THE CORRECTIONS

It was a week of legal, political, & military battles. Trump bombed Iran but with less definitive results than he had proclaimed, leaving next moves up in the air. A relative unknown stormed to victory in the NYC Dem primary, triggering widespread analysis of what if anything it showed about the state of the party. The Supreme Court ended its term with a series of 6-3 rulings. And Trump DOJ enforcer Emil Bove had a hearing for a judgeship amid widespread accusations of improper conduct at DOJ.

Harry speaks with Josh Marshall, Susan Glasser & Katie Phang

CORY BOOKER'S LONG STAND

Recorded live at Talking San Diego, Senator Cory Booker charts the personal and political path that led him from the streets of Newark to the well of the Senate—and to the longest speech in congressional history. With urgency and candor, he reflects on what it means to watch democracy erode in real time, and why moral imagination is now a political necessity.

Harry speaks with Sen. Cory Booker

TRUMP AT WAR

The episode starts with a 20-minute discussion with War Powers expert Rich Bernstein about Saturday’s bombing of Iran. From there we go to our Friday roundtable of Talking Feds stalwarts–Jason Kander, Norm Ornstein, & Jacob Weisberg. We focus on both the prospective bombing of Iran and the domestic use of force in CA & elsewhere. The court of appeals opinion green-lighting the federalization of the national guard in CA raises the prospect of an expansion to different big cities in blue states.

Harry speaks with Jason Kander, Norm Ornstein, & Jacob Weisberg

HOW SOCIAL MEDIA BROKE DEMOCRACY AND CHILDHOOD

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt joins Harry Litman to discuss his bestselling book "The Anxious Generation" and how the shift to smartphone-based childhood around 2012 triggered a mental health crisis—especially among liberal girls. Haidt explains his moral foundations theory, why Americans can't agree on basic facts anymore, and how social media created a "curse of Babel" that's undermining both democracy and child development. Plus: his four practical norms for rolling back the phone-based childhood and why we may be accidentally training kids for authoritarianism.

Harry speaks with Jonathan Haidt

CALIFORNIA SCREAMIN'

A wild, turbulent, and ugly week. Trump used protests to his immigration operations in LA to declare a “rebellion” and federalize the national guard. A court decision rejecting the move was itself stayed, leaving the situation tense and tenuous. Sen. Padilla was roughed up and arrested when he tried to ask a question at a press conference. Meanwhile, the Administration brought Abrego-Garcia back only to charge him with crimes, and an effort to have Congress ratify DOGE cuts looked likely to fail.

Harry speaks with David French, Emily Bazelon & Jonathan Alter

WHO IS GOVERNMENT, REALLY? WITH MICHAEL LEWIS

Harry sits down with Michael Lewis—author of Moneyball and The Fifth Risk—to discuss Who Is Government?, his new book spotlighting the unsung public servants who quietly hold the country together. They trace the project’s roots to Trump’s chaotic transition, explore the GOP-led assault on federal expertise, and ask: Can the damage be undone?

Harry speaks with Michael Lewis

NINE YEARS OF WARNING AMERICA: A CONVERSATION WITH RICK WILSON

A special recording from our Talking San Diego event with Rick Wilson. A longtime Republican strategist turned fierce Trump critic, Rick was among the first to sound the alarm on the threat Trump posed to American democracy. For nearly a decade, he’s been relentless in his efforts to expose that threat—most memorably through a sharp, unflinching, and often darkly funny series of political ads that take aim at Trump and his enablers.

Harry speaks with Rick Wilson

TACO TUESDAY EVERY DAY

The Elon Musk Era of government came to an abrupt end as the architect of DOGE left the Administration, somewhat the worse for wear and tear. What remains in his wake of DOGE’s slash-and-burn agenda is unclear. Sen Barbara Boxer, Mara Liasson, and Stuart Stevens join Harry to assess the Musk experiment. We then move on to Trump’s no-holds-barred war against Harvard, and the damage it threatens for the school & American society as a whole. We then turn to the moving target of Trump’s TACO tariffs.

Harry speaks with Sen. Barbara Boxer, Mara Liasson, and Stuart Stevens

PLANE HITS HOUSE

It's the latest monthly Molly mashup where Molly Jong Fast of Fast Politics fires legal inquiries at Harry, and Harry counters with political questions.  The two trade vantage points on the Qatari "Palace in the Sky," with Harry explaining its illegality and Molly its political inanity. They move on to the pasting Trump is getting in the courts, and Molly’s sense of his quickly declining popularity. Molly explains why Dems are likely to take the House in the midterms.  And both concur that as damaging as the first few months have been, his chance at actually replacing our constitutional democracy with an authoritarian state has passed him by.  Lots more besides!

Harry speaks with Molly Jong-Fast

"FIGHT FIERCELY, HARVARD!"

A terrific round table of Alisyn Camerota, Bill Kristol, and Mike Podhorzer join Harry to analyze a week in which only a couple things went right for Trump this week, but they were big-ticket items. The House R’s dragged the “big beautiful bill” over the finish line by a single vote. And the Supreme Court gave Trump a big victory that will permit him to fire leaders of certain important agencies without cause. But otherwise the courts forcefully rejected Trump’s overreaching executive orders.

Harry speaks with Alisyn Camerota, Bill Kristol, and Mike Podhorzer