04) has been crucial to mustering GOP votes for the bipartisan bill to release the Epstein files. Photo credit: Philip Yabut/ShutterstockNews focus: The accelerating Jeffrey Epstein scandal* On November 12, the House Oversight Committee released a tranche of materials, among which were some 20,000 pages of emails that journalists and lookie-loos have been combing through. Committee Chair James Comer (R, TN-01) has accused Democrats of cherry-picking the documents to smear Donald Trump.* This week, a bill demanding that the Epstein files be released in full, after languishing for weeks, headed to Donald Trump’s desk. It passed the House with only 1 no vote, Clay Higgins (R, LA-03), and the Senate passed it officially on Wednesday. Trump freed Republicans to vote for it after months of stalling, and said he would sign the bill because he has nothing to hide: he did. But in fact, the bill contains loopholes to protect “ongoing investigations,” which means evidence will continue to be concealed from the public.* Some observers argue that Trump’s capitulation to the inevitable signals that he is losing his grip on his own party; journalist Michael Cohen believes that the vote to release the files is an inflection point for Trump and MAGA.* One stress point to watch is Kentucky GOP Congressman Thomas Massie’s 2026 re-election campaign. President Trump is backing a challenger, but Kentucky’s soon-to-be senior Republican Senator, Rand Paul, has vowed to help Massie—who is taking a victory lap today—win re-election.* Among the emails is a 2019 exchange between Epstein and Lawrence Summers, the former Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration, former President of Harvard, and now a distinguished University Professor in Harvard’s Economics Department. In the exchanges, Summers, who had been married since 2004, sought advice about his pursuit of a young female economist, Keyu Jin. Jin took her B.A. and Ph.D. in economics at Harvard, and was teaching at London School of Economics at the time (she is now with the China Finance 40 Forum, a think tank.) Jin is also Chinese, which is neither here nor there, except that Epstein and Summers nicknamed her “Peril.” Summers “stepped back” from a number of his commitments, as well as teaching and administrative roles at Harvard, and says he is “deeply ashamed.”* Nina Burleigh has identified a close relationship between Epstein and Trump whisperer Steve Bannon in the released documents. The emails also reveal that after their falling out, Epstein displayed open contempt for Trump, and at the same time, used his knowledge of the man to help other friends.* Miami Herald investigative reporter Julie K. Brown, who pushed Epstein back into the news in 2017, xeeted out a list of documents that have not (and may not) been released, investigative files held by multiple federal agencies, including the CIA, DOJ, FBI and Homeland Security.* Jennifer Weiner wrote a great column at The New York Times this week in which she argues that the Epstein scandal, in becoming a political wedge issue, has pushed the victims to the margins.What we want to go viral:* Neil wants you to read Ruth Graham’s terrific piece about young, White men flocking to one of the most conservative branches of the Catholic Church, “Orthodox Church Pews Are Overflowing With Converts,” (New York Times, November 19, 2025).* Claire wants you to pre-order Martha Ackmann’s new biography of an iconic country singer and a great American, Ain’t Nobody’s Fool: The Life and Times of Dolly Parton (St. Martin’s Press, 2025).Short takes:* Who’s got the money, honey? At The Bulwark, Andrew Egger unpacks Donald Trump’s newest phony international investment scheme. Trump’s murderous White House guest, Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman, supposedly agreed on camera to invest $1 billion in the United States. But guess what? MBS (the “BS” also stands for “bone saw”) made “monopoly-money promises,” Egger explains. “Saudi Arabia is a staggeringly wealthy country, but its entire GDP is something like $1.2 trillion. The country’s sovereign wealth fund contains an estimated $925 billion. The idea that MBS plans to sink the entirety of his nation’s accumulated petro-lucre into building factories in the United States is laughable on its face.” (November 20, 2025)* AI may be changing the political landscape—not only with deepfakes, but also by the way data farms drive up consumer energy bills. In Georgia, “An AI data center construction boom across the state has caused consumers’ electricity costs to surge, leading voters to elect Democrats to state-level office for the first time in two decades,” Theodore Johnson writes at The Washington Post. “Political research finds that voters generally support their preferred party’s policy choices on issues with little public attention,” Johnson notes, “but their partisan loyalty frays on issues that command lots of public attention when representatives take unpopular positions. In one study, two political scientists studied ratemaking in Arizona, which has elected members to its public utilities commission for more than a century.” (November 19, 2025)* When alleged sex trafficker and misogynist influencer Andrew Tate was arrested with his brother Tristan in Ft. Lauderdale earlier this year, it should have launched an investigation into the crimes they were accused of. Instead, when “the White House intervened on their behalf,” they were released, Robert Faturechi and Avi Asher-Schapiro report at ProPublica. According to Faturechi and Asher-Schapiro, “a White House official told senior Department of Homeland Security officials to return the devices to the brothers several days after they were seized. The official who delivered the message, Paul Ingrassia, is a lawyer who previously represented the Tate brothers before joining the White House, where he was working as its DHS liaison.” The Tates have also been charged in Romania, and in the U.K, where they are currently residing and hold dual citizenship. (November 18, 2025)Don’t miss new drops from Claire and Neil. You can subscribe for free or support us for only $5 a month. You can also become an annual supporter for $50/year and choose Neil’s Coming Out Republican or Claire’s Political Junkies: as a welcome bonus. Get full access to Political Junkie at clairepotter.substack.com/subscribe

We begin with an Oval Office presser on Tuesday, when a White House reporter asked Trump to respond to criticism from Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R, GA-14) for spending time on foreign policy during the government shutdown.One correction: you will hear Claire misstate the beginning of the Watergate affair as the summer of 1971: it was the summer of 1972.Marjorie Taylor Greene speaking with attendees at the 2021 AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona. Photo credit: Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia CommonsNews Summary:* A federal judge’s ruling that created a majority Democratic district in Utah highlights the successful fight against Trump’s arm-twisting to get the Congress he wants in 2026.* As the House returns after an almost two-month vacation to vote on new Senate legislation to reopen the government, Democrats debate whether the shutdown was worth it, whether eight of their number crossing the aisle to end the suffering was a capitulation or strategic, and whether Republicans can be trusted to open debate on restoring the ACA subsidies that make health insurance affordable for millions of Americans.* The reopening of the House also means that Republican Leader Mike Johnson will finally swore in Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva, allowing her to begin working a mere seven weeks after having been elected. She is the daughter of Raúl Grijalva, who represented Arizona’s 7th until his death earlier this year. Johnson insisted he was powerless to administer the oath until the House was back in session. * Coincidentally, Grijalva was the final signature on a bipartisan petition demanding the full release of the Epstein files, and Speaker Mike Johnson has scheduled a vote on that petition for next Wednesday. In advance of that, as of Wednesday, we have the release of about 20,000 pages of emails between Epstein that implicate a variety of people in his affairs, including Donald Trump and former Harvard President Larry Summers.* Speaking of the Epstein files: journalist Michael Wolff has slapped Melania Trump with a lawsuit, claiming that her threat to sue him for $1 billion is an attempt to stop his reporting on her own involvement with Epstein.Your hosts:Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller.Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024).On September 3, 2025, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R, GA-14) speaks to the media after a press conference with Epstein survivors. Photo credit: Philip Yabut/ShutterstockOur focus: What happened to Marjorie Taylor Greene?* Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia businesswoman, was elected to the House of Representatives from Georgia’s 14th district in 2020: here’s a biographical essay from 2021.* Greene took office in 2021 amid a slew of accurate charges that she spread conspiracy theories (some antisemitic), threatened Democratic colleagues, and was a conduit for Russian propaganda. In 2021, she was suspended from Twitter for spreading COVID misinformation, and was fined almost $50K for not wearing a mask on the House Floor. When she finally capitulated, she wore face coverings with messages on them. A self-identified Christian nationalist, Greene left the Catholic church because of the sexual abuse scandals, and she joined the evangelical Protestant Northpoint Community Church in Alpharetta, GA.* In her first term, Greene was disciplined by both a Democratic-led House and by fellow Republicans. In 2022, she and Lauren Boebert (R, CO-04) heckled Joe Biden and called him a liar at the State of the Union address.* Originally Lauren Boebert’s Bobbsey Twin, the two MAGA women had a nasty break-up. Greene’s tight relationship with then-Congressman Matt Gaetz (R, FL-01) did better: as his nomination for Attorney General was failing in 2024, Greene accused the GOP of overlooking other members with equally grave transgressions.* Some argue that MTG’s current attacks on fellow Republicans are a savvy money-raising technique that prey on MAGA conspiracists who are suspicious of all entrenched power.* After last week’s Blue Wave, Greene warned fellow MAGAs that their losses could be chalked up to a failure to make life affordable. “Business 101,” she said. “If you don’t deliver what you promise, then don’t expect return customers.”* Greene’s criticism of the GOP preceded the Blue Wave on election day 2025. On September 3, Greene was one of several Republicans to speak at a September press conference on the steps of the Capitol, surrounded by alleged victims of financier and alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, to demand the release of materials still withheld by the DOJ. She also promised that she would read “every damn name” into the Congressional record.* Greene also spoke out against the expiration of the ACA tax credits in early October, and in an appearance on The View this week, disavowed her long-term support for QAnon.* Greene says she has consistently been America First, but that increasingly Trump is not. “Restoring American’s ability to raise a family on one income, to me, should be a top priority,” Greene posted on X Tuesday. “It was once the norm in America.” This was a position originally promoted by Elizabeth Warren and her daughter Amelia Tyagi two decades ago in a book called The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Still Going Broke (2004).* The tech and design platform Fast Company is calling Greene’s evolution “the brand pivot of the year.” Some are speculating about a presidential run in 2028.Don’t miss new drops from Claire and Neil. You can subscribe for free or support us for only $5 a month. You can also become an annual supporter for $50/year and choose Neil’s Coming Out Republican or Claire’s Political Junkies: as a welcome bonus.You can also get all audio content by subscribing for free on Apple iTunes, YouTube, or Spotify.What we want to go viral:* Neil urges you to read an unfolding story about thrill-seeking in a war zone, Sarah Rainsford and Guy Delauney’s “Italy investigates claims of tourists paying to shoot civilians in Bosnia in 1990s,” (BBC, November 12. While the evidence is still hazy, the Italian government is looking into charges that “Italian citizens travelled to Bosnia-Herzegovina on ‘sniper safaris’ during the war in the early 1990s.” The problem is based on an investigation by Milan journalist Ezio Gavazzeni that wealthy people bought access from Serbian authorities to such trips: participants reportedly paid different rates for the “privilege” of shooting men, women, and children.* Claire is behind on her television watching as usual, but is currently in love with Hacks (2021- ), the Max series starring Hannah Einbinder as Ava Daniels, a struggling young comedy writer, and Jean Smart as a veteran stand-up comedienne at the end of her career. The series is beautifully plotted and written and has a lot to say about not just women and creativity, but about all of us making a commitment to learning from our generational differences.Short takes:* The Trump administration has begun to refer to the nation’s premier food assistance program, SNAP, as “broken” and in need of reform—a sure sign that benefits suspended during the shutdown may be threatened permanently,” Melody Schreiber writes at The New Republic. “During previous shutdowns, including the 2019 shutdown under the first Trump administration, SNAP continued operating as normal. The fact that the second administration refused to tap into the emergency fund this time—and brought the issue all the way up to the Supreme Court—is itself worrying to those who follow food assistance. (November 14, 2025)* Former FTC Chair Lina Kahn is bringing the trust-busting savvy she exercised in the Biden administration to New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s affordability agenda, Liz Hoffman reports at Semaphore. “People familiar with the transition, and her thinking, have an answer: Khan has been scouring city and state laws—some overlooked by past mayors and some too new to have been tested yet—for legal footing for Mamdani’s priorities,” Hoffman writes. “It’s a skill set the Yale-trained lawyer wielded while running the FTC, where she dusted off laws, some dating from the early 20th century, and sued companies under novel theories of harm.” (November 12, 2025)* As we have discussed on the podcast, gadfly Laura Loomer is no ordinary MAGA: in fact, she believes she may be Donald Trump’s spiritual twin, and she has periodically purged White House personnel by pillorying them to her 1 million followers on social media “Loomer’s influence extends beyond the realm of personnel,” Antonia Hitchens writes in a profile at The New Yorker. “In August, a group of Palestinian children who had been severely injured in the war in Gaza arrived in San Francisco after the State Department issued around two hundred temporary visas for medical treatment. Loomer posted a video of the children being received with flowers at the airport.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio called her that night, and suspended the program the following day. (November 10, 2025)Jean Smart shines as diva comedienne Deborah Vance in Hacks. Photograph courtesy of Max.Political Junkie is a reader-supported publication. Please consider supporting us by becoming a paying subscriber. Get full access to Political Junkie at clairepotter.substack.com/subscribe

We begin with a clip from New York City Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani’s victory speech in Brooklyn, New York, on November 4, 2025, one of five critical victories for Democrats that day.Representative Mikie Sherrill campaigning in Morristown, NJ, October 14, 2025. Photo credit: Ben Von Klemperer/ShutterstockNews Summary:* On Election Day, former Vice President Dick Cheney died in Northern Virginia at 84 from pneumonia, cardiac and vascular disease. The ultimate Washington insider, CNN characterized him as a “polarizing Washington power player” and The New York Times as “a singular figure: more powerful and less ambitious for higher office than any vice president in modern times.” The architect of the Bush Administration’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which may have laid the ground for the MAGA movement, he died a Republican in exile, having cast his last presidential vote for Kamala Harris.* On Wednesday, the government shutdown became the longest in history: the previous record was set in Donald Trump’s first term. On Election Day, Trump—now under court order to restore SNAP benefits that were suspended this week—said he would partially restore them but that didn’t seem to reassure voters. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has declined to suspend the filibuster to reopen the government. Twelve Senate Democrats have signaled they are ready to talk in exchange for a vote on restoring healthcare subsidies, but the Trump administration has decided to apply more pressure by reducing flights to 40 major airports. A poll released on Monday shows that 52% of voters hold the Republicans responsible for the shutdown; only 42% blame Democrats.* Also on Wednesday, SCOTUS heard arguments in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, a case filed by small businesses and states that challenges President Trump’s authority to impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The case is broadly understood as a test for the conservative majority as to whether they will support the authority of Congress, as well as the power of the judiciary over constitutional interpretation. Both conservative and liberal judges were skeptical about the Trump administration’s case, both in its specifics and in its potentially precedent setting power to allow presidents to veto legislation retroactively. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claims that if the tariffs are overturned, the government may have to return as much as $750 billion in revenue.Your hosts:Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller.Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024).On May 5, 2025, supporters of Representative Abigail Spanberger link their vote for governor to Donald Trump’s corruption. Photo credit: The Old Major/ShutterstockOur focus: Democrats ran the table on Tuesday night. Why? And what does it mean looking forward to 2026?* Democrats won four major contests last night, as well as a slew of minor races. While Republicans are making excuses, many Democrats saw the outcome as a combination of great campaigning, great candidates and buyer’s remorse. Trump blamed the shutdown; Fox News’s Brett Baier thinks that Trump’s policies are alienating voters. In other words, Trump wasn’t on the ballot—but he was on the ballot.* Turnout in some places was historic, and appears to have won back some Trump voters—particularly Latinos. In New York City, over 2 million people voted by mail or in-person, the most since Republican John Lindsey defeated Abe Beame in 1965.* New York City: it took less than 30 minutes to declare 34-year-old Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani mayor of New York: he will be the first Muslim mayor of the city, and defeated former governor Andrew Cuomo; Republican Curtis Sliwa’s voters left him in the dust. Here are the numbers; here is the road ahead. And breaking: former FTC Chair Lina Kahn is co-chairing the all-woman Mamdani transition team.* As expected, Abigail Spanberger will be the next governor of Virginia, and the first woman governor. Less predictably, Democrats ran the table, expanding representation in the House of Delegates, winning the Lieutenant Governor’s position (Ghazala Hashimi will be the first Muslim and first Indian American to win statewide office in Virginia); and Jay Jones, pilloried for sending texts that were at worst violent and at best in execrable taste, will be the next Attorney General.* Again, less predictably, Mikie Sherrill will be the next governor of New Jersey. In a race that was supposed to come down to the wire, she beat Jack Ciaterrelli by a blistering 13 points. Former Governor Jim McGreevey goes to a December 2 runoff with City Councilman James Solomon.* Pennsylvania voted by 23 points to retain three Democratic justices on the state Supreme Court, ensuring that the court will stay out of Republican hands through the 2028 general election.* Californians turned out in droves to approve the temporary Congressional redistricting proposed by Gavin Newsome to counter redistricting in Texas. In a surprise move, Kansas Republicans just turned back an effort to redistrict their state.* In Maine, voters rejected a shorter early voting period and a photo i.d. requirement, and approved a red-flag gun control law.* Colorado voters approved a tax on high earners to fund free meals for all public school students.* In Mississippi, Democrats have secured two more seats in the State Senate, ending a decade-long Republican supermajority.* Some of the factors that went into Democrats’ big night—and why we should be hopeful going into 2026.What we want to go viral:* Neil wants you to go to your phone and follow The Alabama Murders (Pushkin Studios, 2025), a riveting podcast hosted by Malcom Gladwell about the ripple effects of a murder and how it illuminates our national debate about the death penalty.* Claire wants you to think about David Gauvey Herbert, “She Was Ready to Have Her 15th Child. Then Came the Felony Charges,” (New York Times Magazine, November 2, 2025) about Mary Beth Lewis’ determination for more babies—into her 60s.Short takes:* You might want to watch what you eat: according to ProPublica’s Annie Waldman and Brandon Roberts, because of Trump cuts, safety inspections of food imported from abroad are at historic lows. “The stark reduction marks a dramatic shift in oversight at a time when the United States has never been more dependent on foreign food, which accounts for the vast majority of the nation’s seafood and more than half its fresh fruit,” Waldman and Roberts report. “The gutting of the workforce coincides with other actions the administration has taken that are poking holes in the nation’s food safety net. In March, the FDA announced it was delaying compliance with a rule to speed up the identification and removal of harmful products in the food system, to give more time for companies to follow the rules. The next month, it suspended a quality control program that ensured consistency and accuracy across its 170 pathogen and contaminant labs as a result of staffing cuts.” (November 6, 2025)* It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s—a government plane, to be exact, taking FBI Director Kash Patel to visit his girlfriend! “Facing criticism for taking a government jet to see his country-singer girlfriend perform at a wrestling match in Pennsylvania—then taking the jet to her home city of Nashville,” Will Sommer writes at The Bulwark, Patel “chose to fire a veteran FBI official in charge of the bureau’s planes,” presumably for not hiding the trips efficiently. “What’s fairly clear is that Patel has been using the jet for events that have no real overlap with the actual responsibilities of the FBI. It’s an issue that came up in a September Senate hearing. Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) showed blown-up pictures of Patel hobnobbing ringside with celebrities at UFC matches in Las Vegas and Miami, and chatting with hockey legend Wayne Gretzky at a New York hockey game—all trips Patel took on the government jet.” (November 6, 2025)* Here it is: Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA-14) “has confided to colleagues that she wants to run for president, according to four sources familiar with the matter, including one who has spoken with her directly about it,” Reese Gorman reports at NOTUS. “One source says her conversations have centered around her belief she is ‘real MAGA and that the others have strayed,”’ adding that she believes she has ‘the national donor network to win the primary.’” Greene has contested NOTUS’s reporting—but not denied it. (November 5, 2025)Don’t miss new drops from Claire and Neil. You can subscribe for free or support our work for democracy—only $5 a month! You can also become an annual supporter for $50/year and choose Neil’s Coming Out Republican or Claire’s Political Junkies as a welcome bonus.You can also get all audio content by subscribing for free on Apple iTunes, YouTube, or Spotify. Get full access to Political Junkie at clairepotter.substack.com/subscribe

Neil is off this week doing super-secret stuff: all will be revealed eventually. But today, I am delighted to offer an episode featuring former New York Times journalist Sam Tanenhaus. The author of two previous books on conservatism in the United States, including a biography of anti-Communist Whittaker Chambers, Sam joined me to talk about his new volume about a man who did more than almost anyone else to move the Republican Party to the right. So, join Sam and me in a conversation about Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America (Random House, 2025).President Ronald Reagan (right) with William F Buckley in The White House Residence during his private 75th birthday party, February 7, 1986. Image courtesy of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library/Wikimedia CommonsShow notes:* We begin with a famous, televised quarrel between William F. Buckley and novelist Gore Vidal at the 1968 Republican National Convention in Miami, in which Vidal called Buckley a “crypto-Nazi” and Buckley responded by calling Vidal a “queer” and threatening to hit him.* Sam mentions another podcast, Know Your Enemy, a show about the American right produced by Dissent.* Buckley’s archive at Yale, as Sam points out, is enormous: you can take a look at the finding aid here.* Oilman William F. Buckley, Sr.’s plan to raise his family in Mexico was thwarted by the success of the Mexican Revolution, which began in 1910 and ended in 1920.* Sam refers to Louis Menand’s review of Buckley (May 26, 2025).* Claire and Sam discuss The National Review, the conservative magazine of ideas that Buckley founded and ran for nearly 50 years, and which still exists in magazine and online formats.* Discussing the large number of gay men in Bill and Pat Buckley’s social and professional circles, Sam references Christopher Buckley’s memoir, Losing Mum and Pup (Twelve, 2009).* Claire and Sam discuss the 1965 debate between Buckley and Black writer James Baldwin at the Cambridge Union—Baldwin won the debate.* Listeners who want to learn more about extremism and the rise of the New Right may wish to read David Austin Walsh, Taking America Back: The Conservative Movement and the Far Right (Yale University Press, 2024).* Pat Buckley, a major figure in her own right, died in 2007: you can learn more about her here.* Sam brings up Midge Decter, a neoconservative intellectual and writer.Short takes:* Fifty years ago this week, William J. Brink of the New York Daily News wrote a headline for the ages. “Ford to City: Drop Dead” was an epic Bronx cheer in response to President Gerald Ford’s dithery response to the New York City budget crisis. The headline “had the benefit of truth-telling, at a time when truth was easier to discern and less open to argument,” Bill Brink, the headline writer’s son and a senior editor at The New York Times, writes. But it is also emblematic of a certain moment in journalism that Brink, Sr. was eminently suited to. “For Nixon’s famous visit to China, he decided to have a calligrapher draw Chinese characters for a front-page message to Nixon. But as deadline approached, my father panicked over the accuracy of the characters. He went around to Chinese restaurants to show the page to workers, and he wasn’t satisfied until three of them verified that the message was correct.” (October 30, 2025)* They had to find that $150 million for Bari Weiss somewhere, right? No, seriously, Paramount need $2 billion, which means cutting 1,000 jobs—at least. “As part of the cuts, the network has closed its Johannesburg bureau and is cancelling its CBS Mornings Plus and CBS Evening News Plus streaming shows,” Jeremy Barr reports at The Guardian. “The network’s Saturday-morning program will undergo a format change, according to a source with knowledge of the changes who was not authorized to comment.” And of course: “The network’s race and culture unit was gutted.” (October 29, 2025)* Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against Kenvue, the maker of Tylenol, on the specious grounds (recently publicized by President Donald Trump and contradicted by his own FDA) that the pain reliever causes autism. “Paxton, a candidate for US Senate and a major supporter of Donald Trump, has spent much of his time as attorney general focused on pregnancy—more specifically, forcing women to stay pregnant against their will,” Bess Levin writes at Vanity Fair. “He has supported extreme abortion bans, made June 24 (the day Roe v. Wade was overturned) an annual holiday for the attorney general’s office, and sued the Biden administration after it said hospitals must perform life-saving abortions even in states that ban the practice.” At the same time, Paxton’s wife is divorcing him on, as she put it, “Biblical grounds,” which we presume means that he violated one of the Ten Commandments—maybe the one about the ox and the ass? (October 29, 2025)Political Junkie is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider converting your free subscription to paid! Get full access to Political Junkie at clairepotter.substack.com/subscribe

We begin with this clip from a March 28, 2025 press conference, in which President Donald Trump answers the timeless question: “What is a woman?”Photo credit: NeydtStock/Shutterstock.comIn the news:* Election day is on November 4, less than a month away, and a race everyone is watching is in New Jersey: Democrat Mikie Sherrill leads Jack Ciattarelli by between 3 and 8 points if you knock out a few outlier polls. It’s a litmus test for 2026, since by party registration, New Jersey is starting to look a little swingy, since new GOP voter registrations are rising faster than new Democratic registrations. It’s an ugly campaign. Ciatterelli accused Sherrill of being part of a cheating scandal during her time at the United States Naval Academy, based on documents leaked by Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon. The Sherrill campaign counterattacked by linking a medical publisher Ciattarelli owned to the opioid epidemic. But what could push Sherrill over the top is Donald Trump’s toxic approval rating in the Garden State: 37%.* On Tuesday, Politico reported that leaders of Young Republicans chapters across the country routinely use racial, homophobic, and antisemitic slurs on their Telegram channel. In these exchanges, these young men spoke of torturing, bombing, gassing, and burning their opponents; joked about rape; and chatted about their admiration for Nazis (mostly the old-school German ones.) Despite widespread disgust at the chat’s content, Vice President JD Vance has downplayed criticism of these men, some of whom are employed by elected politicians, as “pearl-clutching.” * As we expected, Maine Governor Janet Mills has jumped into that state’s Democratic primary for the honor of facing 73-year-old Republican Senator Susan Collins in 2026. Mills will face oysterman and former marine Graham Platner and progressive Jordan Wood. Platner has positioned himself as the populist candidate, Platner the businessman, and Mills will be the proven winner with statewide name recognition who has already distinguished herself by standing up to the Trump administration. But Mills is 77, and would be almost 80 when sworn in. Political scientist Amy Fried, who believes a contested primary will benefit a Democratic candidacy, breaks down the primary here.* In yet another bizarre piece of medical advice, Secretary of Heath and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has linked male circumcision to autism. Asserting that babies are given Tylenol after the procedure, he claims that circumcised boys have twice the rate of autism as uncircumcised boys (about 80% of American people with penises are circumcised.) Kennedy is relying on two, small outlier studies: larger studies have revealed no link between circumcision and autism. But the announcement has elevated another fringe group, so-called “intactivists,” who believe that the procedure, usually done shortly after birth, is a form of psychological and physical abuse that is detrimental to a full male sexual experience.Your hosts:Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller.Neil J. Young,is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, a mentor at the OpEd Project, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024).Our Focus: the women of MAGA* President Donald Trump has appointed women to a third of his Cabinet positions: that is more than any other president. These appointments include Kelly Loeffler, Administrator of the Small Business Administration; Attorney General Pam Bondi; Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard; Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins; Secretary of Education Linda McMahon; Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem; Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer. * One of Trump’s most trusted personal attorneys was Alina Habba; he recently installed her as U.S Attorney for New Jersey—something that has turned out to be a problem, as at least one judge asserts she was appointed illegally.* But there are many more women in key positions in the Trump administration. They include 26-year-old Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, the youngest person to fill that role, and Trump can’t seem to stop talking about how pretty she is. In a recent gaggle on Air Force One, he commented: “That face... and those lips, they move like a machine gun.”* It’s probably no accident that the highest-ranking Black official in the Trump administration is also a woman, and that she is also Director of Minority Outreach. Lynn Patton, who grew up in New Haven, CT, was unable to begin her job until May because of sanctions imposed for violating the Hatch Act (twice) when she worked at the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the first Trump Presidency.* In his first term, Trump had a lot to say about how he liked women to look, which may account for the remarkably uniform appearance of many of the women in his administration.* First Lady Melania Trump is almost exclusively discussed in relation to her fashion choices and physical appearance.* Trump has a long association with beauty pageants.From 1996 to 2015, he owned the Miss Universe Organization (which includes Miss USA and Miss Teen USA), which is said to be racier, and does not offer a path to education, which the Miss America brand does.* Perhaps not surprisingly, there are a large number of successful beauty pageant contestants in Trump’s circle. But what else about pageant contestants makes them good candidates for a Trump White House?* One Trump woman who is not a glamour puss is White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, a veteran of Florida state politics and the director of Trump’s 2024 campaign. She is also the first woman to serve in that role.* Another c0ontrasting look is Laura Loomer. Trump is said to value women who fight, hence his allegiance to the 32-year-old social media influencer. Journalist Nina Burleigh recently dubbed Loomer “the Madame DeFarge of the right.” But some around Trump see the forms of intimidation Loomer engages in, and her claims to intimacy with him, as vulnerabilities, and aides actively work to keep her away from the President.* The women surrounding Trump represent a larger emphasis for conservatives: a rejection of feminism’s gains in favor of returning women to home and family. And yet, there is a contradiction, since obviously the women around Trump work and have careers.What we want to go viral:* Neil wants you to read Annie K. Lamar’s “Inadequate recordkeeping is not just a bureaucratic failure” (Capitol Weekly, October 16, 2025), which details ICE’s destruction of documentation, what seems to be a calculated process that allows the federal government to simply make immigrants disappear. Somewhere around 400 human beings vanished from a facility built in the Florida Everglades before it was shut down by the courts. The destruction of records also makes it impossible for detainees to appeal their incarceration and deportation or show that they have been wrongly arrested.* Claire pushes back against the mainstream TV critics and urges you to watch “Boots,” a Netflix series based on Greg Cope White’s memoir The Pink Marine (Aboutface Books, 2015.) Although the show is set in the 1990s, Cope’s original book is about a gay teen who joins the Marines in 1979, when it was still illegal to be homosexual in the armed services. “Boots” (slang for freshly-minted Marines) was Norman Lear’s last creative project before he died in 2023. While it has received mixed reviews, particularly criticisms that it glorifies the military, it is wildly entertaining—and an excellent preview of the antediluvian military to which Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth want to return us.Short takes:* At The Nation, Elie Mystal predicts that SCOTUS will undo Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which “prevents white people from overrepresenting themselves in Congress.” Black voting will not cease to exist, as it did all over the South after between 1877 and 1965, but the capacity of Black voters to act together will be diluted in many places. “Oral arguments can sometimes sound like the justices are deliberating great and technical points of law, but the outcome in this case was decided long before the lawyers arrived at the courthouse,” Mystal writes about Louisiana v. Callais, which was heard on Thursday. “Oral arguments were largely an exercise of the Republicans justifying their racist positions.” (October 16, 2025)* Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has distributed a video to be shown in airports, explaining to passengers that if their flights are delayed or canceled, it is the Democrats’ fault. But more than a dozen “airports said that the video was overly partisan,” Christine Chung reports at The New York Times. “While some airports cited internal or municipal policies that barred politically partisan messaging for preventing them from showing the video, others pointed to state and federal law. Kara Hansen, a spokeswoman for the Port of Portland in Oregon, said in a statement that the video violated the Hatch Act, a 1939 law intended to maintain a nonpartisan federal work force and to limit the political activities of federal employees.” (October 14, 2025)* In The Prospect, Jo-Ann Mort tells you everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask about White House Deputy Chief of Staff and hate monger Stephen Miller. “Miller is one of a handful of hardcore ideologues who have served in both Trump White Houses. He will likely be remembered in history for his current project, turning the streets of America into war zones so that he can meet his professed goal of arresting 3,

Due to a corrupted video file, our original file cut out after the 56 minute mark, and I couldn’t fix it. I have taken it down and you can now listen to the episode as an audio file.Our episode begins with White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller’s Christian nationalist eulogy for Turning Point USA CEO Charlie Kirk on September 21, 2025, at State Farm Stadium in Glendale Arizona. Our title is taken from Buffalo Springfield’s iconic 1967 song about political conflict, “For What It’s Worth.”LAPD officers reloading tear gas launchers during a demonstration in downtown Los Angeles against expanded ICE operations on June 8, 2025.You can also get all audio content by subscribing for free on Apple iTunes, YouTube, or Spotify. And if you have a friend who would enjoy this episode, please:In the news:* On Tuesday, Pam Bondi testified for almost five hours before the Senate Judiciary Committee. But instead of answering questions, she met every inquiry from Democrats with a petulant attack, refusal or conspiracy theory. With a few exceptions, Republicans acted like everything was normal. Here is the full hearing.* In a break with her party, Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R, GA-14) is demanding an extension of Obamacare subsidies—even as she insists that she dislikes the program. Why? Insurance premiums will double for her kids and constituents. Although MTG voted to cut the subsidies, unlike other Republicans, she is now telling the truth about what a disaster the cuts will be for all Americans. Is Trump may be listening to her?* Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard a case challenging Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy. The plaintiff is a Christian therapist who argues that her free speech is impinged on by not being able to help young people change their sexual or gender orientation. A summary of the research on conversion therapy by Cornell University’s Public Policy Portal found that out of 47 studies, 1 showed positive results—and those were examples of faith healing. The Trevor Project characterizes CT is “dangerous and discredited,” and that damage to clients costs the U.S. economy $9.3 billion a year in related medical bills. UCLA’s Williams Institute estimates that LGBQ people (trans people were not part of the study) who have undergone CT are twice as likely to try to end their lives as people who have not.* Rutgers history professor Mark Bray and his family were boarding when airline officials stopped them at the gate, saying their ticket had been canceled. Bray, an expert on antifascist movements, has been targeted by Turning Point USA as a violent extremist, defamation amplified by influencers like Jack Posobiec, Andy Ngo, and Milo Yiannopoulos. As a result, Bray has faced a barrage of death threats. Bray was also targeted at Dartmouth in 2017 when he spoke out against the Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville; as of last night, has successfully departed for Spain.New paying subscribers can receive a free copy of this book as a welcome gift.Your hosts:Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller.Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024).Our focus: Donald Trump’s war on American cities.* Here’s a timeline of the troops deployments that began in June with Washington D.C.* The United States has a bad history of deploying the National Guard against peaceful protesters. On May 4, 1970, four White students were killed during an anti-war protest at Ohio’s Kent State University. Less than two weeks later, two students were killed and eight wounded when White police officers fired into a crowd of students at Mississippi’s historically Black Jackson State University.* Trump is claiming his authority for these deployments under the 1807 Insurrection Act, modified in 1861 and 1871 to allow a President to deploy state troops against the will of the governors who command them.* But there are obvious Constitutional restraints on the President too. Article I, Section 8 gives Congress broad powers over the military and militias. Another is the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act: Neil and Claire explain why that is a significant landmark.* In the District of Columbia, Mayor Muriel Bowser—whose city is legally governed by Congress—has tried to work with Trump, even as citizen protesters monitored, and in some cases resisted, troops whose arrests are 40% immigration related. Meanwhile, many of the 2300 troops put on the streets found themselves doing landscaping tasks, while homeless people rousted by soldiers are mostly living hours outside the city, still in tents.* In early June, 2,000 National Guard were federalized and sent to Los Angeles.* The Trump administration has not yet deployed National Guard in Memphis, but has deputized over 200 local officers there.* The reason to militarize cities seems to go beyond immigration. In a recent harangue of top military officers, Trump referred to American cities as a “training ground” for troops; in fact, the military is prohibited from enforcing local laws, and is not trained in policing or immigration enforcement.* California Governor Gavin Newsome filed suit, and just this week received a temporary restraining order, upheld by the appeals court It will also apply to Oregon, where Trump is trying to deploy troops to Portland, scene of some of the most spectacular Black Lives Matter protests. The author of the original ruling is Judge Karen Immergut, who was appointed to the District of Oregon by Trump in 2019.* On September 8, ICE launched Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago, a targeted surge of agents to a city that is about 30% Latino; of those residents, about 74% are of Mexican heritage, or 1 in 5 residents of Chicagoland. President Trump has called for Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson to be jailed for opposing his deployment of troops to Chicago. Pritzker to Trump? “Come and get me.” Pritzker has also twice said that the President is in the grip of dementia.* Two pastors peacefully protesting outside a Chicago ICE facility have filed a First Amendment case against the Trump administration: one, Presbyterian minister David Black was shot in the head with a pepper ball while praying.What we want to go viral:* Neil is excited about Rebekah Peeples, Unchanged Trebles: What Boy Choirs Teach Us About Motherhood and Masculinity (Rutgers University Press, 2025), about the community culture of boys’ choirs, and what one mom learned about her son’s transition to manhood. * Claire wants you to think about Sam Terblanche, a Columbia University student who twice sought treatment in an Upper West Side Mt. Sinai Hospital ER, was sent home, and then died in his dorm room. Lisa Miller’s deeply reported story, “Just a Virus, the ER Told Him. Days Later, He Was Dead,” is a story about a fraying urban medical system, and the use of emergency rooms for routine care.Short takes:* In a blast from the past, the authors of the Declaration of Independence ended their list of grievances by charging the King of England with inciting Native American violence against them. “In this so-called Age of Reason, Native Americans were charged with having none at all,” historian Ned Blackhawk writes in The Atlantic. “They were not only lawless but also irrational, incapable of self-governance, and lacking moral capacity.” The so-called Founders knew differently, but it was a legalistic move to establish “unchallenged dominion” over North America. “To achieve this, they needed to erase the legitimacy of Native governance and justify violent dispossession. It was precisely because Native societies mirrored some of the colonists’ own ideals (autonomy, law, liberty) that they had to be cast as savages.”(October 9, 2025)* Surprise! A class action lawsuit contends that Amazon Prime Day is fraudulent. Judd Legum at Popular Information contends the “deals” are fake. “For example, on July 8, the Ninja Air Fryer Pro XL was on sale for $119.99, which Amazon said is a 33% discount off the list price of $179.99,” Legum writes. “But the online tool Camel Camel Camel revealed that the air fryer had never been listed at $179.99 until just before Prime Day, and had been available for $119.99 or less every month since last November. The air fryer was available for $119.99 at Macy’s, Best Buy, Kohl’s, and Wayfair.” Oops. “Although the actual savings to consumers may be minimal, Prime Days have proven extremely successful in generating billions of additional sales for Amazon. This creates pressure on Amazon’s labor force, which already works at a breakneck pace, to push even faster.” (October 9, 2025)* The Bulwark’s Will Owen asks: Why does Megyn Kelly seem afraid of Candace Owen, who has been pushing antisemitic conspiracy theories about Charlie Kirk’s assassination? “Many Kirk friends and confidants have pushed back hard on Owens, calling much of what she’s saying batshit crazy,” Sommer writes. His answer? “Kelly, a right-wing media survivor of the first order, recognizes that all the energy these days is flowing toward younger, more antisemitic and conspiratorial influencers—people like Owens, Nick Fuentes, and Ian Carroll. And while she might not join them, she is at least not going to allow herself to be run over by them.” (October 9, 2025)Don’t miss new drops from Claire and Neil. You can subscribe for free or support us for only $5 a month. You can also become an annual supporter for $50/year and choose Neil’s Coming Out Republican or Claire’s Politica

We begin with words from Jeffrey Schaub, the Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Grand Blanc Ward.The Angel Moroni atop the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints temple in Monticello, Utah. Photo credit: Kara Laws/ShutterstockNews roundup:* We begin with the government shutdown that began on Wednesday at 12:01 a.m. Although the House majority was able to pass the continuing resolution without Democratic votes, but Senate Republicans are four votes short of a super-majority. They picked up three centrist Democrats but lost Republican, budget-hawk Rand Paul of Kentucky. In a sign that the government is battered and leaderless, the shutdown plan was radically incomplete. Some workers did not know whether they were furloughed, fired, or should report to work. It is unclear what Trump will do next: he met on Director of OMB Russell Vought met Thursday to discuss firing thousands of federal workers. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) told Fox News that Vought has been “waiting for this moment since puberty,” but some government officials are warning the White House to back off.* On Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and President Donald J. Trump summoned hundreds of top military officers to Marine Base Quantico in Virginia to lecture them about their appearance. In a particularly disturbing Trump announced expanded plans to station federal troops in American cities, a training exercise to fight the “war from within.” Hegseth leaned in on abandoning legal and moral restraints to the “warrior ethos,” and is particularly concerning, given a recent report about the lawlessness of special forces troops.* Primate scientist Jane Goodall has died at 91. In her twenties, Goodall began working among chimpanzees in Gombe National Park, Tanzania, a project run by paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey. She earned a Ph.D. from Cambridge University, and became a leading advocate for land conservation and the ethical treatment of wildlife.Your hosts:Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller.Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024).Our news focus:* On Sunday, 40-year-old former Marine Thomas Jacob Sanford rammed his truck into the Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints chapel in Grand Blanc, MI, set it on fire, and began shooting at the congregants as they tried to escape. Four are dead, and eight still critically injured, and Sanford was killed in a shootout with police. Investigators have not discerned a motive, but Sanford appears to have been a Trump supporter. Some friends say that he believed that Mormons were the `Antichrist,’” others say that he had struggled with drug abuse and financial problems, and had been behaving erratically.* This came the day after Russell M. Nelson, a physician and reform-minded President of the Church died at the age of 101.* Sanford was the second former Marine to be charged with a mass shooting this week. The day before, Nigel Edge fired into a waterfront bar in Southport, North Carolina,, killing three and wounding eight.* As neighbors moved to comfort each other and collect money for the injured, one LDS member based in Utah has set up a GoFundMe for Sanford’s family that has collected over $200,000.* Although homicides at houses of worship are rare, so far this year there have been six targeted religious attacks, three attacks on places of worship or religious schools. There have been 16 such attacks since Donald Trump first became President in 2017. By comparison, there were only 25 between 2000 and 2017, only 5 in the 1990s, and 2 in the 1980s. In two-thirds of these cases, the perpetrator appeared to have no connection to the church.* Only three targeted attacks have been against LDS Churches. However, there is a long history of violence against the Church since its founding in upstate New York in 1830. A recent poll showed that 39% of Americans hold unfavorable views of the LDS Church, and much of that animus comes from other Christians.* How is such violence linked to our political divisions, if at all? A New York Times/Siena Poll this week reveals that only 33% of the American public believes that the nation can overcome its political divisions; 52% of Democrats and 40% of independents said they no longer lived in a Democratic country. And in a new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll, 30% of Americans now believe that violence may be necessary to get the country “back on track,” up 11 points since April 2024, and an increase largely driven by Democrats.What we want to go viral:* Neil wants you to read historian Nicole Hemmer’s long history of the “woke Right.” Today’s conservative speech warriors “did not learn cancel culture from the left,” Hemmer argues; “the modern right in America emerged as a censorious movement. It took decades for its free-speech faction to develop, and even then, it has only ever been a minority part of the coalition.” (New York Times, September 30, 2025)* Speaking of the woke Right—Claire is immersed in Sam Tannenhaus’s Buckley: The Life and Revolution That Changed America (Random House, 2025), a biography that reveals Donald Trump’s America as McCarthyism’s vengeful return.Short takes:* Secretary of HSS Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s false claim that pediatricians profit from childhood vaccines covers up an ugly reality for this ill-paid subspecialty. “Health-care providers purchase roughly half of the vaccines given to children in the United States directly from manufacturers, sometimes paying hundreds of dollars per dose,” Katherine J. Wu writes at The Atlantic. “They don’t recoup any costs until they administer those vaccines to privately insured patients, and bill the companies.” Doctor’s offices “must then shoulder the costs of storage and administration: specialized refrigerators, alarms to monitor for temperature issues, highly trained staff,” Wu writes. “Insurers generally reimburse for some of those costs, but not for unexpected problems—a refrigerator failure, a dropped vial, a dose drawn into a syringe and then declined by a patient’s family. Lose just one vaccine, and providers may have to administer dozens more to break even.” (October 3, 2025)* At The Amsterdam News, Carl E. Douglas reflects on the 30th anniversary of O.J. Simpson’s acquittal in the criminal case brought against him in the murder of his wife, Nicole Brown. “Back then, as contentious and polarizing as the Simpson case was, our nation’s leadership set a tone of restraint and respect,” Douglas recalls. “President Bill Clinton, who almost certainly disagreed with the jury’s decision, did not attack the jurors, question their intelligence, or undermine their legitimacy. He did not label the verdict a miscarriage of justice. He respected the process, and in doing so, set an example for the country.” Three decades later, it’s hard to imagine that same scenario. “The Simpson verdict tested America’s nerves and America passed that test,” Douglas writes. “Today, I’m not sure we would.” (October 2, 2025)* Katha Pollitt isn’t surprised that the Trump administration is blaming women who take Tylenol while pregnant for autism, a link that is wholly and completely unproven. “There is virtually no aspect of women’s lives that the culture does not manage to infuse with doubt and fear and guilt,” Pollitt writes at The Nation. “And that goes double for motherhood. Just ask any middle-class woman who doesn’t breastfeed her baby. It doesn’t matter if she knows intellectually that the baby will be fine, the way boomer babies like me were fine on formula; she’ll still feel selfish if she chooses not to breastfeed, and like a failure if she can’t. As a mom she is supposed to do everything humanly possible and then some to produce a perfect child.” (September 30, 2025)You can subscribe for free or support us for only $5 a month. You can also become an annual supporter for $50/year and choose Neil’s Coming Out Republican or Claire’s Political Junkies: as a welcome bonus.You can also get all audio content by subscribing for free on Apple iTunes, YouTube, or Spotify. Get full access to Political Junkie at clairepotter.substack.com/subscribe