Deep State Radio

We know, we know. This is no time for complacency. This is no time to minimize the challenges we face. This is no time to assume anything about the election or its aftermath. We must work hard and be on guard against abuses. But...what if things turn out as the polls suggest they might? What if Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and a Democratic Senate and Congress win? Might government, dare we say it, become boring again? Might competen...

In this special episode we discuss "The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III," the landmark biography of one of the real titans of the Washington scene over the past half century, with its authors, New Yorker staff writer Susan Glasser and NY Times Chief White House Correspondent Peter Baker. The book is not only a compelling life story, it is also a lens via which to see the shift from the old W...

Some of the most hard-hitting and shocking criticisms of Donald Trump have come from insiders in his administration. From Rex Tillerson’s calling his former boss a “fucking moron” to his former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats saying that having watched Trump up close the only conclusion he could draw was that the Russian’s had something on the president. Miles Taylor, former chief of staff in the Department of Homeland ...

Russia has been trying to weaken the United States since the first days of the Cold War. But in that entire span of three-quarters of a century, even with the success of its spies and counter-espionage measures, it has never had a series of successes such as those it has enjoyed since 2016. As Tim Weiner, author of an important new book on Russia, "The Folly and the Glory," says, the reason for that is due to the fact that ...

One of our regulars, Ed Luce of the Financial Times, had an article in the Weekend FT called "Will America tear itself apart: The Supreme Court, 2020 elections and a looming constitutional crisis." It is an incisive look into a profoundly important set of challenges America faces in fixing elements of our constitutional system that are currently malfunctioning or a source of tension. Government by a super-empowered minority...

In Game of Thrones leadership decisions were made with the help of dragons and Moon Doors and Valyrian steel daggers. In America today, people play just as rough but their tools are cyber warfare, disinformation, mobilized extremist groups and court orders that suppress the vote. It is so sordid it makes you wish there were still a dragon or two available. But absent that, understanding and preparing for the threats democracy faces...

Donald Trump has unleashed resources of his government to support his campaign against Joe Biden in a way that America would condemn were it the behavior of any foreign government. In fact, as David Sanger pointed out in a recent NY Times article, he has crossed lines that may damage America's standing for years to come. We discuss that article and a host of recent foreign policy developments with David as well as Rosa Brooks o...

The increasingly erratic president was pretty erratic to begin with. Which has made the past week all the more unnerving. Throw in revelations about the unusual layers of secrecy and the cover ups surrounding the president's health and new revelations about one of the most disturbing policies of the Trump Era, the decision to tear families apart at the border and prosecute tiny children and this has been one of the disturbing w...

The biggest national security story in America today is the biggest domestic story and the biggest political story and the biggest economic story and the biggest public health story. The COVID outbreak at the White House might have resulted in greater empathy for those who have suffered so due to the pandemic but the opposite seems to be happening. It seems to be leading to an effort by the president and his supporters to double do...

The debate this week was a trainwreck inside a dog's breakfast wrapped in bad acid trip. It was, despite the best efforts of Joe Biden to discuss the issues, chaotic. But that's what President Trump wanted. Because it distracts from 200,000 dead from COVID, tens of millions unemployed and revelations about his taxes and his manifold failures as a business leader. We discuss those taxes, failings and the debate to get to cor...

The Constitutional rot of the past four years has set the stage for the corruption of our institutions and, equally importantly, for growing delegitimization of our government. This plays into the hands of a president who is ever more desperate to cling to power lest he lose his fortune and his freedom. This in turn has experts who are studying the preparations for the November 3 election to express deep concern that we may be head...

The President of the United States has deliberately raised questions about whether our democratic system will work properly while actively working to ensure it does not. From voting to the courts to the enforcement of our laws, our institutions seem more fragile and at risk than at any moment since the civil war. What does this mean for the remainder of this political campaign and its aftermath? We discuss with three of the smartes...

Is a resurgent COVID the October Surprise? Is it the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg? Will it be the nomination and approval of a replacement for her prior to the election? Will it be the announcement of a vaccine? Or is it tied to the president's reluctance to guarantee a peaceful hand-over of power if he loses. We discuss these options and others with Mimi Rocah, candidate for Westchester, NY, District Attorney, Katie Ba...

Cecile Richards is the CEO and founder of Supermajority, a new organization for "women's activism, training and the mobilization of a multiracial, intergenerational community to fight for gender equality." She was previously president of Planned Parenthood and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and has been hailed as one of the foremost women's rights leaders in the country. We discussed with her the impact of the d...

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a rarity in Washington, a true hero, one of those voices who would not be silenced by conventional wisdom or the zeitgeist or politics or the pushback of the powerful. Her loss therefore is not simply the loss of a dependably progressive viewpoint on America's highest court, it is of a true leader and individual of integrity at a moment when those are a rarity in Washington. The entire US government is, ...

Michael Schmidt's new book "Donald Trump v. The United States: Inside the Struggle to Stop a President" is one of the required reads of this moment in our history. It gets deep inside the effort to protect the president as the Russia investigation closed in around him. But it also underscores what that investigation did not uncover. Indeed the central question remains: What explains Trump's behavior toward Russia du...

Peter Strzok is one of America's most respected, experienced counterintelligence specialists. His career at the FBI reads like a thriller and as a consequence, so does his new book "Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump." At the center of course, is Strzok's role in the investigation of Trump, the controversy that led to his departure from the FBI and, most importantly, what he and his c...

The divide between the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and centrists has dogged the party for years and hurt Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2016. Thanks to equal parts good planning, good will and the urgency of the threat America faces, that divide has been minimized this year with Biden working closely with progressive leaders like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and AOC. The question is: What will happen to progress...

The Republican Party not only produced the corrupt, failed presidency of Donald Trump, but it has supported Trump at every turn. What is to be done with a party that embraces a president who is a traitor, a con man, a racist, a serial abuser of women? We sat down with two notable former Republicans, Washington Post columnist Max Boot and political scientist and commentator Tom Nichols to discuss what comes next for the GOP. Their a...