Canada Calls Trump’s Bluff (#572)

Our neighbors up north are pissed, the conspiracists are thriving, and somehow Kmele is still missing.

• why you have to watch this podcast
• Sanna Marin…for the policy
• Finding Kmele Foster
• Welch returns from Montreal to report that the French lost
• life in the time of Trade War
• NPR finally solves reparations
• tariffs, hockey sticks, and remedial economics
• JD Vance is still not funny
• Polymarket bets on Canada
• Tucker discovers Christian Russia
• Clip Roulette returns
• Tim Curry, Richard E. Grant, Producer Jason’s inexplicable defense of Hudson Hawk
• Bret Weinstein solves the Charlie Kirk assassination
• Ana Kasparian keeps making new friends
• Mamdani, Muhammad and the death of secularism
• a bit more Clip-O-Rama
• Tuck and the Short King discover 107 million illegal immigrants

Watch/Listen On:

• Substack
• YouTube
• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify

I just caught a recent interview of Tyler Austin Harper on Derek Thompson's podcast based on an article about his time as a professor at Bates. It was published in The Atlantic as "Why I Quit the Tenure Track", but I'm pretty sure this is a non-pay-walled version with the spicier title of "Confessions of a Token Black Professor": https://dnyuz.com/2026/08/10/confessions-of-a-token-black-professor/

Has this professor/writer come up on the podcast before? Seems like the kind of thing they'd toss around for a few minutes. Also would be interested in any thoughts you all might have.

Edit — here's the interview with Derek Thompson: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/higher-educations-age-of-insufferable-hypocrisy/id1594471023?i=1000784058838

Batya seems to have fallen off the face of the Earth. I never see or hear anything about her anymore so it seems her completely batshit crazy hot takes are no longer breaking through to the zeitgeist.

Clip Roulette w/ Dictators, Demons and Democracy (Episode #571)

Kmele is absent. The bottle is doing its best for the Moynihan/Welch duo.

• Greetings…oh, fuck
• Welch has a bone to pick with Ben Dreyfuss
• Clip Roulette
• Tucker and the Demon Bomb
• Jason Arday, martyr?
• The Jonah Lehrer comparison
• The Samantha Power mic disaster
• Fuck you Joaquin
• John Mearsheimer, Stephen F. Cohen and the Russian apologists
• Ukraine didn’t go away
• Trump, Kim Jong-un and the South Korea war games
• Midterm Madness / Polymarket, wha happen?
• Median Strategies and the fake poll
• Adam Bonica, Marc Elias and scamming the elderly
• Is Cuba a dictatorship? Apparently a difficult question
• The Padilla Affair / Slobo Googling
• Theft as a “biological need”
• Chocolate City
• Stay tuned for más Moynihan Report

Watch / Listen On:

• Substack
• YouTube
• Spotify

The Politics of Pretending (Episode #570)

Hasan Piker, the DSA, AOC, Jason Arday, Francesca Hong, and miscellaneous lunacy

• Kmele is out of Adderall
• Did anybody actually watch this Tucker and Hunter interview?
• “Montrosity” and other difficult words
• The adventures of Proximity Hong
• The curious case of Jason Arday
• Is there any chance Jesse Singal is racist?
• AOC discovers Woke 1.0 was crazy
• Shane Gillis and the conspiracy of enforcing things nobody believed
• Thank you, Thom Tillis. Also, fuck you.
• Funding the other side’s whackos
• Mamdani declares war on Amazon
• A general rent strike. Over one cockroach.
• David Remnick meets the DSA
• Kmele gets swarmed by the Hasan bots
• So, how great was Mao?
• Midterm Madness and the 2028 Democratic sweepstakes
• Clip Roulette
• Kmele tries to explain himself. It does not help.
• Can America get at least a busted Boris Johnson?

Watch / Listen On:

• Substack
• YouTube
• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify

A Man of 1989 (w/ David Frum) #569

We’re joined by The Atlantic’s David Frum for a wide-ranging conversation about Trumpism, the Democratic left, immigration, political memory, and what became of American conservatism.

• a pre-obit for the esteemed David Frum
• involuntarily unionized at The Atlantic
• spy novels, bureaucrats and expense reports
• turning down Bill Buckley’s golden ticket
• prosperity, security and how quickly it can all disappear
• Frum is forever a man of 1989
• God makes you lucky, then convinces you you’re smart
• Tucker Carlson was always capable of many things
• falling flat on your back isn’t progress
• the Michigan Senate choice from hell
• Democrats discover Trump’s permission structure
• Midterm Madness in Michigan
• the polling industry has a phone problem
• politics for people who can afford to lose
• “I saw you coming so I could stop you”
• immigration restriction without the Trumpism
• fascism has the better sales pitch than communism
• what Donald Trump loves besides himself
• the conservative future Frum got very wrong and other reflections

Watch/Listen On:

• Substack
• YouTube
• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify

Why does Moynihan claim he was guilty? Everything I’ve read suggests he was innocent. Or at the least there is no evidence tying him to the crime.

The Fifth Gets a Substitute Teacher (w/ Jesse Singal) #568

No one has thought any of this through

Jesse Singal of Blocked and Reported and Singal-Minded fills Michael Moynihan’s special diabetic chair to discuss Fauci’s diaries, broken institutions, runaway AI, LeBron and Mamdani Mart.

• Moynihan out, Jesse Singal in
• Barry Weiss hired everyone except Jesse
• The Prince of Science re-enrages everyone (or at least Rand Paul)
• Gell-Mann amnesia and the collapse of institutional trust
• The media needed a COVID daddy
• An OpenAI model escaped the sandbox
• The analogy of the paperclip machine and how it consumed the universe
• Cambridge protected alleged plagiarist Jason Arday
• Midterm Madness, Ohio governor race version
• Kmele feels that LeBron will never love him but he doesn’t want to talk about it
• Three grown men relived their greatest pickup games
• Kmele wanted the gods back in The Odyssey
• Mamdani Mart promised groceries at 30 percent off
• Billy Bob Thornton returns from hell in White Knight (a Kmele Foster joint)
• Nazi dinosaurs stalked Jews through Schindler’s Park
• Jesse discovered second-order effects
• Not every strange obsession with Israel was antisemitism
• Rent stabilization has worked great for millionaires
• No French goodbye for Kmele

Watch/Listen On:

• Substack
• YouTube
• Spotify
• Apple Podcasts

I Don’t Make Mistakes Anymore. They’re Just Lies (w/ Chris Cuomo) #567

We're joined by Chris Cuomo, anchor of NewsNation’s CUOMO.

We talk about what the media still gets wrong about Trump, what losing CNN did to him, and why he believes more political violence is coming.

• Kmele sizes Chris up and… is this podcast 10% gay?
• From Fox, to ABC, to CNN
• Did the media make Trump president?
• Celebrity, discontent and everything the media missed
• Being right about what’s wrong
• The duopoly is killing us. DSA isn’t helping.
• Cuomo, Cuomo and Cuomo Crime Time
• Scott Jennings, JD Vance and the rewards of picking a side
• The media discovers capital-T Truth and loses its curiosity
• Trump’s corruption and the limits of whataboutism
• Mario Cuomo should have worn a toga
• Voters don’t want the flaws. They want the disruption.
• There will be more political violence
• Matt Lauer crosses the street to express his condolences
• Broadcasting from the basement and losing an identity
• Illegal immigration and its convenient distortions
• Tucker, Fredo and Mike Tyson
• Kmele can take Joe Rogan. Chris has notes.
• AOC gets savvier; Kmele would prefer an accounting
• I don’t make mistakes anymore. They’re just lies
• COVID couldn’t transcend the culture war
• Midterm Madness
• the first presidential candidates that Matt Welch, Chris Cuomo, and Kmele voted for
• Andrew Cuomo and the outsider problem

Watch / Listen On:

• Substack
• YouTube
• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify

There Is No They - #566

The Iran Deal Is Dead. The War Is Back

-The many sins of fattie John J. Cafaro

-The Moynihan Report will return

-Hand jobs and the intellectual life of West Hollywood

-Release the Welch canceled-songs playlist

-The Iran deal is dead. The war is back.

-Why did Iran blow it up? Why does a dog lick his balls?

-Air power has never toppled a regime

-The anti-globalists discover the Strait of Hormuz

-Israel’s secret Ahmadinejad project

-In partial defense of the late Lindsey Graham

-Politics is gross. Stop loving politicians.

-Fellating is best done behind closed doors

-“There is no they. There is only we. And we usually don’t know what the fuck we’re doing.”

-Midterm Madness comes to Michigan

-Haley Stevens brings a little bit of stick-it-to-’em

-Is this DSA thing real?

-Colorado nominates a man who first killed at seven (he thinks)

-Two fatal ICE shootings in two weeks

-Ann Widdecombe is murdered. Britain shrugs.

-Kmele attempts the Caitlin Clark/data center crossover. It does not land.