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Talking Feds

Harry Litman

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Talking Feds is a roundtable discussion that brings together prominent former government officials, journalists, and special guests for a dynamic and in-depth analysis of the most pressing questions in law and politics.
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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 …
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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 …
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It was a week of legal, political, & military battles. Trump bombed Iran but with less definitive results than he had proclaimed, leaving next moves up in the air. A relative unknown stormed to victory in the NYC Dem primary, triggering widespread analysis of what if anything it showed about the state of the party. The Supreme Court ended its term …
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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…
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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 appea…
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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 medi…
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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. Meanwhil…
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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 …
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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 court…
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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, a…
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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 wa…
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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…
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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 h…
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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 substan…
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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 f…
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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 beca…
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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 bli…
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