The Hot Dish

Rural voters keep hearing about scandal in Washington, but most of it never gets past the surface. Tim Miller, host of the Bulwark Podcast, joins Heidi to dig into what's actually driving political corruption right now, from foreign money shaping U.S. policy to the insider trading scandals barely making headlines.

Tim traces how political corruption has evolved, from straightforward kickbacks to the foreign money now quietly steering decisions on war and energy. He and Heidi also get into what's happening back home in North Dakota, where data centers are reshaping local economies and testing what rural communities are willing to trade for growth.

In this episode:

• How decades of scandal have made it normal for politicians to profit off their power
• How foreign money, especially from the Gulf states, shapes U.S. decisions on war and energy
• Insider trading and bribery in how political campaigns get funded
• What the lawsuits against Trump show about deeper corruption
• The midterm outlook in Iowa and North Dakota, and why low voter enthusiasm could hurt incumbents
• How data centers are changing rural economies and who actually benefits
• Why Democrats keep losing the messaging fight, and what could turn that around

Connect with Tim Miller

Bulwark Podcast

Twitter

Corruption doesn't announce itself. Tim and Heidi tell you where to actually look.

The Hot Dish is brought to you by the One Country Project. To learn more, visit OneCountryProject.org, or find us on Substack (Onecountryproject.substack.com), and on YouTube, Bluesky, and Facebook (@onecountryproject).

• (00:00) - -- Opening: family updates and life outside politics

Trump is fighting to control how states run their own elections, and the fallout could shape the midterms before a vote is cast. Aaron Rupar, an independent journalist who's tracked Trump and the media covering him for years, joins Heidi and Joel to break down what's happening and why it matters outside Washington.

Aaron explains how he tells what's real from what isn't, in a news cycle built for speed, and why he left Vox to build Public Notice on his own terms. He also gets into how Twitter/X, Bluesky, and Substack have split the audience for political news, and what that means when rural voters end up with different versions of the same story depending on where they look.

In this episode:

• What Trump's push for more control over state elections actually means
• How Aaron fact-checks claims in real time without getting it wrong
• Why he left Vox to go independent, and what changed
• Platform fragmentation: Twitter/X, Bluesky, Substack, and what it does to political coverage
• The enthusiasm gap heading into the midterms, on both sides

Connect with Aaron Rupar:

• Substack
• Bluesky

Aaron's argument is simple. Watch the elections fight, not the noise around it.

The Hot Dish is brought to you by the One Country Project. To learn more, visit OneCountryProject.org, or find us on Substack (Onecountryproject.substack.com), and on YouTube, Bluesky, and Facebook (@onecountryproject).

• (00:00) - – Introduction: Aaron Rupar's role tracking political misinformation

Data centers are showing up in rural counties across the country, and not everyone is happy about it. Isaac Wright, a strategist who's spent two decades working rural campaigns, joins Heidi and Joel to talk about why that is, what tariffs have cost farmers selling to Brazil and China, and why he sees real opportunity for Democrats in Iowa and Ohio in the midterms.

Isaac explains why rural voters respond to authenticity and local trust over national talking points, and what Rob Sand's win in Iowa says about how to build that trust. He also gets into AI regulation, and what it would look like for policy to actually reflect the values Democrats say they hold.

In this episode:

• Why Iowa and Ohio look like real opportunities this cycle
• Data centers: local jobs versus strain on water and power
• What tariffs on Brazil and China have cost farmers
• Building trust and likability in rural races
• What it actually means to "localize" a campaign

Connect with Isaac Wright:

• LinkedIn

Isaac makes a clear case for what it takes to win back rural voters, one county at a time.

The Hot Dish is brought to you by the One Country Project. To learn more, visit OneCountryProject.org, or find us on Substack (Onecountryproject.substack.com), and on YouTube, Bluesky, and Facebook (@onecountryproject).

• (00:00) - - Introduction

Farm country has been waiting on a new farm bill for almost two years. Angie Craig, the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee and a Minnesota congresswoman now running for the state's open Senate seat, joins Heidi and Joel to talk about what's holding it up, what tariffs have cost rural families, and why farm bankruptcies are becoming as much a security question as an economic one.

Angie covers the imbalance that lets large agribusiness thrive while beginning farmers struggle to get a foothold, what immigration enforcement means for rural communities, and where she thinks the next farm bill needs to go if it's going to help anyone outside the biggest operations.

In this episode:

• The status of the farm bill and what it means for small and beginning farmers
• The impact of trade tariffs on U.S. agriculture
• Rising farm bankruptcies and farm suicides
• Rebuilding trust and economic resilience in rural communities
• Political dynamics in Congress between Republican and Democratic members
• Election timing and Minnesota's primary process
• ICE reform and immigration policy's effect on rural labor

Resources & Links:

Angie Craig Official Website

Connect with Angie Craig:

Instagram
Facebook
Twitter

Congresswoman Craig makes a solid case for where Washington has failed rural America, and where it goes from here. 

The Hot Dish is brought to you by the One Country Project. To learn more, visit OneCountryProject.org, or find us on Substack (Onecountryproject.substack.com), and on YouTube, Bluesky, and Facebook (@onecountryproject).

• (00:00) - - Introduction: Craig's district and rural policy focus

Screw worms nearly disappeared from American ranches sixty years ago. Dr. Eric Deeble, executive director of Americans for the Common Good and former Deputy Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs at USDA under the Biden Administration, has watched them find their way back, and he joins Heidi and Joel to explain what this parasitic fly means for livestock, trade, and the food supply.

Eric covers the biology behind the outbreak, how fast one infected animal can spread it, and why the fly is finding its way north again. He also gets into a newer technique for breeding sterile flies that could make eradication cheaper this time around.

In this episode:

• Why screw worms target living tissue and what that means for treatment
• How a sterile insect technique wiped out the fly from the U.S. the first time
• What let the fly move north again
• The economic risk ranchers face from one undetected outbreak
• How egg sexing could lower the cost of eradication

Resources & Links
 Americans for the Common Good
 

Connect with Eric Deeble on:
LinkedIn

Sixty years of eradication work is unraveling. Eric explains what it'll take to fix that.

The Hot Dish is brought to you by the One Country Project. To learn more, visit OneCountryProject.org, or find us on Substack (Onecountryproject.substack.com), and on YouTube, Bluesky, and Facebook (@onecountryproject).

• (00:00) - - Why screw worm's return matters to agriculture

For America's 250th birthday, Heidi and Joel skip the fireworks and head for the ballpark, and they bring their guest, Bob Kendrick, along. He is the President of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri. The museum is just a few blocks away from where the team owners established a league of their own in 1920. Bob has spent three decades making sure that the players and the stories of the Negro League are not forgotten.

Bob walks Heidi and Joel through why some of the best baseball in the country got played on fields most fans never read about, how a club from Jamestown, North Dakota beat a lineup of big-league stars, and what happened to the Negro Leagues the day Jackie Robinson finally got his shot. Bob has answers and a lot of good stories to go with them.

In this episode:

• How Jim Crow forced Black players into their own leagues, and how they answered on the field
• Satchel Paige, Hank Aaron, Jackie Robinson, and careers the majors delayed or erased
• Why Negro Leagues games often outdrew the majors, and the talent gap that never existed
• Larry Doby and the different fight the American League's first Black player faced
• How World War II shifted the country's willingness to integrate its pastime

Resources & Links

Negro Leagues Baseball Museum

Connect with Bob Kendrick on:

Linkedin

Twitter

Two hundred fifty years in, America’s pastime still has a few chapters that are not told enough. Tune in. 

The Hot Dish is brought to you by the One Country Project. To learn more, visit OneCountryProject.org, or find us on Substack (Onecountryproject.substack.com), and on YouTube, Bluesky, and Facebook (@onecountryproject).

• (00:00) - - Americana, baseball, and the show's focus

For Heidi, the reflecting pool on the National Mall in D.C. is more than a tourist attraction; it's a metaphor for how Washington handles problems. Years of algae, cloudy water, and expensive repairs reflect a familiar pattern: ignore an issue until it becomes a crisis, then spend money on a temporary fix rather than addressing the underlying cause. She believes rural America has been treated the same way for decades.

In this quick episode of The Hot Dish, Heidi talks about how low crop prices, tariffs, and bad policy keep hurting the people who actually farm the land. She also gives a peek at upcoming conversations with Joel.

The Hot Dish is brought to you by the One Country Project. To learn more, visit OneCountryProject.org, or find us on Substack (Onecountryproject.substack.com), and on YouTube, Bluesky, and Facebook (@onecountryproject)

• (02:00) - - Metaphor of the reflecting pool and impulsive government decisions

Nick Levendofsky has spent years watching Washington write farm bills that land badly in the field. As director of the Kansas Farmers Union, he's tracked input costs climbing, cattle herds shrinking, and processing power concentrating into fewer hands, and he's done sugarcoating what that means.

While Heidi is out this week, Joel sits down with Nick to work through where the farm bill actually stands, why the House version leaves too much on the table, and what trade wars cost rural markets long after the headlines move on.

In this episode:

• Why the House farm bill misses on crop insurance, antitrust, and beginning farmers
• The bipartisan math required to pass anything that actually sticks
• How packers and processors have shifted market power away from producers
• What tariffs and trade disruptions do to rural markets over the long run
• The structural problems no single bill can fix, and where the pressure points are

Resources & Links

Kansas Farmers Union

Connect with Nick Levendofsky on:

LinkedIn

The farm bill keeps falling short, and farmers can't afford to wait. Tune in, get informed, and find out what real reform actually looks like.

The Hot Dish is brought to you by the One Country Project. To learn more, visit OneCountryProject.org, or find us on Substack (Onecountryproject.substack.com), and on YouTube, Bluesky, and Facebook (@onecountryproject).

• (00:00) - Overview of today's focus on U.S. farm policy challenges

Buckle up, history buffs and democracy defenders. We're sitting down with Ruth Ben-Ghiat, professor of history and Italian studies at New York University, author of Strongman, and one of the leading experts on authoritarianism, to connect the dots between today's political chaos and the playbooks of history's most dangerous leaders. The parallels are less "ancient history" and more "this week's headlines," and Ruth is here to decode every one of them.

Heidi and Joel also unpack the shifting electoral map, with a look at Senate battlegrounds, emerging gubernatorial contests, and what the current political climate means for voters heading into the next cycle.

In this episode:

• How today's administration mirrors the tactics of historic autocrats
• The anatomy of a cult of personality, and how they're built
• The "only I can do it" syndrome and why it resonates
• The TINA trap: why "There Is No Alternative" is so dangerous
• What the bunker mentality reveals about autocratic fear
• Religion, symbols, and grievance as tools of authoritarian power
• The warning signs of democratic erosion, and how fast it moves
• Why American resilience may be the one thing autocrats can't plan for

Connect with Ruth Ben-Ghiat on:
       Twitter
       Substack: Lucid

The playbook for autocracy isn't buried in history books; it's playing out in real time. Tune in, get informed, and maybe think twice before you call this just another political phase.

The Hot Dish is brought to you by the One Country Project. To learn more, visit OneCountryProject.org, or find us on Substack (Onecountryproject.substack.com), and on YouTube, Bluesky, and Facebook (@onecountryproject).

• (00:00) - Introduction to Ruth Ben-Ghiat's expertise on authoritarianism

This episode pulls back the curtain on the AI gold rush, the data centers, the water bills, the NDAs, and what it all means for rural communities that rarely have a seat at the table.

AI sounds like the future, but the costs are landing unevenly, especially outside major cities. Heidi and Joel join Dr. Emily Bender and Dr. Alex Hanna to dig into the real, and rarely discussed, toll of our digital infrastructure boom, from secretive corporate deals to environmental strain, and ask the question nobody in Silicon Valley wants answered: who actually pays the price?

In this episode:

• The gap between AI hype and reality, and why it matters
• Data centers sprouting faster than the regulations meant to govern them
• The true costs to energy, water, and local infrastructure that corporations aren't advertising
• Public resistance, NDA nightmares, and the political pressure to build fast
• Why regulation hasn't kept pace and how communities are pushing back
• The risks of AI overreliance, hallucinations, and why source-checking matters
• Where international regulation stands and the gap in U.S. policy

Guests:

• Emily Bender - Twitter | University Profile
• Alex Hanna’s Website
• DAIR Institute

The AI boom isn't slowing down, but neither are the people asking the hard questions. Tune in, get informed, and maybe think twice before you trust the hype.

The Hot Dish is brought to you by the One Country Project. To learn more, visit OneCountryProject.org, or find us on Substack (Onecountryproject.substack.com), and on YouTube, Bluesky, and Facebook (@onecountryproject).