Talking Feds

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It was a week in which events looked to be spinning out of control on multiple fronts. The bromance between Elon Musk and Donald Trump hit the rocks and broke to smithereens, with Musk by week's end calling for Trump's impeachment. The Big Beautiful Bill looked likewise to be at rough shoals, w/ several R's threatening to leave the fold. More courts ruled against the gov, especially in alien cases, and the gov reversed ground and brought Abrego Garcia home, only to charge him with federal crimes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Harry sits down for the first time with Scott Galloway whose wide-ranging influential views encompass politics, psychology, marketing, and technology, to name just a few. They first discuss Galloway's thesis of the current crisis among young men. Galloway lays out the manifold causes and cross-cutting effects, including eye-popping rates of substance abuse suicide and depression. They then turn to the link between young men's hardships and disenchantment and the rise of Trump as a dark model of masculinity. That leads Galloway to a harsh critique of the Democratic party’s marketing and agenda, and a specific postmortem of the 2024 election. From there, Galloway prescribes a series of proposals that he thinks Democrats should be offering in order to appeal to younger middle-class voters. And those are only the touchstones of a fast moving, provocative discussion chock full of Holloway’s thoughts on sundry topics such as social media, the importance of peer groups, the tax code, and why young people should drink more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you like your presidential travel mixed with $B self-enrichment for Trump and sons, this is the week for you, guided by a terrific only-on-Talking Feds panel of Peter Baker, Tara Setmayer, & Jacob Weisberg. Trump makes for the Gulf States with bags open for booty before coming back to face the unraveling of his big beautiful bill of tax breaks for the wealthy funded by sacrifices in health & welfare for the rest of us. We end w/ the legal landscape and the DOA scheme to suspend habeas corpus. Read Harry's Substack on the "Palace in the Sky": https://harrylitman.substack.com/p/trumps-palace-in-sky-is-a-clear-constitutional Check out Talking San Diego: https://www.talkingsandiego.net/events Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Harry talks with Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, who has been at the forefront of the efforts to keep attention on the nightmarish treatment of Kilmar Abrego-Garcia. Abrego-Garcia was pulled from the car he was driving and next thing he knew was in a notorious prison in El Salvador, the very place that a judge had ruled he could not be sent because of the risk of persecution. Senator Van Hollen went to El Salvador to meet with Abrego-Garcia. Abrego-Garcia has had no other communication with the outside world before or since. Senator Van Hollen discusses his reasons for going to El Salvador, previously undisclosed details of his meeting with Abrego-Garcia, the state of the war of public opinion about the case and Abrego-Garcia’s fate, and the prospects for Abrego-Garcia’s eventual return to his home and family in the United States. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It was a week that brought a series of stinging court defeats for Trump and his bevvy of executive orders, which have as a common theme the disregard of constitutional limits. Michael Scherer, Ali Vitali, and Charlie Sykes join Harry to consider whether Trump is adjusting his approach or just erratic. They break down Trump’s recent legacy media blitz before moving to the inauspicious mess of his tariff policy. Finally, they take up the significance of the defeat of the Ed Martin nomination. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Harry talks at length with Leah Litman about her new book on the Supreme Court, “Lawless” The book is a funny but biting look at the Court’s recent cases in a series of hot-button areas, including voting rights, abortion, and money in politics. Litman (no relation!) contends that the Court is driven mainly by the sentiments and political views of the Republican Party. The two Litmans explore her general approach to analyzing the Court as well as cases in several of the areas of focus on the book. They move at the end to Leah’s ideas for constructing a better, more progressive Court and finish with thoughts about the prospect for the Court and country’s falling off the cliff during Trump rule. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's our monthly Contrarian episode, and it comes at a natural pivot point entering the second 100 days of Trump 2.0. Three of the core members of the Contrarian — Norm Eisen, Jen Rubin, and Steve Vladeck — join Harry to break down Trump's dismal record in the courts & plunging polls against his continuing flurry of executive orders unmoored from the law and the constitution. After careful focus on recent events, the group turns to a prediction of the themes that will dominate the coming 100 days See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In a very unusual one-on-one--make that one-on-two--Harry sits down with Penn law professor Kate Shaw and Pennsylvania congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon to discuss the recent hearing in Congress at which Professor Shaw testified and Congresswoman Scanlon posed questions for the minority. The hearing was a tendentious and contrived set piece directed by Republican Congressman Jim Jordan with the clear goal of supporting the Trump administration's claim that federal judges such as Jeb Boasberg are improperly enjoining administration action. From their respective vantage points Professor Shaw and Congresswoman Scanlon explain the rules of the road about how to counter false claims about the constitution and the role of judges in it. Then with general discussion of ways in which the minority can be effective in the sharply constrained roles that the system forwards them. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It was a week in which Trump’s power-mongering again achieved little but left the country and world in far worse shape. In a wide-ranging, insightful discussion, a great panel of Ted Lieu, Beto O’Rourke, & Tara Setmayer explain why & what’s to come. We begin with the gun-to-the-head offer to Ukraine and its implications for the U.S.’s global role. We move on to the Hegseth resignation watch & Trump’s abysmal record in the courts, ending w/ thoughts about what concerned citizens can be doing now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this 1-on-1, Harry sits down with Congressman Dan Goldman, who previously worked on Trump’s first impeachment and before that was an AUSA in New York City. Goldman gives a sobering analysis of a series of stealth moves from the Trump Administration that are pulling us closer to authoritarian rule, including secret IRS-ICE data deals that shred privacy, economic sabotage through chaotic tariffs, and a GOP too scared to stop him. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The stage seems just about set for us to get the answer from the Supreme Court whether it will permit the judiciary to get rolled by an administration looking to use the label "foreign policy" to avoid all accountability. Elsewhere, the administration’s campaign to take control of large civil institutions hit a roadblock with a pushback from Harvard. Jon Alter, Susan Glasser, and Katie Phang join Harry to take stock of how far from the private precipice we are and our prospects for going over. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.