Lever Time
From LeverNews.com — Lever Time is the flagship podcast from the investigative news outlet The Lever. Hosted by the award-winning journalist, Oscar-nominated writer, and Bernie Sanders' 2020 speechwriter David Sirota, Lever Time features exclusive reporting from The Lever’s newsroom, high-profile guest interviews, expert analysis, ideas and opinions from the sharpest minds in media and politics.
Episodes
February 26, 2026 • 55 mins
On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled that President Donald Trump’s tariffs were illegal, striking a blow to his favorite geopolitical strategy. The decision could make it far harder for any president to wield tariffs as a weapon, but how will the ruling affect your wallet?
Today on Lever Time, David Sirota sits down with trade expert Lori Wallach, director of the Rethink Trade program at the American Economic Liberties Project. Lori...
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February 19, 2026 • 33 mins
In October, a Philadelphia man emailed an attorney for the Department of Homeland Security, criticizing a government policy. Hours later, federal agents and local police were banging on his door to interrogate him without a warrant. It feels like something out of a movie, but it's real.
Today on Lever Time, David Sirota sits down with ACLU attorney Steve Loney to ask some big questions: How are federal agencies obtaining your pri...
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February 16, 2026 • 2 mins
An important message about the future of The Lever's Master Plan podcast, from our host, David Sirota.
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February 12, 2026 • 38 mins
In February 2023, a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, setting off a chemical disaster. Politicians and lawyers promised justice, and the railroad company swiftly settled for a historic $600 million.
Three years later, many victims haven’t seen a dime. Where did all that money go?
Today on Lever Time, producer Natalie Bettendorf is joined by Lever reporter Katya Schwenk, who scoured court documents ...
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February 5, 2026 • 45 mins
While one tech CEO warns that artificial intelligence could “destroy all life on Earth,” other industry giants have declared war on rules that could limit AI’s power. Their battlefield? The 2026 midterm elections.
In Part Three of What Tech Wants, Lever Time’s investigation into why Silicon Valley is buying our democracy, producer Ariella Markowitz explores Big Tech’s latest obsession — artificial intelligence — and its crusade ag...
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January 29, 2026 • 33 mins
In 2024, the cryptocurrency industry spent more than $130 million to influence elections nationwide. Their campaign donations and lobbying efforts turned the tables for their risky boom-and-bust business, which is now poised to overtake our entire financial system.
In Part Two of What Tech Wants, Lever Time’s investigation into why Silicon Valley is buying our democracy, producer Ariella Markowitz reveals how crypto companies alig...
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January 22, 2026 • 33 mins
In 2022, nonprofit neighborhood groups, backed by Silicon Valley billionaires, helped recall a progressive district attorney in San Francisco. What happened next would change the country.
In Part One of What Tech Wants, Lever Time’s investigation into why Silicon Valley is buying our democracy, producer Ariella Markowitz uncovers how a local experiment unlocked a new formula for political power.
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January 16, 2026 • 36 mins
As private investment companies encroach upon youth sports, how does that hurt the players — and their families? As Lever reporter Luke Goldstein discovered, there’s more at stake than just higher prices.
Today on Lever Time, David Sirota tells the story of how a Lever investigation into a shocking claim prompted a national outcry, one that led to a small but mighty victory against Black Bear Sports Group, one of the youth sports...
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December 18, 2025 • 52 mins
Are we wasting our talents on meaningless jobs? Should our career choices reflect our morals? Author and historian Rutger Bregman thinks so. He argues that the most talented people in America are stuck in a real-life version of the movie Office Space — and that we should be trying to solve the world’s biggest problems instead.
Today on Lever Time, David Sirota sits down with Bregman to ask: When did we lose our moral ambition? A...
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December 11, 2025 • 53 mins
2025 has been a tremendous year for the artificial intelligence industry. Stock prices for AI companies skyrocketed, soaring beyond expectations and propping up an otherwise stagnant U.S. economy. But everywhere, there’s talk of an AI bubble — one even bigger and more threatening than the 2008 housing bubble or the dot-com bubble of the early 2000s.
What makes this bubble so different? When is it likely to pop? And if it does, wha...
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December 4, 2025 • 29 mins
As parents, we’re told homicidal maniacs, drug peddlers, and creeps are lurking in every shadow, waiting to grab your children. But is that true? Is our obsession with keeping our kids safe doing more harm than good?
Today on Lever Time, David Sirota investigates the difference between good parenting and overparenting — and the political history behind our fear that kidnappers are roaming the streets.
David enlists the help of au...
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November 25, 2025 • 34 mins
From flying to online shopping to using social media, everything seems to be getting worse. It’s all — pardon our language here — shittier.
According to today’s Lever Time guest, that’s no accident. Cory Doctorow is the author of Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It. In this episode, Doctorow explains how enshittification works, how it’s infected our online spaces, and what we can do to stop ...
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November 18, 2025 • 54 mins
The U.S. House just voted to force the Trump administration to release every document it has on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his powerful associates. The move comes after Congress released 23,000 pages of Epstein emails and text messages, a data dump that references Donald Trump more than 1,500 times and has so thoroughly tarnished former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers that he’s stepped back from public commitments....
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November 13, 2025 • 42 mins
Maine overwhelmingly voted last year to end Super PACs. A federal judge blocked the ballot measure — but left a kill switch inside the ruling. Larry Lessig, a professor at Harvard Law School and head of the nonprofit Equal Citizens, is ready to flip that switch and take his case to the Supreme Court.
In our final episode of Lever Time’s MONEYBOMB series, David Sirota speaks with Lessig about the legal battle against Super PACs and...
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November 6, 2025 • 40 mins
For the first time in the Citizens United era of billionaires and corporate money buying U.S. elections, change may be afoot. This week, Democrats campaigning on a populist message won resounding victories in the face of big-money opposition.
An aging party establishment is still calling for Democrats to be more moderate and centrist, but what if the center has moved? What if populism is the new centrism?
On this new episode of...
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November 3, 2025 • 41 mins
Ahead of the closely watched New York City mayoral race, everyone is looking for a lesson from progressive Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani’s rise to political stardom. The real answer may be a vastly undervalued political strategy: public money. Could public financing of elections overcome Citizens United and the flood of corporate cash and corruption in American politics?
In the latest episode of Lever Time’s MONEYBOMB series,...
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November 1, 2025 • 49 mins
This week, in a special live interview, David Sirota sat down with Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner.
Platner is a military veteran and oyster farmer who is a first-time political candidate running in the Democratic primary in the race to challenge Republican Senate incumbent Susan Collins. His rough-around-the-edges campaign has resonated with Maine’s working-class voters, sending him surging in the polls. But his past socia...
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October 30, 2025 • 48 mins
A group of Montana activists is pushing a ballot initiative attacking Citizens United, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that granted corporations the right to spend unlimited money in politics. While Montana’s Republican Attorney General attempted to block the ballot initiative this week, the fight is far from over.
In the third episode of Lever Time’s MONEYBOMB series, David Sirota sits down with political strategist Tom Moore fr...
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October 23, 2025 • 41 mins
For 15 years, lawmakers have been trying — and failing — to overturn Citizens United, the landmark Supreme Court decision that allows corporations and billionaires to overrun our political system with money. Now, some Congressional Democrats are going big — by trying to enshrine campaign finance protections in the Constitution.
In the second episode of Lever Time’s MONEYBOMB series, David Sirota sits down with Rep. Joe Neguse (D-C...
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October 16, 2025 • 26 mins
Most Americans want to overturn Citizens United v. FEC, the landmark 2010 Supreme Court decision that unleashed unlimited corporate spending on U.S. elections. But two new cases before the high court — including one spearheaded by now-Vice President JD Vance — are instead set to expand that ruling and turn America into a kleptocracy.
For the next several episodes of Lever Time, we’re taking a deep dive into Citizens United and how ...
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