Clock It with Symone & Eugene

Despite feeling somewhat conflicted about the 4th of July and the semiquincentennial of the country this week, Eugene and Symone went looking for hope. They found it watching the crowds at Democratic politicians’ campaign stops. They heard it when reporters like MS NOW’s Maya Eaglin sent in tape from talking to people on the street. And they point to it in polling. Eighty-eight percent of the people Gallup spoke to in May said they can think of at least one reason to be optimistic about America right now. The most popular reason? People willing to stand up for what they believe is right. Our hosts find even more inspiration when they’re joined by legal scholar Melissa Murray, who’s written an annotated guide to the Constitution. Don’t be overawed by the Founding Fathers, she says. “They were just random guys who found themselves in a moment and thought their way out of it.” And though they were very, very flawed, we could look to them to help us make choices right now. “They were ordinary people living in extraordinary times, taking extraordinary risks, and, in the end, doing something that was extraordinary. We can all do that.”

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Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s book about the first 14 months of Trump’s second term is out, and Symone and Eugene have questions. Is someone recording in the Situation Room? Why does Vice President Vance come out looking so good in all these stories? Speaking of which, why is he being graded on a curve? They also talk about Eugene’s interview with Senate candidate James Talarico, who is handling attacks on his masculinity pretty well – but seems to have not anticipated them, which was probably a mistake. And then our hosts take up a question from a longtime listener to Clock It: people with no criminal backgrounds are still getting detained by ICE; so why has the media stopped talking about it? Turns out there’s plenty of blame to go around on that one – from, yes, the media’s commercial imperatives, but also to the American people and Democratic leadership. This week, nobody’s safe. We clock it all.

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This week Symone and Eugene cover the Obama Presidential Center, UFC 250, the fact that tomatoes are up 32%, and, most importantly, Juneteenth. “Rights on paper are not the same as rights in practice,” says Symone, “and we are literally living that right now. Freedom requires government action. Freedom requires enforcement. Freedom requires people willing to defend the promise.” And when Symone and Eugene look at pop stars and Black athletes they find out who's willing, and unwilling, to defend their values. Ariana Grande, Jane Fonda, Tessa Thompson and Ayo Edebiri beg the question: Is your fave speaking up? Because silence is an answer.

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Graham Platner’s redemption arc starts now, after he wins the Democratic senatorial nomination for Maine. And while the rest of the United States is celebrating Pride, a handful of southern (plus Utah) Republican lawmakers have made it a point to rebrand June to disassociate with the LGBTQ+ community. The NBA Finals continue to heat up, in the same week 2026 World Cup kicks off. This should be a time for soccer fans across the globe to bow down at the altar of soccer, but politics – as it so often does – has gotten in the way. The African referee of 2025 was not allowed to enter the U.S. despite being handpicked by FIFA to officiate games, Iraq’s star player was detained and questioned for hours by Border Patrol agents, and the Iranian soccer team is not being allowed to sleep in the country despite being scheduled to play three matches in Los Angeles and Seattle. It’s times like these -- when the world is full of chaos -- that we look to the stars, which is why we asked Neil deGrasse Tyson to join the groupchat. He blew our minds with facts about UFOs, the Andromeda Galaxy, and the Earth’s real shape, reminding us that "the universe is under no obligation to make sense.”

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This week we were keeping tabs on a very long primary day with races all over the country, Jill Biden's book tour, the "Summer House" reunion taking over our feeds, and a battle for the soul of “60 Minutes.” Symone and Eugene cover all of it, and then kick off Pride Month by welcoming internet and TV sensation Kalen Allen to the groupchat. The trio get into Hollywood’s beliefs about the market for queer stories – we may never get a Black “Heated Rivalry,” for example – and Kalen’s beliefs about the responsibilities of public figures. "I look at my life, I look at Eugene, I'm like – we are our ancestors' wildest dreams. We are the dreams that died with them,” says Kalen. “It is heavy, however I take every bit of the weight.”

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Even though President Trump continues to see spiraling poll numbers, the wallets belonging to his inner circle continue to get fatter. But it’s not just the money. Trump and his staff are also consolidating power by taking an axe to voting rights, specifically in southern states and marginalized neighborhoods. Symone and Eugene try to wrap their minds around the financial corruption within the White House before debating whether the NAACP’s call for Black athletes, families, and boosters to boycott colleges in southern states is the appropriate method to fight back. Then, W. Kamau Bell joins the groupchat to eulogize the comedy roast following Kevin Hart's controversial Netflix special, to explain how cancelled celebrities keep popping back up, and to call out the rich celebrities who have left their communities behind. “I think that there's a lot made about cancel culture," he says, "when, in fact, most of cancel culture is just the First Amendment working correctly.”

Further reading: 

The New Yorker – The Number How much is Trump pocketing off the Presidency?

Forbes Magazine – Donald Trump’s Net Worth

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It’s official. CBS has closed the doors of the Ed Sullivan Theater to “The Late Show” and Stephen Colbert. The show’s expiration is a sign of the times, when media executives capitulate to federal power in order to get mergers approved and paychecks delivered. Eugene and Dr. Symone Sanders Townsend (yes, Dr. Sanders Townsend) lament the twilight of comedy on TV and ask what moguls like Byron Allen will do with the airtime going up for grabs. And then the conversation turns to the cruel face of the Trump administration’s immigration detention campaign. Before they go, our hosts congregate with another Dr. – Dr. Michael Eric Dyson – who has a bone to pick with Kendrick Lamar. They also talk about the shadow of white supremacy, and the ways the Black community’s contributions to American society continue to be simultaneously disrespected and appropriated.

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The hantavirus is not the next COVID (at least that’s what we are being told…and hope). But Symone and Eugene wonder if they can trust the public health officials in the Trump administration. And a week after Tennessee and Alabama stripped Black voters of their ability to elect the local representatives of their choice, Eugene and Symone warn that Republicans in power are not done. Experts, like Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, would argue that attacks on Black political participation are nothing new. “If you're a racist white oligarch, and let's say you're stealing from white people and Black people, how do you continue to engage in those robberies? You convince those white people you're robbing that they're being robbed by Black people.” But Dr. Kendi says those attacks are misdirected. He joins Clock It to break down how we're being trained to think that political power is a zero sum game; and he urges people to see rights for Black and Brown people as something that benefits everyone.

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Usually at this time of the year fans of art and culture, like Symone and Eugene, are enjoying (or critiquing) the looks from the Met Gala's red carpet. But 2026 was different, because Jeff “Temu Lex Luthor” Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, were the primary sponsors. Symone and Eugene are joined by Honey Magazine co-founder and Ebony Magazine former Editor-in-Chief Kierna Mayo to discuss why exactly the streets were upset with the cultural takeover by one of the world’s richest tycoons. And why they themselves are not ready to fault the Carter family for attending. Our hosts also clock the Supreme Court’s recent alarming decisions and the ways in which fire has not ceased in Iran. Even though Trump has declared the Iran War “terminated,” shots (missiles) continue to be fired. Gas prices have doubled since the beginning of the fighting, which has some Americans trying to figure out how to pay for groceries. And the White House is requesting an additional 1.5 TRILLION taxpayer dollars for the Pentagon.

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AI – and coverage of it – is everywhere. But what is artificial intelligence, really, beyond the buzzword? Each week, in a special new miniseries - ‘The AI End Game’ - Chris Hayes is joined by preeminent experts on AI and its effects to help make sense of this revolutionary time in history.

The series will feature in-depth conversations with experts, including: The Atlantic journalist Derek Thompson; professor at Wharton and New York Times bestselling author Ethan Mollick, professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and member of the Berkeley AI Research Group Alison Gopnik; former co-lead of the Ethical Artificial Intelligence Team at Google and co-founder of Black in AI Timnit Gebru; philosopher and cognitive scientist David Chalmers; author, host of the “Better Offline” podcast and writer of the “Where's Your Ed At” newsletter, Ed Zitron; The New York Times journalist and author, Michael Pollan, and more. The first episode is available now wherever you get your podcasts. 

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