UNDISTRACTED With Brittany Packnett Cunningham

We’re talking Summer House and Freedom Summer in this episode! Because we love our reality TV and also we love our democracy. Our special guests? Attorney, activist, and Bravo alum Preston Mitchum, and group chat regular Dr. Brittney Cooper. Together with Brittany, they cover everything from Trump’s repeated tantrums before Black women reporters to why book bans continue to backfire. Plus, the group weighs in on Summer ...

She’s the scholar behind the idea of intersectional feminism—and but those words aren’t just political to her, they’re personal. In her new memoir Backtalker, Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw traces her own life from childhood in Ohio to work on Anita Hill’s legal team to helping popularize ideas like critical race theory. Now she sits down with Brittany to talk about all of it, and how she’s learned to cha...

A lot of conversations about AI are either sales pitches (“the efficiency!”) or horror stories (“the extinction!”). This week, Bridget Todd, technologist and host of There Are No Girls on the Internet, joins us for something better—an informed, 100% human discussion of what it will take to make AI work for us, and whether there’s still time to do that. (Yes, but move fast.) 

She, host Britta...

In a world of Epstein files, voter suppression and mansplaining lawmakers, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal is a breath of fearless fresh air. She sits down with Brittany Packnett Cunningham to talk about everything from why the files matter to why some politicians still refuse to grasp the urgency of this political moment. Plus, Brittany links up with David Johns for a group chat on this Saturday’s historic voting rights rallie...

The Constitution: So revered! So important! So…really, who knows, because most of us haven’t read it. But law professor and Strict Scrutiny cohost Melissa Murray has, and she sits down with Brittany Packnett Cunningham to discuss her new, essential book on the subject. They get into why the Constitution is a “trauma-informed document,” why SCOTUS’s new voting-rights ruling is so scary and “bonke...

After her MSNBC show The Cross Connection was canceled back in 2022, Tiffany Cross “felt like it was just me.” But now she sees her experiences of loss (of a job, and of a relationship at the same time) as connected to the broader pattern of Black women being pushed out of the workplace and denied what they deserve. Now, she has a new book out—and she sits down with Brittany Packnett Cunningham to talk about what ...

It’s been a month of devastating violence against women and children—from femicide cases making headlines to the mass killing in Shreveport, Louisiana. To understand it, Brittany Packnett Cunningham sits down with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa for a powerful conversation about the shocking allegations against farmworkers leader César Chávez, and Maria’s interview with Chávez’s co-leader (a...

Let’s be real: Capitol Hill has a creep crisis. In this episode, Brittany Packnett Cunningham sits down with creator Arielle Fodor—better known as Mrs. Frazzled—to unpack how a small group of women publicized the alleged sexual misconduct of former congressman and California gubernatorial hopeful Eric Swalwell. They get into the power of the whisper network, and why Democrats stay quiet when The Accused is one of ...

We missed you, our sweet UNDISTRACTED gang…and look, this is no time to be apart. So we are BACK, with our biggest, juiciest season yet. Here’s a peek at what host Brittany Packnett Cunningham and her regular group chat—plus our newsmaking, rule-breaking guests—will be talking about all season long. In a world that’s trying to distract you from what really matters, she’ll keep you focused, infor...

For our Season 3 finale, Brittany had no choice but to call up Thee group chat–The Machetes, an unshakeable sisterhood of women who bonded during COVID and haven’t let go. This week Brittany sits down with five of them–community organizer LaTosha Brown, broadcast journalist Cari Champion, co-host of The View Sunny Hostin, sports journalist Jemele Hill, and TheReidOut host Joy Ann Reid for conversation about commun...

It’s been 10 days since the inauguration—10 days full of executive orders, immigration crackdowns, dismantled DEI initiatives and general panic. This shock and overwhelm is intentional, but if we’re going to make it through the next four years…we can’t traffic in hopelessness. This week, Brittany speaks with activist Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, to talk about collective action, whethe...

How do you make sense of a day that both honored Martin Luther King, Jr. and ushered in a president determined to demolish progress at warp speed? Brittany calls up two people equipped to do it: group chat members Dr. David J. Johns and Dr. Brittney Cooper. Together, they trace the origin of white obsession with “meritocracy,” the price the country has paid for the success of Barack Obama, the fact that more information...

Cori Bush is just one week out of Congress—so who better to tell us exactly what to expect over these next four years? In this episode, Brittany sits down with the activist and former legislator for an “exit interview” like no other: all about what her Republican colleagues really told her behind the scenes, why she still thinks public service is worth it, and what the new “radical Cori” will do next. ...

What do the election results and mass violence have in common? Among other things: men—angry American men whose path to radicalization seems to be moving faster and faster. Why is it happening? What can we do about it, both in our politics and in our own lives? And whose responsibility actually is it to fix all this? In this episode, Brittany speaks with journalists Anand Giridharadas and Liz Plank about the manosphere, who p...

Happy New Year! To ring in 2025, Brittany calls up the group chat—Dr. David J. Johns and Dr. Brittney Cooper—to hear their resolutions (crafting, joy, and a little “intentional silence,” among other things). Then, she sits down with Rev. Neichelle Guidry, director of the Sisters Chapel at Spelman College. No matter what faith you practice, this is a conversation to tune into, about radical politics, the roar...

Donald Trump has made his cabinet nominations, and many have something in common: allegations of sexual misconduct. Has disrespect toward women somehow become an actual job qualification? To make sense of the moment, Brittany sits down with Natasha Stoynoff, who says Donald Trump assaulted her when she was a reporter for People, and Eliza Cooney, who claims that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. groped her when she was a part-time nanny for hi...

We all have mamas! And some of us are mamas. So why are onscreen mamas so often so…plastic? This week, Brittany invites actor and comedian Ilana Glazer over to talk about how they’re pushing back on binary ideas of motherhood in their own work. Together they get into Glazer’s forthcoming Hulu stand-up special “Human Magic,” their own parenting joys, and why onscreen fathers are always Homer Simpson or...

Everyone’s got an opinion about the media…and almost everyone has a complaint. But why, exactly? And what does the fractured nature of what we read and listen to cost us? This week, Brittany sits down with Semafor’s Max Tani, who breaks down how trust in the media has unraveled, what gender and race have to do with it, and the reason people are still fixating on why Kamala Harris didn’t go on Joe Rogan. Plu...