Talking Feds

It’s our annual end-of-term Supreme Court special episode, with a roundtable of three of the most eminent Court watchers in the country: Leah Litman, Melissa Murray, and Stephen Vladeck. The nationwide injunction case capped off a conservative juggernaut of a term in which the 6 conservative justices expanded Executive power, contracted individual rights, augmented the Court’s own power vis-a-vis lower courts, and pretty much had their way in all important cases. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Harry talks with Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and one of the country's foremost experts on Iran. Trump’s strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities at least damaged their targets and a ceasefire is holding. But will the U.S. strikes force Iran to abandon its drive for a nuclear weapon, or just fuel its desperation? Should the U.S. fear reprisals? And what would it take to bring real, lasting change to Iran? Sadjadpour offers some answers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Josh Marshall, a renowned journalist and founder of Talking Points Memo, Katie Fang, a sharp legal analyst and former prosecutor, and Susan Glasser, a New Yorker staff writer, dissect a whirlwind week of political drama. They delve into Trump’s precarious military maneuvers in Iran and analyze the unexpected NYC primary win of Zoran Mamdani, reflecting on shifting Democratic values. From the Supreme Court’s impactful rulings to the unpredictable nature of U.S. foreign policy, the conversation is rich with insights and compelling implications for American politics.

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