Is there any level of American government that is actually doing its job well? Bradley sits down with his Tusk Strategies partner Shontell Plummer to talk through the slow-motion dysfunction of Albany. Why is the state budget late when there are no major issues at stake? How come Governor Hochul and Mayor Mamdani can't get along? What will gerrymandering do to the congressional map? Plus, what's going on with the NY-12 race and is Hakeem Jeffries cut out to be House Speaker?

This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.

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Why is that so hard? Bradley argues that the zero-sum mentality driving our politics and social media has infected our basic daily behavior — the phone zombies blocking subway doors, the gym hogs who won't let you work in, the airplane line-cutters — and that only a shift in social norms, not legislation, can fix it. Plus, Bradley breaks down why Mamdani put pandering to his base ahead of the city's well-being in his ill-conceived targeting of Ken Griffin. That wasn't so nice, either.

This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.

Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected].

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Are you climbing the right mountain, or just getting really good at the wrong one? Bradley sits down with Judah Taub — Israeli intelligence veteran, cybersecurity investor, and author of How to Move Up When the Only Way is Down — who borrows a concept from machine learning called the "local maximum" to explain why smart people and successful companies so often underperform their potential. Plus, how AI is affecting cybersecurity, why mandatory military service in Israel produces better founders than any business school, and whether a diverse, equal society can ever agree on the collective good.

This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.

Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected].

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Is the richest, most productive state in America about to shoot itself in the foot? Bradley argues that California's proposed 5% tax on assets over $1.1 billion is a losing bet that will hurt the very people it claims to help. When billionaires leave, he says, jobs will follow. And if the legislature gains the power to lower the threshold whenever it needs cash, today's billionaire tax becomes tomorrow's millionaire tax. Bradley proposes an entirely different path, based on the radical idea that the goal should actually be helping people, not feeding the political machine that claims to represent them.

This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.

Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected].

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Bradley sits down with Matt Wing and Josh Mohrer to talk about Smith & Moses, their newly launched AI venture that ingests every bill introduced in the New York State legislature in real time, summarizes it in plain English, and scores each legislator based on the impact and passage rate of their bills. It's essentially a performance review for Albany, an exciting new way to understand what our elected leaders are really doing and to hold them accountable.

Learn more at www.smithmoses.com

This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.

Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected].

Subscribe to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack + YouTube.

With support for Israel eroding faster than most people realize — a recent poll found 70% of American Jews oppose continued military aid — Bradley argues that the greatest existential threat to Israel is not its avowed enemies but the retrenchment of its most reliable ally. He lays out eight concrete ideas for how Jewish organizations could rebuild that support, starting with listening before lecturing: understanding why mainstream American Jews have drifted away before launching any campaign to bring them back. Plus, Bradley implores congressional candidates to stop the cold-calling fundraising charade that tortures everyone involved.

Discussed on today's episode:

Israel’s Greatest Challenge? Winning Back American Jewish Support, by Bradley Tusk, April 27, 2026 (Substack)

This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.

Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected].

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Can government catch up to a technology moving faster than any regulatory response ever has? Bradley and his Tusk Ventures partner Bob Greenlee work through two competing taxonomies: Bradley organized his around four areas of real impact (consumer protection, catastrophic risk, job displacement, and AI's potential to make government work better), while Bob's is built around political feasibility — what can actually get passed and when. The bracing conclusion is that landmark legislation is probably pie in the sky, which means the advantage goes to people who can keep thinking critically and asking the right questions.

Prediction markets, not polling, argues Bradley, will be the defining information source of the 2026 midterms and a change worth celebrating. By incentivizing people to think beyond their own preferences and sharpen their analysis, these markets provide reliable metrics of public opinion and are good for democracy. Plus, how Yale did the right thing with its report on higher education, why basic social norms are breaking down in New York City, what the CEO succession at Apple's reveals and why the best thing to watch on TV (for Bradley, anyway) is one from the vault.

This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.

Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected].

Subscribe to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack + YouTube.

American democracy is doomed if people can't tolerate disagreement. Bradley sits down with Ed Manzi, founder of Unmuted, who is building something genuinely countercultural: in-person forums for politically curious New Yorkers to listen to each other. They get into mobile voting, why Congress has become a tweet farm, and whether the lesson politicians should take from Trump is the terrifying one.

Learn more about UNMUTED: https://www.unmuted.fyi/

On May 14, UNMUTED will be hosting a debate between candidates for Congress in New York's 12th district, at Hungarian House in Upper East Side. More details: https://luma.com/syqniv23

Firewall nominated for a Webby! Vote today and support us for best individual episode - interview or talk show -for Bradley's interview with then-candidate Zohran Mamdani in April 2025. We’re up against Oprah, so we’ll need all the votes we can get! It only takes 10 seconds - thanks in advance: https://bit.ly/firewallwebby

This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.

Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected].

Subscribe to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack + YouTube.

Is Mayor Mamdani's first hundred days as mayor a genuine reason for celebration, or just a decent start before the hard part kicks in? Bradley gives the mayor real credit for focusing on the operational stuff that actually matters to New Yorkers, but says that if he's serious about running this city, he should start making the case for bringing the subways and buses back under city control, the way Bloomberg brought the schools back under mayoral control in 2002. And he should stop banking on squeezing more out of the small group of high earners who already pay for almost everything, because when they leave, the people who suffer most are the ones he claims to be fighting for. Plus: Bradley opens up about joining Marijuana Anonymous, how the NBA can solve its tanking problem and why he has no regards for Broadway.

Firewall nominated for a Webby! Vote today and support us for best individual episode - interview or talk show -for Bradley's interview with then-candidate Zohran Mamdani in April 2025. We’re up against Oprah, so we’ll need all the votes we can get! It only takes 10 seconds - thanks in advance: https://bit.ly/firewallwebby

This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.

Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected].

Subscribe to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack + YouTube.