The News Items Podcast

Charlie Cook, founder of the Cook Political Report, joins The News Items Podcast to discuss the upcoming midterm elections and the phenomenon he describes as the "red undertow,” why Democrats shouldn’t be too quick to celebrate on election night, and key races to watch.

Last May, John talked with Josh Tyrangiel about his book, 'AI for Good'. A lot has happened since then. The pace of AI's development has accelerated dramatically. The Hugging Face Hack and the PHP vulnerability revelations became major stories and reiterated for all of us just how treacherous AI can and will be. 

So we called him up and asked him to do another podcast about those two stories and the AI "story" more generally. Like all the good podcasts, it's really good when the guest is great. Josh is great. 

Profile: Josh Tyrangiel is a writer for The Atlantic. He was previously the editor of Bloomberg Businessweek and chief content officer for Bloomberg Media. A twelve-time Emmy and Peabody Award–winning producer, he created Vice News Tonight on HBO and has produced numerous feature-length documentaries for HBO, Netflix, and Apple TV. These days, when he's not writing for The Atlantic, he oversees the production of "Instadocs" on Netflix. The one on the Hugging Face Hack is terrific.

Hosted by John Ellis
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Produced by Katerina Barton

Jim Messina, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff to President Obama and the manager of his re-election campaign in 2012, joins The News Items Podcast to discuss the midterm elections. From the the "macro" political environment to the rural vote in the critical Senate races, to the map that leans Republican to a referendum to outlaw "dark money" in Montana, it's a "wide-ranging"  conversation, well worth your time.

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John Heilemann joins the News Items podcast to discuss the upcoming midterm elections. The conversation focuses on the challenges facing Republican candidates across the country. Heilemann notes that Republicans are actively "trimming" their electoral Congressional map, pulling resources from districts they once considered competitive. Meanwhile, Democrats are expanding their map of House, Senate and gubernatorial races. The big question is whether the GOP can hold the Senate in a very tough political environment. The conversation then moves on to discuss what the political environment might look like after the mid-terms.

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Produced by Katerina Barton

Benn Steil, director of international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, joins John Ellis to examine why the postwar global economic order is under growing strain, and how China sits at the center of that story. Steil traces the evolution from Bretton Woods and GATT to the WTO, arguing that China’s integration into the global trading system created enormous benefits while also exposing deep tensions between different economic models. The conversation covers the first “China shock,” tariffs, cheap Chinese steel, and the difficulty of economically disentangling the United States and China. Steil also explains why the dollar remains dominant, how stablecoins could actually reinforce that dominance, and why Chinese subsidies in EVs and artificial intelligence present a new competitive challenge. Finally, Ellis and Steil discuss what it really means to “win” the AI race—and whether U.S. trade and economic policy has a coherent strategy for getting there.

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Produced by Dale Eisinger

Perry Boyle, co-founder and CEO of MITS Capital, joins John Ellis from Kyiv to discuss how the war in Ukraine is reshaping modern warfare, and why he believes the West is not adapting fast enough. Boyle, a former Wall Street executive, explains how he went from retirement to investing in Ukrainian defense technology, backing startups working on drones, autonomous systems, AI, and battlefield components. He describes a war increasingly fought through sensors, robotics, data, and unmanned systems rather than traditional weapons, and argues that NATO doctrine and training remain badly behind Ukraine’s battlefield experience. Boyle also paints a stark picture of Ukraine’s financial and military position, warning that without substantially greater European support, the country could face severe difficulties sustaining the war. The conversation closes with his argument that Ukraine’s defense-tech ecosystem could become critical not only to Ukraine’s survival, but to Europe’s future security.

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Produced by Dale Eisinger

MIT political scientist Adam Berinsky joins John Ellis to examine why modern polling is harder to trust and what that means for politics. They discuss collapsing response rates, the limits of margin-of-error claims, online surveys, media incentives, and why “accuracy” can be a misleading way to rank pollsters. The conversation then turns to partisan media, negative advertising, voter turnout, political fragmentation, and the persistence of conspiracy theories. Berinsky explains why misinformation is so difficult to correct, who is most susceptible to political rumors, and why trusted messengers matter. Finally, they consider how artificial intelligence could reshape evidence, persuasion, and political decision-making.

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Hosted by John Ellis

Produced by Dale Eisinger

Rebecca Patterson, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and former chief investment strategist at Bridgewater Associates, joins John Ellis to explain why the U.S. and Japan intervened jointly to support the yen, and why Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is so focused on keeping U.S. yields under control. Patterson traces the risks from currency weakness, Treasury selling, and financial contagion, while arguing that today’s conditions are far from a repeat of the Asian financial crisis. The conversation then turns to prediction markets, where Patterson sees both useful forecasting signals and growing evidence of gambling-style behavior among younger users. Finally, Ellis and Patterson examine how AI could reshape finance, employment, and corporate costs, with open-source models, especially cheaper Chinese alternatives, putting pressure on the economics of the current AI boom. The result is a wide-ranging discussion of currencies, markets, political incentives, and the next phase of artificial intelligence over the coming two years.

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Produced by Dale Eisinger

John Ellis talks with AI researcher Alan D. Thompson about the rapid advance of artificial intelligence and the prospect of artificial superintelligence. Thompson explains his methods for tracking progress toward AGI, the growth of trillion-parameter models, and the narrowing gap between leading American and Chinese systems. They discuss the enormous capital investment in data centers, the economics of AI infrastructure, and the sectors most likely to be transformed first, including healthcare and mental health. The conversation also covers job displacement, the difficulty of managing the economic transition, the emergence of autonomous humanoid robots, and the possibility that increasingly capable systems could reshape governance and social institutions. Thompson argues that continued scaling remains the central force driving AI progress and that the next advances may arrive faster than expected.

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Hosted by John Ellis

Produced by Dale Eisinger

John Ellis talks with MIT political scientist Charles Stewart III about the mechanics, vulnerabilities and public perception of American elections. They revisit the disputed 2000 contest, the administration of the 2020 vote, and the reasons false claims of fraud gained traction despite extensive verification. Stewart explains why machine counting is generally more reliable than hand counts, why California takes longer to certify results, and how election officials measure performance. The conversation then turns to the 2026 midterms, including federal efforts involving voter files, mail ballots, and identification requirements. Stewart warns that close races could produce widespread challenges, pressure on local officials and disputes over seating members of Congress. He also discusses AI, election funding, and why he remains confident in the country’s fact-based institutions today.

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Hosted by John Ellis

Produced by Dale Eisinger