In this episode, Jimmy and Promise spiral through the “golden age” of Trump’s America, where casual war crimes, collapsing healthcare, and AI-driven cruelty somehow count as a slow news week. They open with the surreal reality that Donald Trump has only been back in office for 11 months and yet feels like a permanent fixture of scandal, treason-adjacent behavior, and open corruption that would have ended any other presidency overnight. From Alina Habba’s disqualification in New Jersey to Trump’s crypto grift and his allies personally cashing in on AI data centers, it’s all treated as background noise in a country that has lost the capacity for shock.
The conversation dives deep into AI as an existential threat, not just in sci‑fi terms but in how it’s already being deployed by private health insurance to deny care at staggering rates and filter sick, desperate people out of the appeals process. Jimmy and Promise compare capitalism’s usual “creative destruction” narrative to the coming wave of automation that targets every job at once, asking what happens when the system’s only real remedy for those who can’t adapt is to die quietly off-camera. They talk through ERs that now effectively triage by asking only “are you dying right now?” and how AI is being used to maximize profit, minimize liability, and treat human suffering as an acceptable externality.
From there, they zoom out to fascism, war, and immigration: Trump’s reaction to a National Guard killing by an Afghan man who once worked with the CIA, the call to collectively punish all Afghans, and the total refusal to do the basic math on what wars actually cost if you abandon the locals who risked everything to help you. They tear apart the hypocrisy of those who want sweeping deportations over statistically rare crimes by immigrants, yet cannot tolerate the idea of collective responsibility when you point out that men commit the vast majority of violent crime. The same people screaming about “cancel culture” and “free speech” are happily cheering on bans, visa freezes, and state repression when it targets the right scapegoats.
Promise brings in the perspective from Finland, where she’s now being interviewed by Finnish media about Christian nationalism, Trump, and the American far right, as Finns start to notice similar far‑right and Christian nationalist currents creeping into their own politics. They talk about how it feels to “escape” the U.S. for a moment only to watch the fireline of fascism and religious extremism inch closer to Europe, and how global warming and AI ensure that no country is really isolated from these crises. There’s also a brutal takedown of people who posture as persecuted truth-tellers while dropping slurs, Nazi references, and anti-trans talking points—and then call it “cancel culture” when others simply refuse to tolerate them.
The episode also spotlights the ecosystem that rewards bigotry directly with cash, including “Nazi GoFundMe”‑style sites like GiveSendGo that shower six-figure payouts on people caught using racist slurs or abusing children, bolstered by coded “14/88” style donations and anonymous white supremacist support. Jimmy and Promise scroll through campaigns resisting mosques, funding the “canceled,” and laundering fascist politics through the language of religious liberty and “free speech,” showing how these platforms function as a shadow economy for hate. It’s a rare, detailed look at how reactionary movements turn online outrage into material power, all while claiming they’re the real victims.
Finally, they turn to the Trump White House’s official “media bias” and “media offender of the week” tracker on WhiteHouse.gov, which literally names individual journalists and outlets to sic the base on anyone who tells the truth about the administration. Promise describes the front page pop‑up declaring “Welcome to the Golden Age” with Trump posed beside a McDonald’s‑flavored “America’s back” slogan, while Jimmy points out that weaponizing the official White House site to target journalists is both authoritarian theater and a real threat to press safety. In between, there are lighter moments—Finnish language struggles over Prosecco, dreams of everyone frolicking in Finnish fields, and an extended “would you rather” segment—but even the jokes land against the backdrop of global warming, AI doom, and the slow normalization o
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The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.