Beyond Politics

The trump indictment three-peat is looming, and there are huge questions involved. Will this one matter politically and start to peal away Republicans? Can DeSantis make a surge off this? Is there a "David" strategy in this primary? AND, what does New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu declaring he won't run for re-election mean? IS he reconsidering challenging for the nomination?

Lying. Hypnotizing. Gaslighting. Did Texas’ “serial killer whisperer” and his questionable tactics ensnare an innocent man? An amazing new podcast from journalist Maurice Chammah and the Marshall Project called "Just Say You’re Sorry" poses all of those questions and ultimately asks, what’s the price that we pay for a sense that we’ve closed the books, when we might be closing them on the wrong page? Maurice Chammah is a staff writer and the author of "Let the Lord Sort Them: The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty," which won the 2019 J. Anthony Lukas Work-In-Progress Book Award. His work has been published by The New Yorker, The Atlantic and The New York Times.

It's our July mailbag! Your questions and comments answered, including: Why won't the media report more on the DeSantis Guantanamo Bay story? What's about to happen with the Trump case in Georgia? Does Jack Smith have a major ace up his sleeve against Trump? Is Jim Jordan going to be sued for his role in the Ohio State scandal? Who are the top five Dems who could be replacement White House contenders? Are Trump voters...hiding?

The panel discusses the eerie parallels on a day when Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu both made new legal maneuvers to stay out of prison and regain (or regain) power. Also, what does a new grand jury empaneling mean in Georgia. And is Biden crushing it when it comes to our alliances?

As we record this on the morning of July 11, Israel has once against broken out in massive protests after an overnight vote in their Parliament that pushed forward the far-right governing coalition’s plan to limit their judiciary. Protestors see the plan as nothing less that a more stealthy version of the overt power grab that Prime Minister Netanyahu announced in January and that led to a shutdown of the country in March. One of co-founders of the pro-democracy protest movement is Gilead Sher. He is a former Chief of Staff and Policy Coordinator to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and a senior peace negotiator. He joins us with an update on what is happening and why. Further Reading: subscribe to former AP lead Mideast reporter Dan Perry's substack. See Gilead Sher's Times of Israel article.

Every so often, the political guru that the Washington insiders listen to delivers one of his deep dive analysis memos on what’s going on under the surface in politics. And everyone drops everything to see what he had to say. So when Doug Sosnik delivered his newest analysis -- explaining what the 2024 election will come down to and what four key voting blocs would decide the outcome -- we knew we wanted to bring all of our listeners and viewers the voice that the pros listen to. Doug served as a senior advisor to President Bill Clinton for 6 years, including as the White House Political Director, and he’s gone on to advise over 50 U.S. Senators and governors. Fortune 100 corporations, foundations and universities for 35 years, including the National Basketball Association, the Motion Picture Association of America, CNBC. And he Doug co-authored a New York Times bestseller, Applebee’s America: How Successful Political, Business and Religious Leaders Connect with the New American Community.

The Supreme Court wrapped its term with a rush of rulings, including in a pivotal case that pitted issues of free speech against anti-discrimination laws. Except, the case was built on a fantasy: a web designer who had never designed a website, and a request from a gay couple that never existed. So was the Supreme Court duped? And is the Court veering outside the mainstream of public opinion, or reflecting it? Also, is Ron DeSantis flailing with a bizarre new ad as his poll numbers tank?

When the Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina were unlawful, rejecting affirmative action at colleges and universities around the nation, it created more questions than it answered about the future of racial diversity in elite college admissions. Dr. Stephanie Hall is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a leading expert on college accountability, and she joins us to describe what the impact of this decision could be in practical terms.

A major new poll has good news for Donald Trump. But somehow, it has even better news for President Biden. Strangely, it also brings unsettling news about how Americans view our system and the choice that they are determined to make, yet seem to hate.

Former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis are descending on New Hampshire at this very moment to hold dueling political events, as new national polling shows a widening gulf between them, and between Trump and the rest of the field. Why is Trump growing his lead, and will that last?  Also, MAGA shenanigans hit the US House of Representatives, and the results would be funny if they weren’t so sad.