The Powers That Be: Daily

Tara Palmeri joins Peter Hamby to exchange candid and incisive assessments of the presidential race: the Dems’ new messaging that Trump and J.D. Vance are “weird,” how Harris is capitalizing on her remarkable surge of momentum, Vance’s bad media week, and much more.

Jon Kelly joins Peter to chronicle the latest and weirdest chapter of the NBA media rights auction—David Zaslav’s decision to sue the league and hire Edelman to run a scorched earth influence campaign. Then the duo diagnose the Kamala bounce.

Julia Ioffe swings by the pod to offer her candid assessment of Kamala Harris’s foreign policy bona fides. What’s the chatter in Foggy Bottom—and the Blob consensus about Biden abandoning his bid for a second term? Plus, the view from Moscow on the J.D. Vance selection.

Eriq Gardner joins Peter Hamby to unwind the myriad legal challenges facing sports business behemoth Fanatics and its brash billionaire founder Michael Rubin. Plus, news on an under-the-radar trial surrounding the Skydance-Paramount merger.

Dylan Byers joins Peter Hamby for an incisive meta analysis of how the media has covered Joe Biden’s historic decision to exit the presidential race. Among other things: How is MSNBC pivoting to the Harris story, and how will the White House press corps get along with Biden’s former campaign staff?

Tara Palmeri joins Peter Hamby to exchange insider takes on the arrival of Kamala Harris, and the Dems’ urgent race to reintroduce her to the electorate with only four months to go until voters march to the ballot box. Plus, a look at how the Trump campaign is responding to their new political foe.

In a special episode, Jon Kelly and Peter explain how Nancy Pelosi masterfully used the media to push Joe Biden out of the race. They also chew over the remaining and obvious open questions in this unprecedented election: the newly upended veepstakes, the likely hybrid open primary coronation, and Kamala Harris's best path to 270. 

Eriq Gardner jumps on the horn with Peter Hamby to dissect two pressing legal developments subsumed by a week of high-octane political news: federal judge Aileen Cannon’s decision to toss Jack Smith’s classified documents case against Donald Trump, and the dramatic denouement (and potential legal epilogue) to Alec Baldwin’s ‘Rust’ manslaughter case.

Julia Ioffe rings up Peter Hamby from the grounds of the Aspen Security Conference to discuss her exclusive reporting on Joe Biden’s tense Zoom call with House Democrats, before revealing the anxiety swirling around the conference over the specter of a second Trump presidency.

Abby Livingston joins Peter Hamby to spotlight the quietly churning Democratic revolt against Biden: the tense phone calls, the private frustrations, the polling woes, and their unfettered anxiety about his ability to beat Trump.