A Republic, If You Can Keep It

This week in our crazy, insane Trump-infested world —

A major part of this week’s discussion: Jeff’s insider’s look at the strategy and tactics of The Lincoln Project.

Joining the conversation: Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter David Cay Johnston. He is the bestselling author of The Making of Donald Trump and It’s Even Worse Than You Think. David has lectured on economics, journalism, and tax policy on every continent except Antarctica and is a former president of Investigative Reporters & Editors. Johnston has been a frequent guest on MSNBC, CNN, the BBC, ABC World News Tonight, Democracy Now!, and NPR’s Morning Edition (among other shows), and was a consultant for the Netflix series House of Cards.

Currently both a national columnist at professor of practice at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Johnston began his career at the San Jose Mercury News from 1968 to 1973, when he moved to Lansing to continue his education at Michigan State. While there, he wrote an internal textbook (A Guide to Public Records) for the university’s journalism department. From 1973 to 1976, he was an investigative reporter at the Detroit Free Press in its Lansing bureau. One of his investigative reports resulted in the Lansing CBS affiliate’s owner being forced by the FCC to sell the station because of news manipulation. He is an expert on the financial crimes and scams of Donald Trump.

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This episode is sponsored in part by EPIC ▪ MRA,

When he’s not venting about his debate debacle or doubling down on cats-and-dogs recipes, Donald Trump is offering empty promises of tax cuts for the masses: no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, no tax on overtime and even overturning a law he signed which gutted tax deductions for wealthier residents of high-tax states. He’s running scared as the polls consistently show him slowly slipping nationally, and especially in swing states.

Also on our screen this week:

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This episode is sponsored in part by EPIC ▪ MRA,

It was a good great week for the Harris/Walz campaign:

Tuesday night was a Wipe Out for Donald Trump – a one-on-one confrontation just as one-sided as the earlier debate that ended Joe Biden’s reelection bid. Days earlier they picked up the endorsements of arch conservative GOP icons Liz and Dick Cheney, followed by support from George W. Bush’s Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez; inflation is down to a three-year low, with gas prices plunging and the Fed poised to lower interest rates; renowned childless cat owner Taylor Swift posted her endorsement of the ticket for her 284-million Instagram followers; and the latest polls show Harris’s lead over Trump nationally edging upward.

And the Trump/Vance campaign became a national laughing stock with its claims of Haitians in Springfield Ohio kidnapping and eating pet dogs, cats and ducks. Even Ohio Governor Mike DeWine called out the campaign for spreading a baseless lie. The Trump campaign doubled down, wrongly claiming the Ohio Haitians are in the country illegally. They are not.

Also on our radar this week:

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This episode is sponsored in part by EPIC ▪ MRA,

This week’s agenda:

Polling shows voters increasingly dug in to their respective tribes as the political polarization chasm grows. Our guest this week is MSU political science guru Matt Grossman discussing his new book explaining the continuing trend towards two Americas. Matt Grossmann is Director of the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research – a.k.a. IPPSR – and Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University. He is the author of numerous books on our political world. His latest: “Polarized by Degrees“. The work, written in collaboration with Boston College Political Scientist David A. Hopkins explores the nation’s current political polarization and how it has caused a diploma divide between the parties.

Grossmann is a Senior Fellow at the Niskanen Center in Washington, DC, host of The Science of Politics Podcast and a regular contributor to FiveThirtyEight’s online political analysis. He has also published op-eds in The New York Times and The Washington Post. He was named Director of IPPSR in January 2016. IPPSR is a policy, leadership and research unit within MSU’s College of Social Science conducting more than $1.5 million in grant- or contract-funded research and raising more than $300,000 in donations annually.

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This episode is sponsored in part by EPIC ▪ MRA,

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This week’s agenda is Presidential Politics in Michigan:

We have two guests on this week’s podcast:

Pollster Bernie Porn leads us through the numbers in his company’s latest polling in Michigan. It’s generally good-but-not-great news for Democrats in a campaign that’s very, very tight.

And one of the founders of Michigan’s first citizen-run redistricting process reflects on the apparent end of the first redistricting cycle, seven-and-a-half years after Voters Not Politicians kicked off its historic campaign to amend Michigan’s constitution is now complete. We talk with the leader of the grassroots group, Jamie Lyons-Eddy. Joining that chat is our producer, Walt Sorg, another of the founders of VNP and co-author of the constitutional amendment.

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This episode is sponsored in part by EPIC ▪ MRA,

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We invade Chicago for a little convention time. Instead of our usual Zoom chats, Jeff and Walt go face to face as they meet up on the left side of the lake. Between performances by Stevie Wonder, John Legend, Lil’ Jon, Pink, The Chicks and Patti LaBelle there’s some political speechmaking going with the Obamas, the Clintons, Oprah, Tim Walz and (of course) Kamala Harris bringing down the house. Michigan was well represented on the podium with the aforementioned Stevie Wonder along with Dana Nessel, Mallory McMorrow and the omnipresent Gretchen Whitmer.

Even the usually deadly dull roll call of the states provided real entertainment, and of course made Trump grumpier than usual.

The themes for the week: freedom, joy, thank you Joe, and DO SOMETHING!

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This episode is sponsored in part by EPIC ▪ MRA,

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This week’s agenda:

We are joined by the reporter who exposed the 14 hours of video: ProPublica’s Andy Kroll.

ProPublica has become the most respected investigative journalism organization in the nation, winning awards right-and-left for its groundbreaking work. ProPublica made national headlines exposing the multi-million-dollar gifts to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Now it’s making headlines again, exposing 14 hours of previously secret training videos on Project 2025, a story uncovered by Andy Kroll.

Andy was previously the Washington bureau chief for Rolling Stone. His reporting there about a series of cyberattacks on congressional campaigns helped lead to the indictment of a California political operative. Before that, he was a senior reporter at Mother Jones. In September, Kroll will publish his first book, “A Death on W Street: The Murder of Seth Rich and the Age of Conspiracy,” a true-crime investigation about U.S. politics, viral conspiracy theories and one family’s fight for truth.

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This episode is sponsored in part by EPIC ▪ MRA, a full service survey research firm with expertise in:

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Helping sort out the primary election results in Michigan is returning friend-of-the-pod, Detroit Free Press political reporter Clara Hendrickson. 

Clara covers Michigan politics with a focus on the governor’s office and the state Legislature. She has previously covered voting rights, election administration and redistricting in Michigan. She came to The Detroit Free Press by way of Report for America – an initiative of The GroundTruth Project – to fact-check Michigan issues and politics in partnership with PolitiFact during the 2020 election. She previously worked as a research analyst at the Brookings Institution and freelance journalist in Washington, D.C.

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This episode is sponsored in part by EPIC ▪ MRA, a full service survey research firm with expertise in:

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This week’s agenda:

We are joined by Congressman Dan Kildee from Flint, a senior member of the House Budget Committee and Chief Deputy Democratic Whip. Kildee is retiring this year after 12 years in Congress.

He has devoted his career to public service, previously serving as Genesee County Treasurer, on the Genesee County Board of Commissioners and on the Flint Board of Education.  Kildee co-founded and served as the president of the Center for Community Progress, a national non-profit organization focused on urban land reform and revitalization; and founded Michigan’s first land bank—the Genesee County Land Bank—which is responsible for tens of millions of dollars in redevelopment in Flint.

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This episode is sponsored in part by EPIC ▪ MRA, 

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Still another amazing week in our nation’s 248th year, with Michigan right in the center of it all. This week’s agenda:

Mark and producer Walt Sorg talk with veteran pollster Bernie Porn for his insights based on 40 years of taking Michigan’s political pulse. Bernie and his colleagues at EPIC-MRA have been measuring Michigan voter sentiment for four decades. EPIC-MRA is regularly rated as the top polling firm in the state, and is regularly quoted in media across Michigan and the nation. A week ago, his poll (one day before President Biden’s announcement) showed Trump up by 7 in Michigan. Now it’s a whole new ballgame.

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This episode is sponsored in part by EPIC ▪ MRA, 

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