The episode centers on David Letterman and Jeffrey Goldberg reacting to what they describe as escalating political pressure on late-night comedians and media companies, framed by Trump’s comments about negative coverage and calls to revisit broadcast licenses via the FCC. Letterman argues that recent moves against figures like Colbert and Kimmel signal “managed media” and a broader slide toward authoritarianism, contrasting it with decades when political satire drew no government interference across multiple administrations. The conversation widens to public passivity in the face of institutional disruption, citing examples like dismantling public health and aid agencies and questioning what it would take for a broader civic response. Goldberg emphasizes the role of owners and financial in...

An FBI undercover operation in 2024 recorded Tom Homan, now the White House border czar, accepting $50,000 in cash after allegedly suggesting he could help purported contractors secure government contracts in a second Trump administration, according to sources and internal documents cited by MSNBC. Investigators and prosecutors debated potential charges given that Homan was not a public official at the time, but planned to keep monitoring whether he would follow through once in government. After Trump’s return to office and Homan’s appointment in November 2024, the probe stalled and was later closed by Trump appointees following a status request by FBI Director Kash Patel. The White House, FBI, and Justice Department said the investigation was politically motivated and found no credible ev...

The author argues that recent events resemble Watergate-era abuses but now unfold openly with less institutional consequence, citing Trump’s public message to Attorney General Pam Bondi demanding prosecutions of political opponents and the firing of a U.S. attorney who refused to indict New York AG Letitia James for lack of evidence. He says the replacement, a loyalist with no prosecutorial experience, signals an effort to weaponize the Justice Department for retribution regardless of facts. At the same time, he suggests Trump’s power relies on spectacle and may be “glitching,” pointing to court setbacks, pockets of resistance, and an administration undermined by incompetence. He also highlights an MSNBC report alleging border czar Tom Homan was recorded taking a $50,000 cash bribe and tha...

The article argues that Trump is pressuring Attorney General Pam Bondi to pursue politically motivated prosecutions as part of a push to consolidate power, but his weakening public support makes that strategy riskier for his would-be collaborators. With economic indicators worsening and broad public opposition to key policies like tariffs and vaccine rollbacks, tolerance for corruption is fading and Trump’s ability to reward loyalty or shield allies from consequences may be eroding. Bondi is portrayed as weighing immediate benefits of proximity to power against potential legal and personal jeopardy if Trump’s grip loosens, echoing historical examples like Nixon-era accountability. The piece contends that the near-term fate of democratic safeguards could hinge less on Bondi’s integrity than...

In this live Atlantic Festival conversation, Hannah Rosen speaks with Anne Applebaum and Garry Kasparov about how modern autocracies tighten control through indirect pressure on media and institutions, drawing parallels between Putin’s removal of a satirical TV show and growing threats to free expression in the U.S. They argue that democratic erosion often happens legally and incrementally, exploiting norms and loopholes, with Congress’s failure to act as a central vulnerability and courts limited by their inability to enforce rulings. The discussion focuses on the 2026 midterms as a decisive test, warning that election manipulation today is more about shaping unfair conditions—through gerrymandering, voter-roll tactics, and institutional intimidation—than overt ballot theft. Applebaum and...

Stanford IP lawyer Mark Lemley says he fired Meta as a client after watching Mark Zuckerberg and other tech leaders grow more tolerant of hate and increasingly aligned with Trump-era politics, a shift that few influential insiders will publicly challenge despite private support. In an AI-fueled boom, Silicon Valley remains broadly left-leaning culturally, but executives and investors are keeping quiet or courting a vindictive administration they fear will retaliate, as illustrated by Trump’s tariff threat after Tim Cook skipped a trip. Employee activism has weakened as layoffs and shifting norms make workers less able to pressure companies on values, while firms scale back diversity efforts and discourage political expression at work. The author contrasts this moment with Silicon Valley’s ...

A federal judge has blocked Donald Trump’s attempt to remove Fed governor Lisa Cook, but his administration has asked the Supreme Court to let the firing proceed, potentially enabling him to remake the Federal Reserve with loyalists. The article argues that the bigger risk goes beyond pressuring interest-rate cuts, because the Fed’s emergency lending authority and regulatory control over access to the financial system could be used to channel vast funds to allies or priorities with few practical legal limits. It also warns that a compliant Fed could “debank” targeted individuals or organizations by threatening banks’ master accounts, effectively cutting them off from basic financial life. Courts may be unlikely to intervene, markets could be managed with easy-money tools, and Congress woul...

The article argues that modern authoritarianism can coexist with everyday normality because it erodes democratic institutions gradually rather than abolishing them outright, hollowing out courts, legislatures, the civil service, the press, and civil society while maintaining the appearance of constitutional order and elections. It claims these regimes are driven less by ideology than by power and enrichment, using polarization, corruption, and the tools of distraction, confusion, and division—especially through online disinformation—to make citizens passive, cynical, and unable to agree on basic facts. The author contends the United States has crossed into this model under Donald Trump, citing weakened checks and balances, politicized staffing, intimidation of media, and abuses of enforcem...

Eric Townsend interviews Luke Groman about whether the long-anticipated shift away from U.S. dollar dominance is moving from a slow grind to a rapid “all at once” phase, driven by rising fiscal stress, weakening demand for Treasuries, and central banks’ accelerating move into gold. They discuss how recent trade-war dynamics and supply-chain realities have exposed limits to U.S. leverage over China, including dependence on Chinese manufacturing and rare earths that underpins even U.S. military capacity. Groman frames the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s signals of tighter alignment among China, Russia, and potentially India as a geopolitical inflection point that could accelerate de-dollarization and force policy responses like yield-curve control. The conversation ties these themes to m...

The article argues that James Comey’s indictment for allegedly false Senate testimony and obstruction reflects a breakdown of the traditional independence between the Justice Department and the White House under Trump. It notes the indictment is unusually sparse and arrived just before the statute of limitations despite years of prior scrutiny by the DOJ inspector general and the Durham special counsel, raising questions about why charges were not brought earlier. The piece cites reports that career prosecutors, a veteran U.S. attorney nominee, and even Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche had misgivings, while a newly installed, inexperienced loyalist ultimately filed the case, and it highlights Trump’s public social-media demands to prosecute Comey as evidence supporting a potential sele...

The article traces Peter Thiel’s ongoing series of talks about Armageddon, the katechon, and the Antichrist, reconstructing an unrecorded 2023 lecture in Paris where he argued that fear of technology and efforts to impose global “peace and safety” could enable an Antichrist-like regime more dangerous than technological catastrophe itself. Drawing on René Girard, Thiel portrays modern culture as decadent and anti-innovation and warns that attempts at worldwide unity could end in civilization-ending violence, offering little practical guidance beyond resisting such consolidation. A key turning point comes from theologian Wolfgang Palaver, who challenged Thiel’s reading of Girard and whose scholarship on Carl Schmitt’s apocalyptic political theology appears to have strongly shaped Thiel’s fra...

YouTube agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle Donald Trump’s lawsuit over the platform suspending his channel after January 6, with most of the money routed to a nonprofit tied to a White House expansion, in a pattern that includes similar settlements by Meta and X and other Trump-related tech payouts. The article argues these deals are inexpensive for the companies but amount to capitulation that implicitly casts their post-insurrection moderation as mistaken and concedes more government leverage over what private platforms can allow. It contends the settlements also serve corporate interests by helping tech firms retreat from active moderation, reinforce the claim they are not publishers, and justify looser rules even as algorithms still shape what people see. Against their unequivocal 2...

After Charlie Kirk’s murder, prominent Republicans quickly pointed to nonprofits as enablers of left-wing violence, with moves including calls for a congressional select committee, Trump’s designation of “antifa” as a terrorist organization, and reported Justice Department plans to investigate George Soros’ Open Society Foundations. Nonprofit leaders and funders say they have been quietly preparing for months for escalating political and legal pressure, weighing options such as emergency funds, mergers, litigation, relocation, or even abandoning 501(c)(3) status. The article argues that civil society organizations often become partisan targets depending on who holds power, noting that conservative-aligned groups also operate as nonprofits, while advocates warn that broad attacks on the sec...

Sam Stein of The Bulwark delivers an urgent, outraged monologue about an overnight wave of federal “reduction in force” firings during the government shutdown, focusing mainly on what he describes as a devastating purge at the CDC. He ties the cuts to RFK Jr.’s long-running hostility toward the agency and vaccines, and highlights reports that leadership and staff tied to immunization and respiratory diseases, global health and measles response, Ebola preparedness, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, smoking and health, and violence prevention have been pushed out, even as HR staff were reportedly brought back from furlough to process the terminations. Stein argues this is an unprecedented use of a shutdown as a pretext to dismantle targeted domestic programs rather than standard fur...

The article traces how the Declaration of Independence quickly circulated worldwide and helped inspire later democratic movements and independence declarations, with American ideals influencing others even when the U.S. fell short at home. In the 20th century, the U.S. shifted from serving as a model to actively promoting democracy through policy, culture, and bipartisan institutions such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and the National Endowment for Democracy, while also confronting charges of hypocrisy that nonetheless pressured domestic reform. It argues that this long-standing “democratic faith” has recently been eroded by a turn toward a more cynical, authoritarian posture, marked by attacks on these institutions and by presidential rhetoric and actions hostile to judges, jour...

Gold has surged to a record $4,000 an ounce amid geopolitical turmoil and a weakening dollar, echoing past episodes when gold rallied alongside inflation, institutional stress, and global crises. The article argues that gold’s appeal lies in its perceived independence from governments, attracting both portfolio diversifiers and “goldbugs” who doubt the Federal Reserve and fear currency debasement. Recent gains have been fueled by central banks increasing purchases after Russia’s reserves were frozen, fresh uncertainty from U.S. tariff policy and concerns about Fed independence, and investors shifting into hard assets as debt and inflation worries grow. Even as the S&P 500 hits highs, the piece frames the parallel rise in stocks and gold as a split between optimistic investors backing growt...

Tim Miller and Ann Applebaum discuss the human costs of the Trump administration’s cuts to USAID and the near-shutdown and politicization of the U.S. refugee program, arguing these moves both deepen global suffering and redefine who America chooses to protect. They broaden the conversation to what Applebaum calls a shift from “rule of law” to “rule by law,” pointing to aggressive immigration enforcement, alleged plans to weaponize the IRS and Treasury against political opponents, and Pentagon restrictions that push mainstream outlets out while privileging friendly “state media.” Applebaum links these domestic developments to the U.S. losing credibility as a democratic model abroad, accelerating European and allied efforts to plan for a less reliable America and weakening the unifying “demo...

The episode centers on what the hosts see as accelerating authoritarian abuse of government power, beginning with the indictments of John Bolton (and earlier targets like Comey and Tish James) and a debate over how classified-documents cases differ when deception and obstruction are involved. They discuss the political logic of using federal force and threats against cities like New York, arguing that governance is being shaped by loyalty tests and punitive pretexts. A major theme is the administration’s effort to sideline independent scrutiny, including the Pentagon press credential purge and a broader concern that major media and tech platforms are increasingly controlled by Trump-aligned owners or incentives. They then focus on the dangers of weaponizing the IRS and labeling opponents a...

The article argues that today’s US turmoil is less likely to resemble a traditional civil war than a newer pattern scholars call “violent populism,” where political leaders and movements create permission for sporadic, politically motivated violence without organized armies or clear battle lines. Experts note that recent rhetoric, pardons for January 6 participants, and talk of using force against “enemies from within” can normalize aggression, while the modern surveillance state makes sustained insurgency difficult. Historians caution that civil conflict can escalate in ways that are hard to recognize in the moment and that constant civil-war talk can make outcomes feel inevitable. The most alarming near-term risk, they say, is the expanded use of military forces in domestic law enforceme...

The article argues that the White House East Wing has long functioned as the humane, ceremonial heart of American democracy, shaped over decades by First Ladies and staff into a place where national power is translated into public welcome, memory, and care. It recounts the wing’s history and symbolism, then contends that Donald Trump’s aesthetic and political instincts treat such civic spaces as props, replacing stewardship and dignity with spectacle and loyalty theater. The author portrays the planned destruction or disfigurement of the East Wing to build a Trump-style ballroom as an act of personal vanity and contempt for institutional continuity, not a byproduct of tech donors or other enablers. The deeper harm, the piece concludes, is a rupture of the shared civic “covenant” the White ...