This week, Matt and Brian look ahead to looming questions that, under normal circumstances, would be paint-by-numbers developments in a presidential election year: running-mate selection and debates.

* President Biden recently confirmed that he intends to debate Donald Trump. Is this a wise decision, and how should he approach the task?

* Do Biden’s communication and strategic arms have the right acumen to see Biden through debates and other, similar challenges?

* Can Trump have a running mate without attempting to steal his or her money or implicate them in the destruction of American democracy?

Then, for paid subscribers, Brian and Matt apply questions raised by the new movie Civil War to real-life, Trump-era political violence incitement. With Trump running free from consequences, and promising to pardon insurrectionists, what’s to stop him from applying the logic of January 6-style mob violence to other goals he may have? Is the logical endpoint of Trumpism a full-scale rebellion from one direction or another, or something slower-burning and harder to discourage? What can liberals and Democrats do to persuade people that the threat is real, without essentially guilt-tripping people into voting blue? We hope you enjoy the conversation, and if you’d like to listen to the whole thing, you can upgrade to paid for a private feed that gets you access to the complete Politix archive and all future episodes.

Further reading:

* The New York Post reports that the White House wanted to drive Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre out of her job, but chickened out.

* RELATEDLY: Joe Biden’s uncle really did crash his warplane in a part of the world where there were lots of cannibals.

* Brian on why Democratic frustrations with the mainstream press were bound to boil over, and where things go from here.

* Shelby Talcott on how nobody in GOP politics has any idea what Trump wants in a running mate because he’s distracted, selfish, and susceptible to flattery.

* Brian on Civil War (with spoilers).

With Matt back from vacation, he and Brian discuss a bunch of important developments in the news, and zoom out to assess whether it’s really changed race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump:

* Has polling data improved enough to make Biden the favorite to win?

* Have developments like Biden’s patient victory in the fight over Ukraine aid, careful management of hostilities between Israel and Iran, and solid economic news contributed to the uptick?

* Is Trump’s legal jeopardy/farting finally taking a toll on his numbers?

Then, paid subscribers hear an assessment of the candidates’ upside or downside potential. Is Biden poised to benefit from a booming economy as inflation memories recede? Does Donald Trump have any way to improve his standing (as opposed to dragging Biden down)? Will Simon Rosenberg prediction that Biden would pull ahead by late April then widen his lead over the summer be vindicated? We hope you enjoy the conversation, and if you’d like to listen to the whole thing, you can upgrade to paid for a private feed that gets you access to the complete Politix archive and all future episodes.

Further reading:

* Brian on how a subset of reflexive critics, including progressives, have become economy deniers, and are holding Biden’s approval polling down.

* Matt on how negativity is making everyone miserable.

* Simon Rosenberg’s prediction, from Greg Sargent’s podcast.

With Matt on vacation this week, Brian hosts a conversation with Rebecca Roiphe, a New York Law School professor and former Manhattan prosecutor who enforced the very laws Donald Trump is charged with breaking in his first criminal trial. They discuss:

* Why legal commentators who criticized District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s theory of the case were factually wrong about the laws at issue and how they are applied;

* The importance of enforcing these laws, whether violators represent big businesses or small businesses, and whether their motives were financial, political, personal, or a combination thereof;

* Whether it would’ve been a breach of duty for Bragg not to bring charges in this case.

Then, paid subscribers hear a more abstract conversation about legal discourse and ethics. Why were so many legal and media elites, including many Trump critics, so eager to line up against Bragg, even as they lacked the subject-matter expertise to know whether Bragg had exceeded his mandate? Even if Bragg had gone fishing for a reason to try Trump on felony charges, would that be a violation of his ethical obligations or his oath of office? Should Trump’s status as an exceptionally high-profile political leader insulate him in any way from accountability for lower-tier felonies, even if law-enforcement officers understand him to be a serial scofflaw?

We hope you enjoy the conversation, and if you’d like to listen to the whole thing, you can upgrade to paid for a private feed that gets you access to the complete Politix archive and all future episodes.

Correction: Rebecca is a professor at New York Law School, not a New York University law school professor. Brian regrets the error.

Further reading:

* Brian on why Joe Biden should break his vow of silence and begin commenting on the hush-money case.

* Mark Joseph Stern on why he was wrong, initially, to be skeptical of Alvin Bragg’s case and what made him come around.

* There’s a new Stormy Daniels documentary on Peacock.

This week on Politix, Matt and Brian step back from the news cycle to examine Donald Trump’s policy agenda, and the weird extent to which he’s getting a pass on toxic ideas:

* His plan for an across the board 10 percent tariff would make Americans pay more for virtually everything, including groceries;

* A big immigration crackdown like the one he’s promised would raise prices further;

* But since these ideas are coded as pro American-worker, he faces little pushback for the terrible consequences they’d entail.

Then, paid subscribers get a deeper look at whether the threat of these consequences will eventually catch up with Trump, and hear an extended analogy between the politics of tariffs (which would cause more hardship) and the long saga of Medicare for all. Why did Medicare for all lose popularity over time? Might the same thing happen to Trump’s plan to raise banana and coffee prices? And if the key to selling policy is to cloak it in populist language (tariffs, Medicare) could Biden shake up the race by updating his agenda with ideas that unite the Democratic base and appeal to the public more broadly? We hope you’ll upgrade to paid so you can enjoy the whole episode, especially if you’re listening from the White House or Biden campaign headquarters!

Further reading:

* Matt on House Republicans’ (bad) plan for America.

* Brian with a reminder that the 2024 election is about real things.

* CAP: “Trump’s Tariff Would Cost the Typical American Household Roughly $1,500 Each Year.”

This week on Politix, Brian returns from a long weekend in real America (western Mexico) with some fresh insight on how Trump-stalgia works. He and Matt discuss:

* Why fewer people disapprove of Trump lately and why more people seemingly think his sharpest critics have overstated their case;

* How lag effects (the persistence of the pandemic and the overturning of Roe after Trump’s term ended) has insulated him from accountability;

* Whether Trump’s unique responsibility for the loss of abortion rights and his status as a Florida resident mean this issue will eventually catch up with him.

Then, we offer paid subscribers an in-depth look at how public opinion on abortion has changed in the past two years, even if it hasn’t (yet) dragged Trump down. We examine the roles paid and free media might play in making Trump synonymous with Dobbs, and think through ways both party leaders and activists could draw more public attention to abortion rights per se and Trump’s role in abolishing them. Do Democrats have a problem generating free media in general? And finally, a raging debate over which kinds of beach-side resorts are best for aging but young-at-heart millennials. It was a clarifying discussion across the board, and if you’re interested in fleshing all that out we hope you’ll upgrade to paid, and enjoy the whole episode!

Further reading:

* Matt on the new politics of abortion rights.

* Brian on the broader political implications of changing abortion opinion—what if public-opinion polling on high-salience issues just isn’t that useful?

* How long can Trump hide from weighing in on the DeSantis abortion ban in his home state, and on whether Florida voters should pass a referendum guaranteeing abortion access?

This week on Politix, Julian Sanchez joins Matt and Brian to discuss:

* Donald Trump’s uncanny ability to evade justice;

* Why a panel of New York appeals court judges let him mostly off the hook by staving off the seizure of his assets in his civil-fraud case;

* What liberals and Democrats can do to make these civil verdicts a greater political liability for him.

Then, paid subscribers get a lengthier debate over the merits of banning TikTok in the U.S. Are the privacy or propaganda concerns articulated by U.S. lawmakers valid? Is it hard-nosed realpolitik to engage in tit-for-tat social-media bans with China, or a naive own goal that will tarnish the example America’s open society sets for the world? Should we just be happy to see any major social media company lose its hold on American users, no matter the method? We hashed all of that out, and if you’d like to hear where we landed, upgrade to paid, and enjoy the whole episode!

Further reading:

* Julian’s forthcoming Substack, Non-Content!

* Matt’s broad case against TikTok.

* Brian on the liberal and right-wing psychologies driving Trump-impunity politics.

This week on Politix, Matt and Brian discuss:

* Donald Trump’s warning of “a bloodbath for the whole country” if he loses;

* The relative political value of exploiting Trump’s authoritarian appeals vs. his agenda of tax breaks for rich people and big entitlement cuts;

* The potential risk of attacking Trump in scattershot fashion, rather than homing in on his biggest vulnerabilities

Then, paid subscribers get a lengthier discussion of two potential pitfalls of resistance politics: First, does freaking out over Trump’s threats of violence come at a cost if it’s done in a way that conveys fear and weakness? Second, do liberals undermine their core values of reason and nuance by reading Trump’s provocations in the most menacing possible light? Is there any good way to make Trump accountable for his words without getting suckered into pedantic textual debates about whether his words were literal or figurative. If you’d like to hear us take a stab at those questions, upgrade to paid, and enjoy the whole episode!

Further reading:

* Matt admits it: The orange man is bad!

* Brian and AOC discuss the disconnect between Democrats’ democracy appeals and their lackluster approach to accountability politics.

* Trump runs to the safety of Breitbart to walk back his flirtation with Social Security and Medicare.

This week on Politix, Matt and Brian discuss:

* The biggest political takeaways from Joe Biden’s State of the Union address;

* Whether the press corps will do any soul searching after getting bamboozled by Republican special counsel Robert Hur;

* Can Politix convince Merrick Garland to resign?

Then, paid subscribers get a deep analysis of Trump’s apparent (and abrupt) decision to place Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block, after years of insisting he’d never cut them. What precipitated the reversal? Does it have anything to do with his simultaneous reversals on the right-wing Bud Light boycott and the fate of TikTok, the Chinese-owned social-media company? Did he sell his position on entitlements to right-wing billionaires because he’s desperate for campaign and legal-expense money? And what can Democrats do to drive. If you’re interested in the answers to these questions, upgrade to paid, and enjoy the whole episode!

Further reading:

* Brian on how Trump’s Social Security/Medicare flip flop brings the nexus between his policy agenda and personal corruption into focus.

* Matt on how Trump’s position on TikTok was correct, until he abandoned it corruptly.

* What does Project 2025 have to say about Medicare?

This week on Politix, Matt and Brian discuss:

* How Donald Trump wriggled away from his disastrous pandemic response and the horribleness of 2020;

* Whether Joe Biden’s pandemic response made voters more inclined to forgive Trump;

* The extent to which the switcheroo was the product of rational thinking vs. the political strategies of the two parties.

Then, paid subscribers get a prospective look at how Democrats persuade voters that their initial instinct to vote Trump out was correct. Can they raise the salience of the pandemic annus horribillis again after almost everyone has moved on? Will they ask the canonical question: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Would they forgive Biden for a year of inflation if they understood it as part of the long, difficult process of fixing an economy Trump broke—and will break again? Upgrade to find out!

Further reading:

* The final report of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis.

* Brian on the political perils of always looking forward, not backward.

* Evan Osnos on Biden’s defiant confidence in the face of losing poll numbers.

In this special crossover episode, The Bulwark's Tim Miller joins Matt and Brian to answer burning questions like:

* Why have most Never Trumpers have embraced liberalism and the Democratic Party to some degree or another, rather than remain conservative critics within the GOP?

* If Republicans sincerely believe life begins at fertilization, why are they pretending to be the saviors of IVF?

* How (and where) do Republican operatives learn to be remorselessly unconcerned with norms, fairness, and consistency?

* Do Republicans have a good laugh when Democrats pass up opportunities to hold Donald Trump accountable, knowing how they’d react if the shoe were on the other foot?

* What would it look like from the inside if Republicans discovered Joe Biden committed half a billion dollars in fraud, or teamed up with foreign intelligence agents to frame Donald Trump?

If you’re enjoying the conversation and hit that paywall, we hope you’ll consider upgrading to hear the rest, along with all our past episodes and episodes to come.

We also offered Tim the opportunity to quiz Matt and Brian about Democrats, the tensions and dysfunctions that complicate big-tent liberalism, and what they would change about Democratic politics to improve Joe Biden’s chances in November, if they could only pick one thing. You can listen to that half of the crossover on The Bulwark podcast.