Talkin‘ Politics & Religion Without Killin‘ Each Other

Two weeks out, Silver Bulletin's forecast gives Democrats a 75% chance to win the Senate. But as our guest reminds us, one in four chances happen all the time.

Corey sits down with Eli McKown-Dawson, senior elections analyst at Silver Bulletin, to look under the hood of the midterm forecast. They cover how polls get weighted, why a four-point lead can mean a 90% chance to win, and go state by state through the Senate map, from Texas...

Twenty years in the pulpit. Ten years of disillusionment. He says he’s better for it.

Pat Kahnke cast his first vote for Ronald Reagan, spoke on behalf of the pro-life movement, and picked his church because he walked in on Pro-Life Sunday. Then 2016 sent him back to rethink all of it. In this Substack Live conversation, Corey and Pat talk about why the “binary choice” argument falls apart in the primaries, what &l...

Last time we promised unreasonably irresponsible midterm predictions and got sidetracked. This time we actually make the calls.

Chip is back at Doc’s Inn for another round of “To the Republic... To the Pub.” First comes a fight over whether the polls lean left, what Nate Silver actually said in 2016, and whether 2024 Trump voters are staying put. Then the House, and the Senate map race by race, from Georgia to a wi...

He almost never votes for Democrats. This year, he’s making an exception.

Matt K. Lewis has spent his career on the right. He’s won a Buckley Award, he was named CPAC Blogger of the Year, and he once wanted to grow up to be Alex P. Keaton. In this Substack Live conversation, Corey and Matt dig into why he’s voting blue in 2026, how Trump broke up his own coalition, the Senate races worth watching four weeks out, an...

For ten years, Pete Wehner's email subject line for every new outrage was "No bottom means no bottom." Now he and Jon Rauch think they may have found one.

Jonathan Rauch and Peter Wehner join Corey to talk about their New York Times essay, "Trump Has Finally Lost the Plot." They lay out where Trump succeeded, where his effort to remake American society failed, and why Minneapolis, the courts, and his falling approval numbers made th...

Everyone says the polls blew it. Carl Allen says they didn't, and his research shows candidates averaging 49% or higher in well-polled races have won 98% of the time since 2004. Then we go race by race: Texas, Ohio, Maine, and two red states that could shock everyone on election night.

Recorded live on Substack, this conversation with data analyst Carl Allen starts with why polls aren't predictions and ends with a tour of the 2026 S...

Joan Blades helped launch MoveOn. Jacob Hess grew up a conservative kid in Utah. Their friendship is the argument.

Joan Blades, co-founder of MoveOn and Living Room Conversations, and Jacob Hess of the Deseret News join Corey to talk about what happens when political opposites actually sit down together. They cover MoveOn's 1998 start as a one-sentence petition, why these conversations feel scary before they feel fun, and how local ...

"Woke 1 was crazy," AOC said on national TV, and then she laughed. Corey wants to know what that laugh leaves out.

This morning, Corey published a new essay on Substack about what the woke era actually cost: friendships, careers, invitations that stopped coming. It's also about the friends who stayed close anyway, across real disagreement. This episode, Corey reads it to you himself.

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Credentials used to be enough. Rachel Kleinfeld and Renée DiResta on what earns trust now.

Rachel Kleinfeld of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Renée DiResta of Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy join Corey to talk about their new paper, "How to Engage With New Media: A Strategic Guide for Nonprofit Organizations," co-authored with Margot Treadwell. The conversation moves from an institution ca...

What happens when the people who read your writing talk back?

A couple weeks ago, The Dispatch published an essay Corey wrote about his hometown of Freehold, New Jersey, growing older alongside his friends from high school, and what it means to lose someone who isn't gone. This episode, recorded live on Substack, Corey reads it himself and reacts to comments in real time on Substack Live as well as some that came in at The Dispatch,...

Mike Madrid on why both parties are running on empty, and what's actually filling the vacuum.

Mike Madrid, author of The Latino Century and co-founder of the Lincoln Project, joins Corey to argue that neither party is being reshaped so much as replaced. The conversation moves from a 13,000-person Texas town that could decide the midterms to what it costs a person to spend a career in gladiator politics, and why Madrid traded ...

Two megaphones, two drinks, one bar. Corey quits talking about talking and just gets to the talkin'.

Second edition of "To the Republic... To the Pub." Corey sits down with his buddy Chip, a Tea Party guy since the '70s, and it turns into a real fight: Trump's second term, JD Vance, ICE and the Home Depot raids, and whether bipartisanship even means anything anymore. Not talking about people we disagree with. Talking with them.

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A newspaper editor from East Tennessee on why Dolly Parton was one of the last people almost everyone agreed on, and what that says about faith, place, and the work of editing well.

Michael Reneau, executive editor at The Dispatch, joins Corey to talk about growing up 50 miles from where Dolly Parton was raised, and what her death revealed about a country that still finds a handful of people impossible to dislike. The conversation m...

A friend's Facebook post asks who's afraid of the truth. Corey wonders if he's who she means.

A couple weeks ago, The Fulcrum published an essay Corey wrote about an old friend's social media post, and what it stirred up about the walls we build online without meaning to. This episode, Corey reads it to you himself.

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The theology quietly staffing Trump's cabinet, and why it doesn't need to make sense to work.

Dr. Keri Ladner studies the radicalization of the American religious right, from the Moral Majority to the New Apostolic Reformation. She joins Corey to unpack Christian dominionism, the Seven Mountain Mandate, and how movements with contradictory theologies ended up governing together.

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A Navy SEAL commander on identity, faith, and why we fight the wars we fight.

Captain Robert "Gus" Gusentine spent nearly 30 years in the Navy, commanding SEAL Team 10 and leading special operations forces from the Philippines to the Pacific. He joins Corey to talk about faith, painting, moral injury, and what it means to defend your identity without losing your soul.

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Terms of Service with Future Caucus

A Rhode Island Democrat and a West Virginia Republican, both serving in supermajorities, on why the toughest fights are sometimes within your own party.

Terms of Service is a limited series from Future Caucus and TP&R, hosted by Future Caucus CEO Layla Zaidane. People run for state legislature to serve their communities, then find the fine print. This episode brings together Sen. Tiara Mack (D-...

A buddy at the dive bar hit Corey with "you guys and your TDS." The label stung less than the move behind it: getting turned into a "you guys" in the first place.

This one's a feed drop. Napp Nazworth invited Corey onto the American Values Coalition podcast to unpack a recent op-ed in The Dispatch, "Does Trump Derangement Syndrome Have a Cure?" What opens as a riff on an overused phrase becomes something closer to home. How do you s...

"Nobody I know voted for George Bush." Michelle Cottle has heard that line her whole career, and it explains almost everything about the mess we're in. A New York Times columnist on the bubbles we live in, the family we love anyway, and why the stereotype falls apart the moment you actually know someone.

Michelle Cottle writes about national politics for New York Times Opinion and hosts the Times podcast The Opinions. She and Corey...