The Fifth Column

The Fifth Column

By Kmele Foster, Michael Moynihan, and Matt WelchComedy
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  • Ranking

    6th

    on News & Politics

  • Favorites

    896

    Followers

  • Typical duration

    33 min

    per episode

  • If it hooks

    44%

    finish an episode

Based on Podcast App listening data

The Fifth Column episodes

  • Can the Democratic Center Hold? (#579)

    Yes, we want accolades. Yes, we’re shamelessly asking for your vote:

    VOTE for The Fifth Column as the Best News & Politics Show

    Yemisi Egbewole is here and we will figure out how to pronounce her name….next time

    -A Democratic consultant defending Fox News out of the gate

    -Was Mike Lindell ever really a crackhead?

    -Ladies and gentlemen, the new White House press secretary, Katie Zachariah

    -Did we fuck Scott Jennings?

    -How does a WH press secretary actually prepare?

    -Kimberly Guilfoyle’s $100,000 AmEx problem

    -James Talarico’s imaginary stay in an Ohio psych ward

    -the art of standing out among 435 members of Congress

    -Abdul El-Sayed vs Mike Rogers in Michigan

    -Jon Ossoff and the case for normal Democrats

    -JD Vance’s interesting definition of socialism

    -Midterm Madness on Zachariah, Alaska, and Michigan

    -Trump gets it right on data centers. Until he doesn’t.

    -Brian Kilmeade stands up for Ukraine against Rachel Compost Duffy

    -Come watch us live in Connecticut!

    -What exactly is Third Way?

    -Yemisi’s heresies on crime and climate

    -Immigration and the Jamaican-Nigerian experience

    -Kmele and the Blacks of Connecticut

    -Where is the Democratic Party headed, and how much does the DSA matter?

    Prefer to watch & chat live with other members of the Fifdom? This episode premieres over on our YouTube channel at 12PM EST.

    JOIN US: https://quickcenter.fairfield.edu/2026-27-season-calendar/lectures/the-fifth-column-podcast.html

    Follow The Fifth Column

    YouTube: @wethefifthInstagram: @we.the.fifthX: @wethefifthTikTok: @wethefifthFacebook: @thefifthcolumn



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe
    1 hr 31 min
  • People Who Lie and People Who Die (w/ Sam Roberts) Members Only #349
    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com

    “There are no ordinary lives and everyone has a story”

    -Sam Roberts’ father takes him to see the Rosenbergs’ funeral

    -Fifty years in journalism and an unexpected career writing obituaries

    -Anna Nicole Smith and the brutality of British obituaries

    -Charlie Rangel’s complicated legacy

    -Who deserves a New York Times obituary?

    -Writing Rudy Giuliani’s obituary b…

    15 min
  • Europe Is Melting, Meritocracy Is Racist, and Everyone Gets Dignity (Episode #578)

    Did we mention we’re nominated…did you vote yet? If not, what in the actual fuck is your problem?

    -all the bad words are here

    -come to Fairfield on November 12th! (https://quickcenter.fairfield.edu/2026-27-season-calendar/lectures/the-fifth-column-podcast.html)

    -Trump in Nebraska….always a good sign for Republicans

    -Anal sex, picnics, breakfast in bed, lobster

    -Europe is melting! (still)

    -who will replace Macron?

    -France’s immigration problem

    -Sweden discovers gun crime

    -America, the assimilation machine

    -meritocracy is fucking fantastic

    -questions are bad when ethnicities are in front of them

    -Vivek, the big guy and the worst swing in baseball

    -Midterm Madness where candidate quality counts

    -if you had to arrest one person at the New York Times…

    -MAGA-curious CBS boss and The Daily Beast

    -Theo Von discovers socialism

    JOIN US: https://quickcenter.fairfield.edu/2026-27-season-calendar/lectures/the-fifth-column-podcast.html

    The Fifth Column is in the running for Best News & Politics show. PLEASE HELP US TAKE HOME THE GOLD (or whatever the statue is made of, assuming there is one).

    Follow The Fifth Column

    YouTube: @wethefifthInstagram: @we.the.fifthX: @wethefifthTikTok: @wethefifthFacebook: @thefifthcolumn



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe
    1 hr 36 min
  • One Hitter: Why Oil Prices Could Get Much Worse (w/ Marshall Adkins) Members Only #348
    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com

    Marshall spent 25 years covering oil and gas at Raymond James before retiring this week. He joins the guys to explain what’s actually driving prices higher, why diesel matters more than most people realize, and how war, refinery outages, and shrinking reserves have left the global energy market with very little room for error.

    Also, is Marshall the real

    45 min
  • The Weave Within the Weave (#577)

    …and Moynihan discusses Harvard’s artist in residence. Also, we’ve been nominated for something! vote for us in for the Signal Awards!

    -Kmele’s Cross-Country Trail of Tears

    -Trump Praises the Latinos

    -Yukon Cornelius and the Bumble

    -Coming Soon: Jason’s Weird Fetishes

    -Trump Talks to Time

    -The Weave We Go

    -No Fatties, No Trannies, No Weirdos

    -It’s Worse Because It’s Worse

    -Saving Western Civilization, One Taxpayer-Funded Ad at a Time

    -Sen. Eric Schmitt’s Awesome Week

    -The Indian Question

    -Roxane Gay, Harvard Medical School Artist in Residence

    -Midterm Madness: New Hampshire, Michigan, Ohio and L.A.

    -How Not to Hijack an Israeli Plane

    The Fifth Column (A Podcast) is a viewer-listener publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

    The Fifth Column is in the running for Best News & Politics show. PLEASE HELP US TAKE HOME THE GOLD (or whatever the statue is made of, assuming there is one).

    ALSO: Vote for The Moynihan Report for:Best video podcastBest guest (William Shatner)Best episode

    VOTE VOTE VOTE (for us)

    Follow The Fifth Column

    YouTube: @wethefifthInstagram: @we.the.fifthX: @wethefifthTikTok: @wethefifthFacebook: @thefifthcolumn



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe
    1 hr 31 min
  • Sarah Hepola and the Life You Didn’t Choose (Members Only #347)
    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com

    Finally, a break from politics and a discussion about…love. If you like Sarah, check out her podcast with friend of The Fifth Column Nancy Rommelmann Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em Podcast

    -Sarah is back on the wagon (not really!)

    -The married man, the younger man, and the New Orleans homicide detective

    -Women’s tears are a recording device

    -Kavanaugh, memory, and the stories we tell ourselves

    …

    15 min
  • The UN, Wokeness, and Other Failed Institutions (Members Only #346)
    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com

    -being gay, doing drugs, that’s the Szeps life

    -Moynihan’s anti-Australian bigotry

    -the Lupita Nyong’o pronunciation challenge

    -Why is daddy wearing boobs?

    -this actor can play any ethnicity

    -Josh’s dad, the George Costanza of Australia

    -UN Clip-o-rama

    -in defense of the UN, sort of

    -can America afford to piss off all its allies?

    -Greta Thunberg goes to the Rena…

    14 min
  • The Algorithm Is the Editor-in-Chief (w/ David Pakman) Members Only #345
    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com

    -Pakman is a fan of this show. Will he regret saying this?

    -Kmele’s cult-adjacent upbringing

    -Pakman’s Argentina upbringing

    -Macklemore, Robert Kraft and the limits of independent media

    -Do people actually control their media diet?

    -Nick Fuentes, Fishback and Twitter not being real life

    -Pakman puts himself at the tip of the junk food pyramid

    -Should The Fifth…

    16 min
  • The Loyal Republican w/ Scott Jennings (#576)

    And is he gonna get that press secretary job or not?

    -Jennings the teetotaler

    -wtf happened to Moynihan’s hair?

    -Jennings’ working-class Kentucky origin story

    -back when Kentucky + West Virginia were swing states

    -Rush Limbaugh + Paul Harvey University

    -what would Rush make of $9K for stay-at-home moms?

    -what kind of Republican is Scott Jennings anyway?

    -why is Trump so unpopular?

    -tariffs, potash + the new Republican orthodoxy

    -the Greenland victory (?) lap begins

    -Scott’s muscular Republicanism meets the universities

    -Van Jones vs. his own side

    -Trump vs. CNN and the White House press pool

    -Scott Jennings, future press secretary?

    -Trump + Mamdani, together again

    -Texas gets way too interesting

    -Georgia gets weird

    -trying to have the one pundit take nobody else has

    -do not get in Scott Jennings’ personal space

    -does Trump have a corruption problem?

    -Trump crypto + the Kentucky coffee can

    -whatever happened to Republican “family values”?

    -Mitch McConnell is alive

    -has Tucker left the MAGA coalition?

    Prefer to watch & chat live with other members of the Fifdom? This episode premieres over on our YouTube channel at 12PM EST.

    The Fifth Column is a viewer/listener supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

    Follow The Fifth Column

    YouTube: @wethefifthInstagram: @we.the.fifthX: @wethefifthTikTok: @wethefifthFacebook: @thefifthcolumn



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe
    1 hr 41 min
  • Academically Unserious With Authoritarian Bureaucratic Aspirations (w/ Tyler Austin Harper) Members Only #344
    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com

    Tyler Austin Harper, staff writer for The Atlantic and co-host of the Time To Say Goodbye podcast joins Michael C. Moynihan & Matt Welch to talk about extreme fishing, picking socialsts as your fighters, and his recent pot-stirring essay “Why I quit the tenure track.”

    •It’s morning in America, or is it Japan?

    •The Night Fisher

    •Worse than Al Qaeda•A pro-America leftist

    •Why Tyler Austin Harper quit the …

    18 min

About The Fifth Column

From the publisher's feed

Your weekly rhetorical assault on the on the news cycle, the people who make it, and occasionally ourselves. Kmele Foster (Freethink), Michael Moynihan (Vice), and Matt Welch (Reason) talk and laugh…

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