After serving 18 years in the Senate, and losing last November, Sherrod Brown analyzes what it will take for Democrats to recover from the defeats of 2024, and comments on his own political future – he could run for senator or for governor in 2026.

Also on this episode: Dahlia Lithwick explains three key court cases where Trump suffered major defeats, which, she argues, are likely to have an “exponential effect” on other judges. Meanwhile we are seeing a rising tide of activism in the streets. Dahlia writes about the law and the courts for Slate and hosts the ‘Amicus’ podcast.

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Kevin Schultz, Chair of the Department of History at the University of Illinois Chicago, joins the program to talk about his new book Why Everyone Hates White Liberals (Including White Liberals): A History. In this first part of the discussion, they get into liberalism’s consistent spirit yet inconsistent character, the transition from progressivism to liberalism in America in the early 20th century, FDR’s use of the word “liberal” as a sort of marketing tool, the height of the “white liberal,” William F. Buckley and the modern American conservative movement, the New Left’s opposition to “the liberal order,” the perception of white liberals in the civil rights movement, and more. 

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On this episode of The Time of Monsters, Chris Lehmann joins Jeet Heer to discuss the Group Chats where billionaires scheme and moan.

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May Day is no more, but the world, sadly, does not revolve around the left.

On this week's news roundup: a new report on 2024 global military spending shockingly shows it has increased (2:05); the UN’s World Food Programme is out of food in Gaza (4:05), the IDF herds people into Rafah (5:55), and the PLO creates a vice presidency in anticipation of a successor to Mahmoud Abbas (8:32); in Syria, violence between security forces and Druze militias kills over 70 people (12:18); the US bombs a migrant center in Yemen (16:14) as Houthi/Ansar Allah forces continue to shoot down drones (17:58); the Iran-US nuclear talks have been postponed (19:35); there are rumblings of imminent armed conflict between India and Pakistan (21:48); Trump claims to have spoken with president of China Xi Jinping as both economies take a hit from the former’s tariffs (24:31); a court ruling may upend South Korea’s election (28:00); Nigeria sees an increase in jihadist violence (30:00); Congolese and Rwandan foreign ministers set a deadline for a peace deal (32:10); in Russia-Ukraine, Russia’s Kursk operation appears to be at its end (34:03), Trump and Zelensky meet at Pope Francis’ funeral (35:33), and the US and Ukraine finally sign a mineral deal (37:26); the Trump administration designates gangs in Haiti as terrorist groups (39:54); the Liberal Party wins Canada’s election (41:19); Donald Trump relieves Mike Waltz of duty as national security advisor, but appoints him as UN ambassador (44:03); and the US is negotiating with Rwanda so that the latter may traffick migrants on the former’s behalf (48:50). 

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On this episode of Tech Won't Save Us, Paris Marx is joined by Jason Koebler to discuss the economy behind AI slop generation, how people are building businesses on AI-generated images, and the wider consequences of their proliferation on social media. 

Jason Koebler is a cofounder of 404 Media and cohost of the 404 Media Podcast.

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Donald Trump is "the greatest threat to American universities since the Red Scare of the 1950s"—that’s what Princeton’s president Christopher Eisgruber said. Others say that what Trump is doing is worse. Beverly Gage comments – she wrote “G-Man,” the award-winning biography of J. Edgar Hoover.

Also on this episode: In 1948, Alger Hiss, a prominent New Deal Democrat, was convicted of perjury for testifying that he had not been a Soviet spy. The conventional wisdom is that he was probably guilty. Now, Jeff Kisseloff says it’s not hard to show that Hiss was innocent; the hard part is figuring out who framed him. Jeff’s new book is “Rewriting Hisstory: A Fifty-Year Journey to Uncover the Truth About Alger Hiss.”

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Please listen to ⁠⁠our Sino-Soviet primer episode⁠⁠ and ⁠part one of this discussion⁠ for some background!

On this episode of American Prestige, Danny and Derek welcome back Jeremy Friedman, assistant professor in the Business, Government, and International Economy at Harvard, to talk about the Sino-Soviet Split. The conversation picks up in the 1960s with the Soviets’ push for peaceful coexistence vs the PRC and developing world’s push for anti-imperialist armed struggle, how the Cultural Revolution affects the calculation, Mao’s growing distrust of the USSR, the split itself, ideological vanguardism vs elitism, imperialism without capitalism, whether a split was inevitable, and more. 

Grab a copy of Jeremy’s book⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Shadow Cold War: The Sino-Soviet Competition for the Third World⁠⁠!

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Donald Trump’s tariff war is usually framed in terms of how it would impact consumers and America’s relationship with other countries, but it is also part of a larger project to remake taxation policy. Trump is very explicit that he wants tariffs to replace personal and corporate taxes with tariffs as the main source of revenue. As such, tariffs are a sales tax, of a particularly regressive sort. I talk to Marshall Steinbaum, an economist at the University of Utah, about how tariff’s fit in with Trump’s larger social vision of a plutocratic society, something that can also be seen in how the White House is cracking down on student debt holders. We take up this and other economic matters, bringing a class analysis to the business news. 

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Derek makes his grand return to the AP newsroom! This week: Pope Francis dies (0:30); India sees the worst attack on civilians in Kashmir in years, prompting fallout on India-Pakistan relations (6:35); the US carries out its deadliest airstrike on Yemen to date (14:39); Qatar and Egypt propose a new ceasefire plan for Gaza (18:07); the US and Iran see progress in their nuclear talks, but the Trump administration continues to demand zero enrichment (21:27); Trump has once again changed course on tariffs (26:28); in Sudan, the RSF closes in on Al-Fashir (29:46); it is unclear whether peace talks for the DRC-M23 conflict are making progress (32:30); Russia’s operation in Kursk nears its end (35:10); Vladimir Putin offers to halt the war at the current front line, but this and Trump’s peace proposal meet resistance from Zelensky (36:33); the US State Department releases a reorganization plan (45:13); and more leaks and discord are apparent at the US Department of Defense under Pete Hegseth (48:01).

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Paris Marx is joined by Laleh Khalili to discuss Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son, the structural factors that allowed him to build an empire, and the many ways he’s shaped the modern tech industry.

Laleh Khalili is Professor of Gulf Studies at the University of Exeter and the author of Sinews of War and Trade and her forthcoming book Extractive Capitalism.

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