Dr. Maya Hornberg is senior researcher in elections and government program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law. She is the author of articles and papers and books. Her latest is, Stuck- How Money, Media and Violence Prevent Change in Congress.

We talked about our broken Congress, and Maya wasted no time in explaining that, even though Americans have always complained about Congress, something changed beginning in the 1970s that fundamentally broke the institution.

In 1976, the Supreme Court and the Buckley v. Vallejo decision rules that spending limits are unconstitutional in campaigns. And as a result, money starts flooding campaigns… Things start to change in terms of money distorting pathways to power, even within Congress, not to mention running for office.

She tells the story of Congressman Henry Waxman who understood the implications of that decision and decided to raise what’s called a leadership PAC. That allowed him to raise funds not for his own election, but to spread it around Congress. She credits this with winning him an important committee chair. And, she notes, most members of Congress now raise leadership PACs.

In addition to money, Maya explained how the jurisdiction of Congressional committees is hopelessly dated.

The last time that committee jurisdictional lines were redrawn in the House was the1970s. So completely outdated. You shouldn’t be surprised that when Mark Zuckerberg comes in to testify, half of the Senate is there. And we know-- you’ve worked in organizations, I’ve worked in organizations— When everyone is in charge of something, no one is in charge of something.

So you need a tech committee if you want to regulate tech. You need generally committee jurisdictions that align with the modern American economy.

We talked about Congressional staffing, the size of Congress, proportional representation, and more. We even talked about how Congress can regain its Article I powers whether they are threatened by an expansive executive branch or an overreaching Supreme Court.

Here’s a prediction: the next Congress is going to rely on Maya’s work to revise its rules, redraw committee jurisdictions, and re-balance the power relationship between leadership and committee chairs- all changes aimed at restoring Congress’ role in our democracy.

As always, give a listen and let us know what you think.

This interview is from my radio show on WCPT@820/ Heartland Signal on June 20, 2026.

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Gillian Brockell is a careful, thoughtful, hardworking journalist who has turned her talents towards one of the most important and hidden cruelties of the Trump Administration- ICE flights.

We talked on my radio show on WCPT820 this week. It was a conversation that stayed with me long after.

Gillian’s been tracking the 50-90 ICE flights conducted every day. I was surprised to learn that most of those flights are domestic.

The rate of those shuffle flights between the detention centers has been way higher under Trump’s second term than the regular removals. Removals have about doubled, but the shuffle flights have almost tripled.

And what we hear from migrants, from immigration attorneys and rights groups is that they’re using the shuffle flights to wear people down basically to torture them to make their court cases harder to file every time you’re moved to a different federal district, you have to start your court case all over again, you have to get a new lawyer. You have to get your documents moved and you have to do it from a detention Center. You’re farther away from your family.

The entire time that you’re being transported you are not in the ICE locator system. So you have no way of telling your family, hey, I’m going to be transferred to Arizona tomorrow. There’s no way to know that. So people will just disappear from the locator system.

Gillian described the way third country deportations work. Turns out, the ability to send people to countries they’ve never been to before was originally a humanitarian policy Congress created years ago so that deportees who were not safe in their home countries could be sent somewhere safe. Instead, the Trump administration uses third country deportations to create a chain deportation- send a migrant to a third country and then let that third country send them back to their home countries where their lives are in in jeopardy.

She also told me that ICE flight attendants were told that, in the event of an evacuation they were to save themselves and let the prisoners die.

This is an important topic, and one we don’t hear enough about. Give a listen, and let us know what you think. You can also visit Gillian’s website for more information and follow her on Blue Sky.

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I sat down with Amanda Marcotte, senior politics writer at Salon.com and star of the podcast Standing Room Only. Amanda is fearless. Her reporting and commentary focus on the where many are afraid to go- race, religion, gender. Where Donald Trump goes to divide us into factions, Amanda goes to find the sources of American strength.

We talked about the tumbling down of Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center before launching into the Iran War. Amanda explained to me why Pete Hegseth is the reason fascists lose wars. She said,

The problem with these people who have these kind of authoritarian ideologies is they never succumb to evidence because they think that thinking is for wimps and strategy is for wimps and that just more woke nonsense. If you point out to them how many times their ideology fails, they just brush it aside and they say, well, the problem is we didn’t hit them hard enough.

We talked about Hegseth purge of Black and female leaders in our military, and that led to a discussion of his exclusion of Mormons from the Department’s list of Christian religions. She reminded me that “another rule of authoritarians is that once they define the in group and the out group, the in group keeps getting smaller.”

That lead to a conversation about Turning Point USA’s latest gathering- an effort to shore up support among young women. Amanda noted that

the Christian right for a long time has been pushing the idea of complementarianism and female submission and sort of this idea that men and women are different, but they complement each other. They’re not unequal, is how they would argue. When you actually look at the details, of course they’re unequal.

But she said this gathering was a bit different. There was not pretending at complementary roles. Instead, conference goers were told that witch burning was okay, that women love themselves too much, and were left with the notion that men should not have to pick up their underwear.

We talked about the future. What Dems should do when they win. High on this list was reforming the Supreme Court.

Give a listen, and, as always, let us know what you think.

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Amazingly, Indivisible, founded just a decade ago, has become a well-known and powerful organizing force in our politics, giving structure to the collective voices of millions of American.

Ezra Levin, the organization’s co-founder and co-executive director is passionate about what Americans can do together, and realistic about what we will fail to do individually.

We talk from time to time about his work, the arc of American history, and the current state of our political parties. This week, Ezra emphasized that political impact has to be “locally led,” because there’s no one in Washington “calling the shots on everything that’s going on.” He goes on to argue that “if we’re just waiting for somebody somewhere to save the day, I think we lose.

I couldn’t agree more. Not a knock on Sen Chuck Schumer to say that if you are waiting around for him to save the democracy you are failing in your job as a citizen. The response to this dangerous moment is up to us, not to any one person, and certainly not up to any political party.

And, by the way, organizations like the Democratic National Committee exist to raise money, to organize debates, to build infrastructure. Party organizations aren’t designed to lead this fight; they are, however, very important tools we can use to win the fight. That’s why Ezra says, “the only solution to rising authoritarianism is massive engagement in the democratic process.”

Towards the end of the conversation, we talk about the transformation happening in both political parties. The GOP is walking away from the idea of democracy in its complete fealty to Mr. Trump. Dems are engaged in a move from the let’s make a deal politics of a former era to the get-s**t-done politics of the moment, while simultaneously managing a generation transition.

As always, give a listen and let us know what you think.

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Every week, Joe Walsh and I catch up on the news of the week.

This week we spent little time on the crybaby in the White House (okay, Joe did call him that). A few minutes on the feckless handling of the Iran war. And a few more on his ill health.

We talked about important and interesting evolution of both political parties. On the Dem side, there is passion for outsider candidates along with a generational shift, while the GOP is transforming itself into a cheerleading team for one guy.

We shared a concern that ICE will be in full force in New York after the World Cup ends, and there for the purpose of inciting a violent reaction. “Trump wants troops on the street,” Joe told me.

We also agreed that if a judge tells Trump he cannot throw his corrupt birthday party cage match- you know, the one where he uses the monuments of our democracy to brand a private company where he’s an investor- he will throw the party anyway.

Then Joe told me the Republicans will confirm Todd Blanche as our next A.G. Will that cost some Senators their jobs? We’ll see.

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Every week Joe Walsh and I let loose on the state of our politics. There’s a lot we don’t agree on, but both of us are determined to preserve American democracy and American freedom. That’s not something anyone can say about the GOP Congress these days.

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Today’s news ecosystem can be confusing to many. But for a generation raised on multiple platforms and social media, it’s second nature. Each news consumer makes the key decision about who to trust. Then they double check to be sure they got it right. Many of them trust Aaron Parnas.

I asked him about the stories he’s thinking about this week. Instead of leading with the China summit, or the ballroom, he went right to the damage a particular data center is doing to one particular community near Memphis. That speaks to his focus on things that matter to people.

You can follow his work here: The Parnas Perspective

Give a listen and let us know what you think.

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David Roberts built Volts - a community built around his newsletters, podcasts, and social media focused on the intersection of politics, policy and climate. You won’t find reporting like Dave’s anywhere else.

He also has some views on American politics that make a lot of sense.

We cover a lot of ground in this conversation. Give a listen and let us know what you think!

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Oona Hathaway is a Yale professor multiple times over: at the Yale Law School, in the Department of Political Science, and at the School of Global Affairs. She directs the Yale Law School Center for Global Legal Challenges. And, she has recently become president of the American Society of International Law.

She talked with me about the international order- a system of treaties and organizations that have made the world a healthier, safer, and more prosperous. We talked about the attacks on this order, largely coming from the White House. We discussed the need for more transparency and a clearer way to demonstrate the benefits of this system to the public.

As always, please listen and share your thoughts.

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Dana Stroul directs research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. She previously served America as deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East. That’s the Pentagon’s civilian official for that complicated part of the world. She has also worked at the Senate foreign Relations committee.

We discussed the Iran war, the politics of the region, as well as the humanitarian crises in Gaza, Southern Lebanon.

Please listen to this important conversation and, as always, let us know what you think.

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