The Politics Lab

This week, Bill and Phil share the political developments they’re most thankful for and debate who wins the inaugural “Biggest Turkey of the Year” award.

Bill and Phil discuss former president Barack Obama’s return to the political scene and Obama’s thoughts on the state of the US democracy. We also examine why white people love Donald Trump so much, whether we should expect an attack on Iran in the final months of the Trump administration, and whether it was appropriate for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito to share his political views on COVID and religious liberty.

On this week’s episode Bill and Phil reflect on Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election and offer thoughts on what looks to be a chaotic transition period. Will Trump eventually accept defeat, what are the implications of his allegations of electoral fraud, and are we witnessing an attempted political coup in plain sight? We’ll break it all down for you in this episode.

Dr. Suzanne Chod joins Bill and Phil to break down the state of the 2020 election. What do we know? What don’t we know? And what comes next?

This week we offer a special pre-election episode where Bill & Phil make their predictions for the 2020 election. Who will win the presidency, the House, and the Senate? Will we see violence or any other voting shenanigans? And what are we expecting out of President Trump? You won’t want to miss this episode!

Bill and Phil take a deep dive on Trump’s closing electoral argument, specifically his strategy of calling opponents and journalists criminals, attacking Tony Fauci, threatening to leave the country and spreading a conspiracy theory about Hunter Biden’s laptop. Additionally, we explore the core characteristics of Trump’s foreign policy and a recent article suggesting the real divide in America is between political junkies and everyone else.

Bill and Phil reflect on what the presidential election is revealing about the state of the U.S. democracy, what has changed in the practice of polling since 2016 and how much faith we should put in the current polls, how China has outsmarted the US in rewriting the rules of the global order, and what a recent study revealed about the relationship between Trump’s bedtime and his presidential performance.

Bill and Phil are joined by constitutional law expert Professor Tom Cavenagh to reflect on the dramatic recent developments at the Supreme Court, specifically the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett and upcoming cases on voting rights and the Affordable Care Act.

This week, we’re bringing you two episodes - because that’s how crazy its gotten. In this special episode, Bill and Phil reflect on the President’s COVID diagnosis, his mental and physical condition, the fact that a Supreme Court nomination announcement was also a super-spreader event, and the potential political implications of this historic news.

Bill and Phil reflect on the first presidential debate, the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, Wilbur Ross saying the census will end early on October 5th no matter what a federal judge says, and the fallout from the New York Times disclosure of Trump’s tax returns.