The Chuck ToddCast

Chuck Todd opens with the collapse of U.S.-Canada trade talks, where Mark Carney walked away after last-minute American demands — chiefly on mid- and heavy-duty truck tariffs — and declared the U.S. can't be trusted as a partner. Asked about the tone of his remarks, Carney's answer was blunt: you are at war when you get attacked. Chuck notes the whole western world is quietly cheering him on even as individual European ...

Former Ohio Governor and presidential candidate John Kasich joins the Chuck Toddcast for a wide-ranging conversation that keeps returning to one uncomfortable diagnosis: Americans say they want the political middle and then retreat to their partisan corners the moment it counts. Kasich's read on this cycle is bracing coming from a Republican — the democratic socialists are talking about things voters actually care about, whil...

Chuck Todd opens with the collapse of U.S.-Canada trade talks, where Mark Carney walked away after last-minute American demands — chiefly on mid- and heavy-duty truck tariffs — and declared the U.S. can't be trusted as a partner. Asked about the tone of his remarks, Carney's answer was blunt: you are at war when you get attacked. Chuck notes the whole western world is quietly cheering him on even as individual European ...

Chuck Todd closes the book on primary season with Florida — and leads with the stunning upset that ended it. State Rep. Angie Nixon, a Jacksonville former union organizer and Democratic Socialists of America member, beat Alex Vindman with 56% of the vote despite being outraised roughly 16-to-1, and will now face appointed Republican Sen. Ashley Moody in November for the final two years of Marco Rubio's old seat. Chuck’s...

Chuck Todd closes the book on primary season with Florida — and leads with the stunning upset that ended it. State Rep. Angie Nixon, a Jacksonville former union organizer and Democratic Socialists of America member, beat Alex Vindman with 56% of the vote despite being outraised roughly 16-to-1, and will now face appointed Republican Sen. Ashley Moody in November for the final two years of Marco Rubio's old seat. Chuck’s...

Filmmaker and author Greg Mitchell joins the Chuck Toddcast to discuss Woody Guthrie and the Ghost of Tom Joad Today, his new PBS documentary narrated by Rosanne Cash and featuring music from Bruce Springsteen, which traces the bond Guthrie forged with John Steinbeck during a campaign to ease the suffering of migrants in California — and argues those 1930s conflicts have unmistakable echoes in the present. Mitchell, a Depress...

Chuck Todd and J.A. Adande explore the origins of the Crimson Tide and the remarkable rise of Bear Bryant. From Alabama’s early Rose Bowl triumphs and the beginnings of the Crimson Tide name to Bryant’s near-departure for the Miami Dolphins, they trace the moments that helped turn Alabama into the standard of college football.

They also examine one of the most complicated chapters in the program’s history: integra...

With under 80 days to the midterms, Chuck Todd and Chris Cillizza pause the horse race for a full "where are we now" audit of the 2028 Democratic field — prompted, Chris admits, by listener pushback that they'd been too dismissive of Gavin Newsom. Using the Kalshi and Polymarket odds as a starting point rather than gospel, they work through a top tier of AOC, Newsom, and Jon Ossoff. Chuck's central thesis is that AOC could be...

Chuck Todd unloads on newly confirmed Attorney General Todd Blanche for appearing at a political rally alongside Trump — a line past attorneys general knew better than to cross — and for openly stating that the Justice Department won't be independent of the White House. Chuck argues Republicans are making the DOJ far more nakedly partisan than any prior administration, that the senators who voted to confirm Blanche shou...

What started as a simple sports question: why did Mark Walter sell the Los Angeles Lakers after just 14 months? — turned into something else entirely. In Part 1 of this two-part ToddCast Special Report, Chuck Todd pulls the thread from a record $12.5 billion franchise sale to the life insurance companies, private credit vehicles, and obscure Delaware LLCs sitting underneath one of the least understood transformations in Ameri...

Politico politics bureau chief and senior political columnist Jonathan Martin joins the Chuck Toddcast for a reporter's-eye tour of the 2028 landscape, starting from an observation both men keep circling: the governing wing of each party is badly out of step with its own voters. Martin walks through the Democratic field with real granularity. Pete Buttigieg carries genuine Biden baggage and is fundamentally a creature of institutio...

In Part 2 of this ToddCast Special Report, Chuck Todd picks up the thread where Part 1 left it: if an insurance company's capital cushion is determined by how risky its investments are judged to be, then who is doing the judging? The answer leads to private letter ratings — a corner of finance almost no one outside it has heard of, and one that has exploded in size. Wall Street Journal reporting by Shane Shiflett and Heather ...

Ben Wikler, the former Wisconsin Democratic Party chair and author of the new book This Is the Plan joins the Chuck Toddcast to argue that Democrats keep making the same category error: they keep winning change elections and then failing to deliver change, because they're trying to fix policy without first fixing the system that determines who gets to make policy. Wikler's framing is memorable and a little cheeky — you have t...

Chuck Todd unpacks David Crowley's astonishing photo-finish win over Francesca Hong in Wisconsin — a race Crowley dropped out of, re-entered with Tony Evers' backing, and then won by roughly 3,200 votes — and argues national Democrats are far more relieved than they'll ever admit. Had Hong won, she'd have become a face of the party while being forced to spend the fall answering for past statements about defunding police...

Chuck Todd unpacks David Crowley's astonishing photo-finish win over Francesca Hong in Wisconsin — a race Crowley dropped out of, re-entered with Tony Evers' backing, and then won by roughly 3,200 votes — and argues national Democrats are far more relieved than they'll ever admit. Had Hong won, she'd have become a face of the party while being forced to spend the fall answering for past statements about defunding police...

With 84 days to the midterms and a six-state primary night ahead, Chuck Todd and Chris Cillizza open on Chuck's least-hedged read of the cycle: Democrats haven't had a good summer, but Republicans have had a worse one, and every macro trend points to something in the neighborhood of 30 House seats and six or seven Senate seats. The only thing holding him back from calling it a pasting is the Democratic brand problem — and the...

Chuck Todd opens with the Greenland oil expedition, an episode so strange it borders on parody: an American oil company drilling in defiance of another country's laws, with Trump's blessing, and — the detail that breaks the brain — Dr. Phil hired to document the whole thing. It's a fitting overture for a week in which the Senate confirmed Todd Blanche as Attorney General 50-49 at four in the morning before fleeing town ...

Chuck Todd opens with the Greenland oil expedition, an episode so strange it borders on parody: an American oil company drilling in defiance of another country's laws, with Trump's blessing, and — the detail that breaks the brain — Dr. Phil hired to document the whole thing. It's a fitting overture for a week in which the Senate confirmed Todd Blanche as Attorney General 50-49 at four in the morning before fleeing town ...

Oscar-nominated documentarian Rory Kennedy joins the Chuck Toddcast to discuss Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing, her Netflix follow-up to 2022's Downfall premiering August 19th — a film built around the death of whistleblower John Barnett and the current and former employees who came forward after it. Kennedy's central finding is damning in its simplicity: at the end of Downfall, Boeing swore it had learned its lesson and cha...