Polilogue

The Sunday talk shows all focused on President Trump’s extremely rough week. Last Wednesday, President Trump’s former attorney and fixer, Michel Cohen, publicly testified in front of theHouse Oversight Committee. In the marathon 7-hour hearing, Cohen asserted that President Trump is a racist, a conman, and a cheat.. He also brought corroborating evidence. 

Republicans focused on Cohen’s damaged credibility. The Democrats laid the ground work for additional investigations.  On the other side of the world on the very same day, talks betweens President Trump and North Korea dictator, Kim Jong Un fell apart.

As always, you can jump to a section of the show by using our available chapters:

• Introduction

• Highlight / Lowlight 

• The Cohen Hearing

• No Deal in Vietnam 

• Show Rankings

• Show Closing

The shows we discuss today include:

State of the Union on CNN

Meet the Press on NBC

Face the Nation on CBS

This Week on ABC

Dialogue challenge: Prepare for The Big One. 

Email us at [email protected] or you can send us your feedback @PolilogueCast. You can also follow us at @sotonaomi_ and @bsteidle.

Want to stalk us some more? Check out some of our other work: 

Brendan’s website: www.armisticedesigns.com 
Naomi's website: www.startwithaquestion.org

We continue reviewing the introductions of 2020 candidates on the Sunday morning talk shows.  Over the last several weeks, several prominent voices have been on the shows, including the DNC Chair, Tom Perez, and additional Democratic candidates from the midwest. Additionally, we discuss the likelihood of President Trump facing a real primary. 

As always, you can jump to a section of the show by using our available chapters:

• Introduction

• Tom Perez

• Pete Buttigieg

• Sherrod Brown

• Bill Weld

• Show Closing

The shows we discuss today include:

State of the Union on CNN

Meet the Press on NBC

Face the Nation on CBS

This Week on ABC

Email us at [email protected] or you can send us your feedback @PolilogueCast. You can also follow us at @sotonaomi_ and @bsteidle.

Want to stalk us some more? Check out some of our other work: 

Brendan’s website: www.armisticedesigns.com 
Naomi's website: www.startwithaquestion.org

For this episode, we flew to Washington, DC to sit down with Chuck Todd, host of Meet the Press, and John Reiss, the Executive Producer of the show for an in-depth interview.  We talk about the Meet the Press brand, the place of the Sunday shows in our new media landscape, how they choose what to cover, who to book, how to question and how they frame the news of the week.  It was a privilege to be invited to the show and we thank Chuck and John for their time and the entire Meet the Press and NBC News team for welcoming us during a busy news week!     

We are firm believers that the Sunday shows influence and shape the news for the entire week. Conversations like this are exactly what we had in mind when we first dreamed up Polilogue. And we’re so thrilled to share this with you—and hope to have more conversations like it in the future.  

Each week on the Polilogue podcast, we discuss the Sunday morning political shows.  We take a critical look at the policy maker, the politician, and the journalist because each is critical and each demands criticism.  To learn more about the Polilogue podcast, visit www.Polilogue.com

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider supporting the show so we can produce more episodes just like it.  Visit our Patreon at www.Patreon.com/Polilogue 

On Friday, February 15, President Trump announced he was going to declare a national emergency. The day before on Thursday, February 14, Congress averted a second government shutdown by approving a budget deal. The deal provided $1.375 billion for new border fencing — less than a quarter of the amount Trump originally sought to build his border wall. 

People in both parties do not approve of President Trump’s expanded executive authority and believe he is breaking an important precedent. Since 1976, 59 national emergencies have been declared, but in no instance did a president declare an emergency after Congress had already responded to the issue at hand.

In our second segment, we discuss Amazon’s decision to abruptly pull out of its HQ2 plans in New York City. What does it mean that one of the biggest companies in America would pull out of an agreement with the biggest city in America without any discussion or negotiations due to local community criticisms? And is there room in the Democratic Party for a pro-business progressive? 

Stay tuned this week for a special episode of our interview with Chuck Todd and the executive producer of Meet the Press, John Reiss! 

As always, you can jump to a section of the show by using our available chapters:

• Introduction

• Highlight/Lowlight

• Trump’s Non-Emergency  

• Amazon Splits with NYC 

• Show rankings 

• Closing

The shows we discuss today include:

State of the Union on CNN

Meet the Press on NBC

Face the Nation on CBS

This Week on ABC

Fox News Sunday on FOX

Email us at [email protected] or you can send us your feedback @PolilogueCast. You can also follow us at @sotonaomi_ and @bsteidle.

Want to stalk us some more? Check out some of our other work: 

Brendan’s website: www.armisticedesigns.com 
Naomi's website: www.startwithaquestion.org

On today’s episode of Polilogue we talk about the explosive allegations from Jeff Bezos that American Media tried to exploit and blackmail him. American Media is the same company that owns the National Enquirer and has a special agreement with the Southern District of New York to cooperate in Trump investigations. 

We also talk about the three scandals hitting Virginia at the same time. Governor Ralph Northam bungles blackface allegation. Two women accuse Lt. Gov Justin Fairfax of sexual assault. And Attorney General confesses to his own participation of blackface when he was in college. Now the state must decide try to figure out who can heal the commonwealth and move it forward. 

As always, you can jump to a section of the show by using our available chapters:

• Introduction

• Highlight/Lowlight

• Bezos exposes AMI  

• Virginia Officials Embarrass State 

• Avoiding the Next Shutdown

• Show rankings 

• Closing

The shows we discuss today include:

• State of the Union on CNN

• Meet the Press on NBC

• Face the Nation on CBS

• This Week on ABC

Email us at [email protected] or you can send us your feedback @PolilogueCast. You can also follow us at @sotonaomi_ and @bsteidle.

Want to stalk us some more? Check out some of our other work: 

Brendan’s website: www.armisticedesigns.com 
Naomi's website: www.startwithaquestion.org

In the span of ~24 hours, the governor of the commonwealth of Virginia became a man without a party. Last Friday, a racist photo of a man in blackface and another man in a KKK costume was discovered on Governor Ralph Northam’s medical yearbook page. Within hours, he apologized. Then the next day, he denied he was in the picture.

Most people are asking Governor Northham to step down, but he isn’t budging… which leaves everyone to wonder: How does Virginia move forward? And how can Governor Northam possibly lead?

As always, you can jump to a section of the show by using our available chapters:

• Introduction 

• Highlight / Lowlight

• Northam Stays Put

• Margaret Brennan Interviews Trump

• Rankings 

• Closing 

The shows we discuss today include:

• State of the Union on CNN

• Meet the Press on NBC

• Face the Nation on CBS

• This Week on ABC

Email us at [email protected] or you can send us your feedback @PolilogueCast. You can also follow us at @sotonaomi_ and @bsteidle

Want to stalk us some more? Check out some of our other work: 

Brendan’s website: www.armisticedesigns.com 
Naomi's website: www.startwithaquestion.org

Due to travel delays, the full recap and analysis of the Sunday shows from February 3 will be released a day late on Tuesday morning, February 5.

Brendan, however, has some exciting observations after attending a live taping of Meet the Press in Washington, DC this morning!

Email us at [email protected] or you can send us your feedback @PolilogueCast. You can also follow us at @sotonaomi_ and @bsteidle

Want to stalk us some more? Check out some of our other work: 

Brendan’s website: www.armisticedesigns.com 
Naomi's website: www.startwithaquestion.org

One of the motivations for starting Polilogue was our frustration of the 2016 election. Trump was allowed to call into the Sunday talk shows. The panels frequently dismissed his campaign and his candidacy. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton rarely went on the shows. And over and over again, we saw the shows focus on the wrong parts of the Democratic and Republican campaigns.

So for 2020, we’re keeping a close eye on how the Sunday talk shows cover the next presidential election. In today’s episode of Polilogue, we look at how the shows have introduced five early candidates and the performances of these presidential hopefuls.

As always, you can jump to a section of the show by using our available chapters:

• Introduction 

• John Delaney

• Julian Castro

• Bill DeBlasio

• Kirsten Gillibrand

• Tulsi Gabbard

• Closing 

The shows we discuss today include:

• State of the Union on CNN

• Meet the Press on NBC

• Face the Nation on CBS

• This Week on ABC

Email us at [email protected] or you can send us your feedback @PolilogueCast. You can also follow us at @sotonaomi_ and @bsteidle

Want to stalk us some more? Check out some of our other work: 

Brendan’s website: www.armisticedesigns.com 
Naomi's website: www.startwithaquestion.org

In an effort to reopen the government, the  Trump administration proposed temporary protection for immigrants in the DACA and TPS programs for $5.7 billion in border money. Democrats remain firm: no deal until President Trump reopens the government. 

In the midst of this infighting, 800,000 federal workers are without pay and millions of dollars are being lost in communities across the country. 

President Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani also made news this morning when he admitted that the Moscow trump tower was an effort up and until the election. 

As always, you can jump to a section of the show by using our available chapters:

• Introduction 

• Highlight / Lowlight

• Shutdown Developments

• The Wall Hits a Wall

• One Giuliani, Two Hosts

• Rankings 

• Closing 

The shows we discuss today include:

• State of the Union on CNN

• Meet the Press on NBC

• Face the Nation on CBS

• This Week on ABC

Email us at [email protected] or you can send us your feedback @PolilogueCast. You can also follow us at @sotonaomi_ and @bsteidle

Want to stalk us some more? Check out some of our other work: 

Brendan’s website: www.armisticedesigns.com 
Naomi's website: www.startwithaquestion.org

We are officially in the longest government shutdown in American history. As Congressional Democrats and the White House fail to make to any movement on a compromise, President Trump threatens to declare a national emergency to obtain funding for his border wall.

We also examine the disturbing news by the New York Times that the FBI opened an investigation into President Trump to determine if he was secretly working for Russia. Most Sunday news treated this news as just another piece of White House chaos. Meet the Press was the only show to explain the gravity of the Times’ reporting. 

As always, you can jump to a section of the show by using our available chapters:

• Introduction

• Highlight/Lowlight

• Shutdown Negotiation Stalls 

• What’s an Emergency?

• Obstruction may be Collusion 

• Show rankings 

• Closing

The shows we discuss today include:

• State of the Union on CNN

• Meet the Press on NBC

• Face the Nation on CBS

• This Week on ABC

You can read the New York Times article we discuss in segment three here.

Email us at [email protected] or you can send us your feedback @PolilogueCast. You can also follow us at @sotonaomi_ and @bsteidle

Want to stalk us some more? Check out some of our other work: 

Brendan’s website: www.armisticedesigns.com 
Naomi's website: www.startwithaquestion.org