The Gist
For thirty minutes each day, Pesca challenges himself and his audience, in a responsibly provocative style, and gets beyond the rigidity and dogma. The Gist is surprising, reasonable, and willing to critique the left, the right, either party, or any idea.
Episodes
April 30, 2025 • 38 mins
Sadie Dingfelder returns to investigate the cult of “mewing” — the viral tongue-posture technique that promises to chisel your jaw and change your life, or IS THAT BS? Then we turn to the rarest development of all: Trump, on Day 100 of his second term, strikes a deal with Zelensky but not the big one. Plus, we salute a scrappy little government agency that thrived on efficiency… until Trump and Musk disbanded it anyway.
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April 29, 2025 • 42 mins
Faiz Siddiqui discusses Hubris Maximus his sharp chronicle of Elon Musk’s maximalist vision, self-driving delusions, and the rule-breaking impulses that fuel both triumph and tragedy. Plus we hear a tart exchange in the White House briefing room about Amazon’s decision to itemize tariff costs. Plus, its been 100 days. At least 98 could have been a lot better.
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April 28, 2025 • 46 mins
David Frum, former Bush speechwriter and Atlantic contributor discusses Republican cowardice, Democratic excess, and the structural dangers facing American democracy. Frum argues that Donald Trump’s 2025 threat is deeper, more organized, and more perilous than ever before. Plus, Axios reporter Alex Thompson’s apt remarks puncture the often hollow spectacle of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
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April 26, 2025 • 28 mins
Today on the Gist, we open the vaults to 2020 to revisit and interview with Dr. Paul Offit and we replay Monday's spiel on The Full Ginsburg.
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Produced by Corey Wara
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April 25, 2025 • 44 mins
Alan McPherson author of The Breach: Iran-Contra and the Assault on American Democracy joins to discuss the Iran-Contra affair and how it plagued both the end of Regans Presidency and George H. W. Bush’s, but also how it ties into the politics of today. Also, Pete Hegseth is a dirty dirty boy, or at least has a dirty dirty line. Plus, its an Antwentig.
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Produced by Corey Wara
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April 24, 2025 • 48 mins
Jeff Maurer, former Last Week Tonight writer, has been knee-deep in century-old New York Times clippings—considering the differences between yesterday’s fascism fears and today’s. In Part 2, Jeff analyzes John Oliver’s recent reliance on straw men and Jon Stewart’s fairly triumphant return to The Daily Show. Plus- who is favored in a trade battle between the US and China contested on questions of tolerance for suffering?
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April 23, 2025 • 41 mins
We conclude our conversation with Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee, authors of In Covid’s Wake, exploring how political structures—not just bad actors—amplified the crisis. Plus, revisiting a 2021 Washington Post article that sided with YouTube’s removal of a DeSantis-hosted panel questioning masking for young children. And in "The Spiel", a probe of what experts must do to recover lost public trust, especially when once-dismissed cl...
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April 22, 2025 • 42 mins
The authors of In Covid’s Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us, political scientists Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee, join for a full-show interview to discuss our failures during the pandemic. The evidence shows non-pharmaceutical interventions did nothing, but the tradeoff was trillions of dollars in deficit spending, lost learning and solitary deathbeds. Plus, Pete Hegseth may be leaking more than leadership; after his second round o...
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April 21, 2025 • 33 mins
Senator Chris Van Hollen made the rounds on all five Sunday shows to discuss the detention of Kilmar Abrego Garcia—but curiously avoided using Kilmar’s first name. A dissects of rhetorical and how even drink orders can become political code. Professor Michael Harte talks tariffs and trade and reflects on his time as chief economics advisor to the Falkland Islands. And in the Spiel, a deep dive into the trivia, origins, and peculiar...
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April 19, 2025 • 18 mins
Today on The Gist. ITs a day dedicated to Chickens. Mikes 2017 opening about UK's Chicken places named after US States, and the British are squawking about a different kind of chicken — the chlorinated kind — with tabloids clucking and trade talks at risk of being deep-fried.
Produced by Corey Wara
Email us at thegist@mikepesca.com
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April 18, 2025 • 57 mins
Comedian T.J. Miller joins this episode of Funny You Should Mention. You might know him from Silicon Valley, Deadpool, or that time he had a choice between brain surgery with a 10% fatality rate vs. almost surely dying by 35. It is the funniest conversation ever had with the phrase "10% fatality rate" hanging in the air. Also why T.J. insists that comedy should feel like jazz played on a flaming trampoline, and how to let a crowd s...
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April 17, 2025 • 63 mins
Boston Globe columnist Carine Hajjar and The Commercial Break’s Bryan Green debate whether Joe Rogan’s platforming of antisemitic conspiracies signals a deeper rot—or just the cost of open conversation. Plus: should Harvard be defunded? And will Kilmar Abrego Garcia stay in a Salvadoran prison? In Goat Grinders, we take aim at student driver bumper stickers, White Lotus star Aimee Lou Wood’s biting critique of SNL, and nothing left...
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April 16, 2025 • 50 mins
In their new book chronicling the 2024 election, Fight, Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes document the disarray inside the Democratic camp during Biden’s final months and Kamala Harris’s precarious rise. Also some items from the debut of The Gist List: Cuomo’s one-handed housing expert explains the typos, and a modest proposal not to euthanizing monkeys.
Produced by Corey Wara
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April 15, 2025 • 37 mins
Can Trump run for a third term? Someone who has contemplated that is Bruce Peabody author of the law review titled The Twice and Future President Revisited: Of Three-Term Presidents and Constitutional End Runs who joins us to discuss. Plus, Mike questions the political upside of detaining an innocent man, especially when Trump’s allies haven’t mustered a coherent narrative to justify it. And in the Spiel: The SAVE Act is stirring f...
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April 14, 2025 • 40 mins
Donald Trump just walked back key tariffs on Chinese electronics — but his Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, is still out on a full-throated pro-tariff tour, as if nothing happened. To make sense of Trump’s strategy (or improvisation), Mike turns to Yale Business School professor Barry Nalebuff, who finds the approach confusing because it doesn't align with what appear to be Trump’s actual goals. Meanwhile, in the Spiel, the Brit...
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April 12, 2025 • 30 mins
Today on The Gist. We go back to the The Colin McEnroe Show where Mike was on as a guest not talking about Tapirs. Then We end with Wednesdays Spiel on Trumps press conference about tariffs.
Produced by Corey Wara
Email us at thegist@mikepesca.com
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April 11, 2025 • 49 mins
Clay Risen, author of Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America, joins to discuss the era when suspicion was a political tool and civil liberties were sidelined. Today we have echoes—and outright repetitions—of McCarthyite tactics, from loyalty oaths to immigration crackdowns. Also- there may be three plastic spoons’ worth of microplastic in the average human brain—according to science, which Mike neither...
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April 10, 2025 • 34 mins
The bond market—stodgy, suit-clad, and deeply un-Instagrammable—has the economy feeling either “yippy” or “queasy,” Plus, Republicans are eager to wield the issue of trans athletes, especially when stocks are tumbling. And linguist John McWhorter returns to discuss the beauty of borrowed Yiddish verbs, the aesthetics of the letter X, and why “My wife, she…” is pure Rodney and pure syntax.
Produced by Corey Wara
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April 9, 2025 • 38 mins
John McWhorter joins to discuss his new book Pronoun Trouble, which unpacks the politics and poetry of tiny words. Also, Trump touts his tariff triumph by jabbing Canada, walloping China, and baffling Wall Street into bullishness. He riffed on trade deficits, finger amputations, immigration, mental ward discharge, and compared economic instinct to Indy car strategy. Markets cheered, economists jeered, and Trump took a victory lap a...
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April 8, 2025 • 50 mins
Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s former business partner, joins to detail Ukrainian gas deals and what he calls the “Biden brand.” From paper mache with the Vice President to secretive dinners in Paris, he describes selling access, sidestepping scrutiny, and eventually being left holding the legal bag. Also, “10% for the big guy”? Archer says that wasn’t just a turn of phrase—it was the deal.
Produced by Corey Wara
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