At her confirmation hearing Wednesday, Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general, Pam Bondi, sought in some ways to project an apolitical aura. But Bondi also refused to answer direct questions about Trump’s threats to prosecute enemies, and dissembled about similar threats from Kash Patel, Trump’s pick to head the FBI. All this accidentally revealed something important. Bondi could not say straight out that she wouldn’t carry out Trump’s corrupt designs, because saying that could disqualify her in his eyes—which is itself the problem here. We talked to former prosecutor Mimi Rocah, who explains how Bondi exposed herself as an unreliable defender of the rule of law—and what that telegraphs about the coming hellscape of 2025.

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After Jack Smith released his final report on Donald Trump’s insurrection, Trump erupted, gloating over the failure to prosecute him. Meanwhile, Trump’s pick for Defense Secretary, MAGA hero Pete Hegseth, had some alarming moments at his confirmation hearing, and the MAGA cheerleading for him hints at ugly times ahead. Take this all together and Trump and MAGA look invincible right now. So we talked to historian Julian Zelizer, author of a good piece in The New Republic that reminds us that George W. Bush looked formidable in 2004, only to see the tide turn dramatically two years later. Zelizer discusses his new book, In Defense of Partisanship, and explains why Trump-MAGA’s grip on power may prove fragile, especially if Democrats fight them effectively.

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Donald Trump recently declared that the U.S. is a “disaster” and a “laughingstock all over the world.” In reality, by many metrics, the economy is quite good, and our recovery from covid has been an international success story. But Paul Krugman recently noticed something interesting: This could create problems for Trump. As Krugman asked on his excellent new Substack, how will he justify radical, across-the-board tariffs and mass deportations if things are going well? We talked to Krugman, who explains how Trump is likely to resort to gale-force levels of propaganda, how he’s threatening havoc with the economy, and how his voters are getting “brutally scammed” in the process. 

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Over the weekend, Steve Bannon’s fury at Elon Musk truly went off the rails. Bannon, who has been feuding with Musk over immigration, vowed that he will run Musk out of the MAGA movement by Inauguration Day, suggesting this battle will continue once Donald Trump is in office. This battle exposes major divisions in the MAGA movement—yet Democrats aren’t really trying to exploit them. Why not? We talked to Mona Charen of The Bulwark, who has a good new piece arguing that Democrats need to find their footing as a loyal opposition. She explains what the feud says about Trump, the MAGA movement, and the rise of global authoritarianism and fascism—and how Democrats can rise to the moment.

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This week, we learned that Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito spoke privately with Donald Trump to recommend a former clerk for a job. Jamie Raskin just tore into this news, urging Alito to recuse himself from Trump-related matters. This comes as Trump asked the high court to block a New York judge from sentencing him for his hush money conviction. What Raskin got right is to zero in on the corruption embedded in Trump’s relationship with the Supreme Court. After all, between this and Judge Aileen Cannon ordering Special Counsel Jack Smith not to release his report on the evidence he’s collected against Trump, the courts face a legitimacy crisis. We talked to Politico’s Kyle Cheney, who untangles all these stories and explains what’s coming next. Listen to this episode here.

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With wildfires raging in Los Angeles, Donald Trump unleashed some ugly and hateful tirades on Truth Social. He attacked California Governor Gavin Newsom with a vile slur, blamed the fires on him and President Biden, and even scapegoated environmental protections, which Newsom’s office dismissed as pure fiction. We think this is best seen as another example of how the MAGA right wing seeks to thoroughly degrade public life at every conceivable opportunity. We talked to Nicole Hemmer, a leading historian of the conservative movement and the right wing media. She explains how today’s MAGA derangement traces its lineage back many decades, and discusses how we should respond. Listen to this episode here.

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At a press conference on Tuesday, Donald Trump signaled that things are about to get very, very ugly. He wouldn’t rule out using military force to annex Greenland and the Panama Canal. He celebrated the idea that his threats to jail Mark Zuckerberg might have caused Zuckerberg to surrender to him. And Trump vowed to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. We talked to Jennifer Mercieca, a professor of rhetoric who writes about fascist tropes. She explains how Trump is attempting to acclimate Americans to expansionist nationalism and naked threats to jail people without cause to force them into line, and why that bodes so badly about what’s coming. Listen to this episode here.

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miserable for Republicans in Congress, particularly Mike Johnson. He’s signaling that his demands of the House Speaker will be borderline impossible to meet. He continues to declare that he wants virtually his entire agenda pass in one big bill, which will put Republicans in a deep bind. And he’s empowered Elon Musk to propose huge spending cuts that will create major political problems for Johnson and the GOP. With Republicans already battling over all of it, we talked to congressional scholar Norman Ornstein, who decodes Trump’s latest gambits and the GOP infighting over them—and explains what it all signals about the travails Trump will inflict on Johnson and Republicans, not to mention his own voters. Listen to this episode here.

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Over the weekend, Donald Trump unleashed an angry new rant over the news that his sentencing for his hush money conviction will proceed this week. Buried in Trump’s rage was a key tell: He’s signaling that he’ll use his conviction as a pretext to carry out his own autocratic second-term designs. There are also indications that he hopes to milk his sentencing toward other ugly ends. We talked to Adam Gurri, the editor of Liberal Currents magazine, who’s been making good arguments lately about Trump’s pursuit of “personalist” rule, which shapes everything around the personality at the center of his movement. Gurri explains how Trump is already signaling that this is where his presidency will go—and why that’s so ominous. Listen to this episode here.

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As of this recording, lawmakers are still chaotically rushing to avoid a government shutdown. And one thing is already clear from this fiasco: Donald Trump will betray his voters very, very badly. Trump and Elon Musk killed a compromise bill, demanding deep spending cuts that would inflict real harm on Trump country, portending a lot more like this to come. (After we recorded, the House voted down the second government funding bill House Republicans advanced.) We chatted with Paul Waldman, the co-author of White Rural Rage. He explains why all this is happening, the tensions it reveals among Republicans, and how the Trump-Musk alliance looks poised to sell out MAGA voters. 

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