Inside the Hive

After weeks of torrential rain storms that have flooded communities, toppled trees and brought on huge economic devastations, Yana Garcia joins Inside the Hive to share how environmental justice will play a role in recovery.

For weeks, a battery of atmospheric rains has bombarded California, destroying roads, triggering mudslides, and flooding homes and farms — all that following months of drought, and before that, wildfires. This week, Inside the Hive is joined by Yana Garcia, California’s Secretary of Environmental Protection, who describes the damages wrought by these extreme storms, and explains what California is doing about it — including facing off with oil companies over the fossil fuel emissions the state argues have intensified weather events in California and beyond. Garcia was an environmental justice lawyer before becoming head of the state’s environmental protection agency, and a native Californian, describes the weather changes she’s observed first hand growing up in Oakland, and the way forward in the fight to correct the climatological balance (plus, she tells us what her mysterious tattoos mean).

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On this week’s episode of Inside the Hive, co-hosts Joe Hagan and Emily Jane Fox are joined by their Hive colleague and Capitol Hill all-star Abigail Tracy, who was in the halls of Congress last week as the House speaker debacle played out in real time. She gives a window into the chaos—and the consequences for both parties—as well as what it could mean for the 2024 races.

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Joe Hagan and Molly Jong-Fast analyze the war inside the Republican Party as California congressman Kevin McCarthy is thrice denied his bid for Speaker of the House. In disarray and denial, the GOP appears intent on kicking off the New Year with the same old extremist politics that have depressed its fortunes through the past three election cycles. 

Then, Jong-Fast discusses her exclusive interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, who has the Sisyphean task of tackling immigration—an issue the GOP will surely exploit between now and 2024.

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Author James Pogue talks to cohosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan about the so-called New Right, the intellectual movement congealing around tech billionaire and MAGA mega-donor Peter Thiel and the Trumpist GOP, which he wrote about for this month’s Vanity Fair. After embedding himself with the vanguard of intellectuals whose reactionary politics, antagonism for democracy and visions of retro-patriarchy inform the agendas of people like Tucker Carlson and JD Vance, Pogue demystifies fringe ideas like the “black pill,” “trad wives,” and “ball tanning."

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Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan discuss the implications of the January 6 committee’s criminal referrals to the Department of Justice over Donald Trump’s alleged crimes. Jack Smith, the special prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, faces a complex calculus: Will prosecuting the former narcissist in chief bring long-awaited justice, or only help reanimate Trump’s political fortunes for 2024? Plus: some of the best in this year’s culture.

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On this week’s episode of Inside The Hive, author Kate Anderson Brower joins Emily Jane Fox to discuss her new authorized biography, Elizabeth Taylor: The Grit and Glamour of an Icon [https://www.amazon.com/Elizabeth-Taylor-Grit-Glamour-Icon-ebook/dp/B09V2ZZ7KK]. Andersen Brower takes us inside the lesser known sides of one of the most famous women of all time. Brower, who interviewed 250 people for the book and combed through thousands of never-before-seen personal effects, paints a vivid portrait of Taylor as a mother, humanitarian [https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2022/11/elizabeth-taylor-aids-book], and friend—and the toll that fame exacts on even those who are destined for it.

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On this week’s episode of Inside the Hive, dietician Kim Shapira joins Emily Jane Fox to talk about the new weight loss drug taking Hollywood and TikTok by storm—how it works, why everyone seems to be talking about it, and what kind of message the “quick-fix” trend is sending. Plus: Fox and Joe Hagan break down Michael Avenatti’s sentence and what it could mean for other wayward political figures.

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This week, Vanity Fair contributing editor May Jeong joins Inside the Hive to examine the popular uprising against the Xi Jinping regime over its repressive COVID policies, which have held China’s 1.4 billion citizens in virtual captivity. Jeong, who visited China in 2019 to investigate what happened to the country’s biggest movie star, Fan Bingbing, sees parallels to recent uprisings in Iran—specifically, women on the front lines. “The intersectional ways in which our struggles are linked is interesting,” she says, “and something that Americans can draw from as well.”

Plus, Joe Hagan talks to Emily Jane Fox about her latest feature: a look inside the gilded post–White House life of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, who want to live a normal, everyday billionaire’s existence in Miami—and have no desire to return to DC should Donald Trump win in 2024.

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In the short but long weeks since Elon Musk took over Twitter, it seems like the platform, along with the social media class, has been put through the spin cycle. Between debates over who could be verified and how much that might cost, employee layoffs, and, of course, the lingering question of whether and when Donald Trump might be replatformed, there have been many questions about the fate of Twitter. 

Vanity Fair’s Nick Bilton, who literally wrote the book on Twitter, joins this week’s episode of Inside the Hive, taking listeners inside his notebook to lay out the problems that Twitter faces as both a company and a barometer of the mindset of the country. 

“Jack Dorsey and all the folks at Twitter used to say that Twitter is a reflection of society,” Bilton tells ITH listeners. “I think that it is a reflection of the extremes in society, and it brings out the best and, a lot more times, the worst in people because of the way it is designed.” What will happen to the platform given the political atmosphere, and can it help propel someone into the White House—or keep them out?

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