I still can’t exactly explain what happened with the 2024 election, but it does appear as if Trump and his dangerous, extremist allies have won. I’m a big believer in our institutions, but I also spent the past week trying to figure out how they could have all failed us so badly. I understand the sentiment to want to disengage. To find someone to blame. To point fingers and to close the door on working with anyone who isn’t in your immediate group, because you feel as if they’re the only...

Well, it’s here: Election Day. After this incredibly trying 10 years, and completely bananas election season, we made it. This is a BIG day and people are busy, so this is an abridged episode to tell you what to look for and expect today, and in the days and weeks to come. The most important thing you can do right now is get people to the polls, not spread misinformation, and trust the system is ready this time. While some may prematurely claim victory and spread lies to sow doubt and seize...

After that insane rally at MSG we know we have to pull out every stop to make sure Donald Trump loses on November 5th. Talk to your friends, talk to your family. Despite the fact the country is drowning in negativity and lies, the truth is, the Democrats are winning. The majority of voters don’t want what MAGA, Trump and the Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership are offering but we have to make sure everyone understands what’s at stake. The country’s future is literally on us now. We need to...

Donald Trump is nothing if not lucky. Today we’re joined by the authors of the New York Times Bestselling Book Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered his Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success, who took four decades of financial reporting and a century’s worth of research and interviews to paint a picture of a life of the world’s luckiest, but dare I say it, con artist. The question is: Do we want to continue to live in the world Donald Trump has created? Or are we ready to...

As today’s guest, Timothy Snyder argues, “Freedom is the great American commitment” but we’ve lost sight of what it means. In his new book, ‘On Freedom’, the New York Times best selling author and Yale historian, digs into the concept of freedom, what it is, how it’s been misunderstood, and why upholding it our only chance for survival. “We’ll see how it goes” is not a plan. We have to DO something.   As always, IF YOU FIND WORTH IN WHAT WE DO, please consider SUBSCRIBING to PoliticsGirl...

Leigh guest reads in episode 4: part 2 of a fantastic and informative, limited series "Trump's Project 2025: Up Close and Personal". Be sure to check out all episodes wherever you get your pods! xo- PG ---- This episode tells the fictional story of a middle school that opens its doors to unvaccinated students after a possible second -term President Trump eliminates Federal funding for schools with vaccine mandates. The story follows the school nurse, Stephanie Morris, as she navigates the...

Our nation sits at crossroad. We either address our problems within our democracy and rule of law, or fail to address them by abandoning the very things that make us special in pursuit of something new. The 2024 presidential ticket offers us two very different versions of America - what it is and who it’s for - and on November 5th we choose one. Join me and the brilliant author Thom Hartman as we discuss his new book The Hidden History of the American Dream and break down where we are right...

Today we’re talking with the CEO of Vet VoiceJanessa Goldbeck about the film War Game a documentary based on a real life wargame set on January 6, 2025 that imagines a nationwide insurrection, in whichmembers of the US military choose to defect in order to support the losing presidential candidate and what the current president and his team, would do. I’m talking about this film because the scenario addressed has a real possibility of playing out after the 2024 election, and the people at the...

According to the brilliant Marc Elias, founder of Democracy Docket and now senior member of the Harris/Walz legal team, what the Republicans are planning for the 2024 election is not just unprecedented, but outrageous. There is a reason they’re not campaigning or trying to get out the vote. There’s a reason Trump is telling people he “doesn’t need votes”. It’s because their plan isn’t to win the election, it’s to subvert, suppress and refuse to certify the election if they don’t win....

My first book ‘A Return to Common Sense: How to Fix America Before We Really Blow’ It drops today, so I’ve invited my friend, and beloved American actor and director, Jason Alexander to join us to guest host the episode. We talk, not only about getting us out of this mess we’re in, but how we can build the nation we tell the world we are. At the end of the day you can’t fix something you don’t understand, and I wrote a book to fix things.   As always, IF YOU FIND WORTH IN WHAT WE DO, please...

The women of this nation hold the spending AND voting power so why are we so constantly marginalized? Tired of being overlooked, used as pawns, and ready to be taken seriously, we talk to Erin Erenberg, co-founder and CEO of the Chamber of Mothers, about the growing collective movement to advance maternal rights in America. The truth of the matter is: we’re hardly a country that should be forcing women to have babies, since the US is currently experiencing a maternal health crisis and we...

Happy Labor Day!!! Department of Labor’s Acting Secretary Julie Su reminds us that the Biden Administration has been focused on building what they call the “high road to the American dream”. That looking out for the American worker is not just about having enough work, it’s about those workers being paid properly, treated with respect, and at the end of the day, giving our citizens what President Biden calls “a little breathing room” to live our lives. How do we “pursue happiness” without...

Coming right off the Democratic Convention, brilliant historian and writer Heather Cox Richardson gives her insights on where we are with the two parties and the upcoming election. She reminds us that democracy is not a given, and though we have to fight for it, we should find joy in that fight. That the Republicans are used to controlling the narrative, and holding the mantle of patriotic American, but the convention showed the world they aren’t the only ones who have the right to that...

I’m in Chicago this week for the Democratic convention, and I hope you’ll follow along to get the information, but as we watch, what we hope will be the first female president take the convention stage, I thought we should discuss what the other side is offering when it comes to women, women’s rights, and womanhood. With that in mind, our guest today is acclaimed writer Julie Kohler, host of award winning White Picket Fence podcast to talk to us about the rising extremist movement gaining...

According to our guest, YouTube sensation and wildly successful political commentator, Brian Tyler Cohen, the modern Republican Party has laid out a long con. That, while the increasingly radical right gaslights the American public with its lies, artificial slogans and hollow catchphrases, there’s an ever widening gap between the essential Republican “brand” and their actual behavior. It’s such a marked phenomenon that Brian wrote a book, Shameless, to best explain where things went wrong and...

As guest, historian and writer, Rutger Bregman, reminds us, MLK didn’t inspire the world with his “I have a nightmare…” speech. It was about a dream. Rutger believes there’s an antidote to this sense of emptiness so many of us feel and it’s what he calls moral ambition, or the will to make the world a better place. That humanity, no matter what we’ve been taught, is actually cooperative and benevolent, it’s how we got so far as a species. So we can’t get so caught in the news of today, that...

As today’s guest, CEO of the States United Democracy Center and States United Action, Joanna Lydgate says, “The battle for democracy begins before a single ballot is cast and continues long after the polls close on election day.” We keep repeating it, but the truth is, the American election system itself is under attack. There are anti-democratic forces working hard across the country not to win elections, but to limit the vote. To interfere with election administration and officials, and to...

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”  Joe Biden is no longer running for President and everything has changed. Join me and Michael Steele as we discuss what just happened, and what comes next.  As always, if you find worth in what we do, please consider SUBSCRIBING to PoliticsGirl Premium. You’ll get this podcast ad free, along with a bunch of other perks, like the rants directly to your inbox and the knowledge that you’re making this kind of...

Authoritarian propaganda is full of empty promises of unity. Of uniting the nation under a leader who alone can fix it. Authoritarian expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat and I had this conversation BEFORE the events at the Trump rally in Pennsylvania, but the facts remain the same if not more poignant now. The shock and awe we’re seeing is a tactic to distract us from what this party plans to do to our country, our democracy, and to anyone who doesn’t pledge absolute fealty or fit into their limited box of...

We just finished probably the most life altering Supreme Court’s session in the history of our country. The six conservative justices, and I use the term conservative loosely, because they’re actually right wing extremists, just took a sledge hammer to decades of legal precedent, human rights, civil rights and the constitution itself, but this idea that there’s nothing we can do about it is wrong. Join me and absolute legal superstar Dahlia Lithwick as we discuss what comes next for court and...

America’s rising domestic terrorism movement is not getting better it’s getting worse. We have to look at ourselves, particularly if we’re in the American Christian community, and realize something must be done to start seeding the ground for a different way of thinking. Which is why we’re talking to former US security official and counterterrorism expert Elizabeth Neumann. Elizabeth served as the assistant Secretary for counter terrorism and threat prevention at the US Department of homeland...

To keep democracy’s head above water in 2024 the Democrats need what’s called a trifecta - meaning the Presidency, the House and the Senate - and keeping the senate is going to be a tough slog because Democrats have what’s called a “bad map”. So today, instead of talking about the must win swing races we hear about all the time, we’re going to discuss two Senate races that almost no-one is paying attention to. Two Senate races practically no-one is investing in, because it’s assumed they’ve...

We just had the G7. There was just a Ukrainian Peace Conference in Switzerland. Here at home we have a wanna be dictator running against a President who fights dictators. Today we talk to international expert Andrea Chalupa about two broad stroke topics, what’s going on in Ukraine, because I think most of us have kind of checked out and don’t have a clue anymore, and what Trump will offer in a second term in regards to American immigration which, after doing the research is so horrifying that...

Happy Pride!! It’s easy to criticize government, and candidly, there’s plenty that deserves criticism. But government is not something we can live without, so maybe if we spent less time complaining about it, and more time understanding it, we’d know how to use it properly and how to best fix it. So, today we’re joined by Four Star Admiral and one of the highest ranking members of our Department of Health and Human Services, to talk about what our government is doing to keep Americans safe...