Offline with Jon Favreau

In a world of little trust and big echo chambers, how do campaigns persuade voters that their candidates are worth voting for? With the midterms nearly upon us, Jon sits down with campaign expert Greta Carnes—who ran organizing for Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign and collaborates with Vote Save America—to discuss why the old campaign playbook is breaking down, what organizing looks like in a world of unanswered calls, ignored texts, and increasingly sophisticated technology, and how Democrats can actually build relationships with voters that last beyond Election Day. 

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Adam Jentleson, Democratic strategist and author of Supermajority: How Democrats Can Build Lasting Power, joins Offline to debate what Democrats will gain and lose as they run candidates who don’t fit neatly into one ideological box. He and Jon dicuss what the midterm campaigns teach us about political heterodoxy, what Democrats can learn from Obama about entertaining opposing viewpoints, and how to disagree about the party’s future without losing the ability to work together.

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What would you do if your son texted you in the middle of the night that he'd stumbled upon a bizarre castle lorded over by a creepy man? For Jon Ronson, the journalist and bestselling author of So You've Been Publicly Shamed and The Psychopath Test, the answer is simple: write a book about it. The Castle: Adventures in a World of Unraveling Men is an empathetic, humorous, and startling investigation of men who are struggling to find purpose, connection, and place in a rapidly changing world. 

Jon and Jon talk about what happened to the institutions that once gave people a sense of belonging, how the internet has offered new—and sometimes dangerous—substitutes, and what all of this means for raising boys.

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Frances Haugen became one of the most influential whistleblowers in tech history when she revealed in 2021 that Facebook knew the havoc it was wreaking—addicting teenagers, derailing politics, fomenting ethnic violence—and chose to do very little about it.

Now the subject of Aaron Sorkin’s new movie, "The Social Reckoning," Frances joins Offline to reflect on what she learned trying to change Facebook from the inside, and how it applies to the growing number of AI employees who are now wrestling with the same questions. She and Jon discuss whether whistleblowing actually works, what it takes to hold powerful tech companies accountable, and how one person speaking up can get others to act.

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Erin Brockovich has spent three decades helping communities fight the biggest corporations and cruelest environmental injustices, inspiring an Oscar-winning movie along the way. Her latest cause is also her biggest: AI data centers and their insidious arrival to communities across the country. 

After scores of people wrote to her about the alarming influx of hyperscale projects, Erin launched Brockovich Data Center Reporting—which received nearly 4,000 submissions in its first month alone. She sits down with Jon to discuss everything she’s learned, what the industry gets wrong about the backlash, and whether there’s a way to build what we need without screwing over the people who have to live with it.

Hate listening to ads? Become a Friends of the Pod subscriber for ad-free episodes of Pod Save America, Pod Save the World, Lovett or Leave It, Runaway Country, Offline with Jon Favreau, and more—plus exclusive content, including bonus episodes of Pod Save America. Subscribe now at crooked.com/friends, on Apple Podcasts, or through the Pod Save America YouTube channel.

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From underground compounds to planet-fleeing rockets, tech oligarchs and the MAGA elite aren’t just anticipating an apocalypse—they’re hastening it. Author and climate activist Naomi Klein sits down with Jon to discuss End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World, her new book with Astra Taylor. 

She and Jon trace the connection between the religious right, Silicon Valley elite, and nationalist movements around the world, and uncover how Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are weaponizing the human instinct to protect our own. Then they discuss how to make people feel safer, less prone to zero-sum thinking, and more invested in a future we have to share. 

Hate listening to ads? Become a Friends of the Pod subscriber for ad-free episodes of Pod Save America, Pod Save the World, Lovett or Leave It, Runaway Country, Offline with Jon Favreau, and more—plus exclusive content, including bonus episodes of Pod Save America. Subscribe now at crooked.com/friends, on Apple Podcasts, or through the Pod Save America YouTube channel.

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Is AI sending us spiraling towards an apocalypse, or upwards towards utopia? How can such a new technology inspire such diametrically opposing viewpoints? 

To understand the dissonance, Jon sits down with Helen Toner, the Executive Director of Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology–and one of the OpenAI board members who voted to oust Sam Altman in 2023. 

She shares her firsthand experience of what trying to oversee one of these companies actually involves, insights on where the technology is going, and strategies for what we can do to avoid the scariest outcomes.

Hate listening to ads? Become a Friends of the Pod subscriber for ad-free episodes of Pod Save America, Pod Save the World, Lovett or Leave It, Runaway Country, Offline with Jon Favreau, and more—plus exclusive content, including bonus episodes of Pod Save America. Subscribe now at crooked.com/friends, on Apple Podcasts, or through the Pod Save America YouTube channel.

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Max Fisher returns to Offline to face the robot apocalypse with Jon. The two discuss Jacob Coxon, the AI researcher who publicly resigned from Anthropic this week, the terrifying claims coming from those working in AI that the technology may kill us all, and what it'll take for politicians to actually attempt to regulate the fast-moving technology. 

But first: Jon shares an exciting announcement about the future of the show.

Hate listening to ads? Become a Friends of the Pod subscriber for ad-free episodes of Pod Save America, Pod Save the World, Lovett or Leave It, Runaway Country, Offline with Jon Favreau, and more—plus exclusive content, including bonus episodes of Pod Save America. Subscribe now at crooked.com/friends, on Apple Podcasts, or through the Pod Save America YouTube channel.

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Americans don’t trust the government anymore. Annie Lowery, Atlantic staff writer and author of the new book The Time Tax, joins Offline to identify the culprit: a plodding, vindictive, racist bureaucracy that people must navigate to get government services and benefits. The paperwork, lines and emotional strain—just to feed your kids or renew your driver’s license––adds up to a “time tax” that falls most heavily on low-income Americans. Annie and Jon take stock of the Kafka-esque system and discuss why, if Democrats don’t do something to change it, people will continue to tune out the party that wants to build something better.

Hate listening to ads? Become a Friends of the Pod subscriber for ad-free episodes of Pod Save America, Pod Save the World, Lovett or Leave It, Runaway Country, Offline with Jon Favreau, and more—plus exclusive content, including bonus episodes of Pod Save America. Subscribe now at crooked.com/friends, on Apple Podcasts, or through the Pod Save America YouTube channel.

To watch this episode with subtitles, click here and turn on closed captions (CC).

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Is the right wing’s depiction of academia NOT a complete caricature? Fromer Bates College professor—and current Atlantic staff writer—Tyler Austin Harper joins Offline to break down the legacy of Woke 1 in higher education. 

Tyler’s recent essay, "Confessions of a Token Black Professor" argues that academia’s social justice fixation is just a bandaid for much larger institutional problems; he and Jon discuss how campus wokeism is the same story as that of rising tuition costs, falling admission rates, and increasing exploitation of faculty and staff.

Hate listening to ads? Become a Friends of the Pod subscriber for ad-free episodes of Pod Save America, Pod Save the World, Lovett or Leave It, Runaway Country, Offline with Jon Favreau, and more—plus exclusive content, including bonus episodes of Pod Save America. Subscribe now at crooked.com/friends, on Apple Podcasts, or through the Pod Save America YouTube channel.

To watch this episode with subtitles, click here and turn on closed captions (CC).

You can request a transcript by emailing [email protected]. Include the podcast name, episode title, and air date. Please allow 48 hours for delivery.