Brain Trust Live

Last weekend we went to Iowa to visit the nation's most famous state fair and as many campaign offices as we could get to in the home of 2020 first primary-mania! Here's our take on who's campaigns were a mess, who's poised to surprise us, which conspiracy theories we developed along the way.

In Which We Discuss:

1. Jeffrey Epstein spontaneously combusted in prison this week. That was the story, right?

2. Joe Biden doesn’t know the difference between “white” and “wealthy” and that explains so much

3. The third #DemDebate might just be an appetizer to a bigger, badder, annoying-er fourth debate that includes the whole gang plus Tom Steyer

4. In a surprising turn of events, Mitch McConnell supporters are assholes

5. Donald Trump is in favor of all the positions on gun control except the one where we do something beyond talk

6. Have we started impeachment hearings without knowing it?

Brain Trust Live is Lila Nordstrom and Brent Thornburg's look at the week in political news. Join the millions of sirens, helicopters, and computer beeps who love our podcast and tell your friends about BTL!  Then rate us on iTunes or find us Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Stitcher, or Instagram!

In Which We Discuss:

1. Domestic terrorism has had a big week

2. After 12 hours of debate, we still can’t pick the generic white moderates out of a Democratic Debate lineup

3. The people of Puerto Rico overthrew their government last week. Now if only we could overthrow ours...

4. Trump, unsurprisingly, can’t find a National Intelligence Director. Or an intelligent person to work for him in general.

5. Trump furious that Elijah Cummings can’t stop Trump’s own family from slumming up Baltimore

6. Go and demand some impeachment, people!

Brain Trust Live is Lila Nordstrom and Brent Thornburg's look at the week in political news. Join the millions of sirens, helicopters, and computer beeps who love our podcast and tell your friends about BTL!  Then rate us on iTunes or find us Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Stitcher, or Instagram!

In Which We Discuss:

1. As the earth literally shook all around us, at least we could take comfort in the fact that the USGS was having the Best. Week. Ever.

2. Donald Trump regaled us with tales of fourth of July glory, commemorating the forgotten Battle for LaGuardia, Terminal C.

3. Somehow Pete Buttigeig is now the fundraiser to beat in the Democratic Primary

4. The Census citizenship question Just. Wont. Die.  Possibly because neither will Donald Trump.

5. Justin Amash, founding member of the Freedom Caucus, is leaving GOP BECAUSE IT’S TOO RADICAL FOR HIM.

6. Marianne Williamson has more in common with Mormonism’s Joseph Smith than you’d want or need.

Brain Trust Live is Lila Nordstrom and Brent Thornburg's look at the week in political news. Join the millions of sirens, helicopters, and computer beeps who love our podcast and tell your friends about BTL!  Then rate us on iTunes or find us Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Stitcher, or Instagram!

In Which We Discuss:

1. Lila was in the thick of the biggest news of two weeks ago

2. #DemDebate Real Talk: 

3. Partisan gerrymandering is no big deal if you have a lifetime appointment

4. SCOTUS is super confusing these days, but ultimately still as horrible as you’d expect

5. We’ve been gone a month, so here are all the times we almost went to war

6. Trump is celebrating the 4th of July by scheduling counterprogramming to PBS’s celebration because what better way to celebrate America than by getting better ratings than Carole King?

Brain Trust Live is Lila Nordstrom and Brent Thornburg's look at the week in political news. Join the millions of sirens, helicopters, and computer beeps who love our podcast and tell your friends about BTL!  Then rate us on iTunes or find us Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Stitcher, or Instagram!

In Which We Discuss:

1. Robert Mueller holds emergency press conference to remind us that unlike Barr, he has, in fact, read his own report.

2. It remains to be seen whether magic will be enough to get Marianne Williamson, or even Kirsten Gillibrand, into the third Democratic debate.

3. The word “Mueller” is in the news so Trump’s got a genius plan to create a diversion by tanking the entire economy of both the US and Mexico.

4. Math is vindicated once again after study shows that the Trump tax cuts...SHOCK...didn’t work.

5. It’s [name any day] in America so obviously there was another mass shooting.

Brain Trust Live is Lila Nordstrom and Brent Thornburg's look at the week in political news. Join the millions of sirens, helicopters, and computer beeps who love our podcast and tell your friends about BTL!  Then rate us on iTunes or find us Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Stitcher, or Instagram!

In Which We Discuss:

1. GOP impeachment domino watch: 1 down, 198 to go

2. Joe Biden will protect the nation from Trump using a strategy of incremental soul-saving and forgetting what he just said

3. If an announcement is made and nobody hears it...is DeBlasio actually running for president?

4. Missouri is the latest state to grant greater bodily autonomy to clumps of cells than to full grown living breathing women

5. Are we going to war with Iran? Anybody know why?

6. Arnold Schwarzenegger gets drop kicked for a Lamborghini. And yes, we also wonder what the connection is.

In Which We Discuss:

1. The earth is a huge disaster, and Joe Biden has a plan to solve it...with fracking!

2. Harris and O’Rourke are already in the market for new reasons to run after already forgetting their original ones

3. No one wants to be in the Senate anymore

4. Tio Sanders and AOC are the duo of our dreams

5. Barr is officially in our contempt, and now the Judiciary Committee’s too

6. When you consider it a victory that your new abortion law doesn’t send women to prison over miscarriages, your bar is too low

Brain Trust Live is Lila Nordstrom and Brent Thornburg's look at the week in political news. Join the millions of sirens, helicopters, and computer beeps who love our podcast and tell your friends about BTL!  Then rate us on iTunes or find us Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Stitcher, or Instagram!

In Which We Discuss:

1. William Barr doesn’t like Mueller’s attitude when it comes to William Barr’s lying

2. Remember the days when we were finally announcing who WASN’T going to run for president?  Those days were nice.

3. Elizabeth Warren has a plans for that, and a t-shirt for that

4. No one is running for Senate because everyone is running for president and, frankly, that math isn’t promising

5. Cory Booker is committed to halting the change he’s already been a cosponsor for

Brain Trust Live is Lila Nordstrom and Brent Thornburg's look at the week in political news. Join the millions of sirens and helicopters who love our podcast and tell your friends about BTL!  Then rate us on iTunes or find us Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Stitcher, or Instagram!

In Which We Discuss:

1. Biden thinks “fuck it” and announces his candidacy on his way to a high-dollar fundraiser.

2. Mueller Report tells us we all knew in our hearts: Donald Trump wanted to collude and obstruct but isn’t competent enough to do it.

3. The only thing longer and more exhausting than the new Avengers movie is CNN’s new townhall format.

4. In the war between Wayne LaPierre and Oliver North, which one is the good guy with the gun?

5. If the White House Correspondents Dinner has no host or president, has it actually happened?

6. Howard Schultz wants to be America's modern existentialist poet laureate. He's failing.

Brain Trust Live is Lila Nordstrom and Brent Thornburg's look at the week in political news. Join the millions of sirens and helicopters who love our podcast and tell your friends about BTL!  Then rate us on iTunes or find us Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Stitcher, or Instagram!