Lever Time

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 it’s transformed our lives. In this first episode, David Sirota uncovers conservatives’ plan to deregulate the campaign finance system, their efforts to legalize bribery, and what options we have to stop them.Click here to pre-order our new book, MASTER PLAN: The Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America.Get ad-free episodes, bonus content and extended interviews by becoming a member at levernews.com/join.To leave a tip for The Lever, click here. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism.

Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation Entertainment have drawn the ire of consumers — and the Federal Trade Commission — for exorbitant ticket prices, misleading hidden fees, and shady resale tactics.  But losing your right to sue Ticketmaster or join a class action lawsuit is now just a click away. Hiding in the company’s new terms-of-use agreement, The Lever found a clause that forces ticket buyers into arbitration, a private judicial system rigged in favor of the company.Today on Lever Time, David Sirota sits down with The Lever’s Luke Goldstein and anti-monopoly attorney David Seligman to reveal how the ticketing company has monopolized the live entertainment market, kept ticket prices high, and is now stripping away your legal rights. Click here to read Luke’s story about TicketMaster’s new terms of use. To learn more about David Seligman’s organization, Towards Justice, click here. Click here for a full transcript of the episode. Get ad-free episodes, bonus content and extended interviews by becoming a member at levernews.com/join.To leave a tip for The Lever, click here. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism.

While media giants cave to frivolous Trump libel lawsuits and muzzle late-night hosts who step out of line, CBS News’ parent company has announced that the billionaire-backed conservative provocateur Bari Weiss will be the network’s new editor-in-chief.Today on Lever Time, we’re going back in time to understand how we arrived at this present-day media hellscape. Who set this plan into motion, and how do we fight back?Click here to pre-order our new book, MASTER PLAN: The Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America.Get ad-free episodes, bonus content and extended interviews by becoming a member at levernews.com/join.To leave a tip for The Lever, click here. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism.

Getting a home mortgage used to take weeks of phone calls and paperwork. Now, real estate search platforms like Zillow and Redfin offer comprehensive, nearly one-click homebuying. What are the hidden costs of trusting these industry giants with every step of the process?Today on Lever Time, producer Natalie Bettendorf speaks with Lever reporter Helen Santoro about her investigation into how these one-stop real estate shops may actually be hurting homebuyers — and the U.S. economy.You can read Helen’s story here, and a follow-up story here.Click here for a full transcript of the episode.Get ad-free episodes, bonus content and extended interviews by becoming a member at levernews.com/join.To leave a tip for The Lever, click here. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism.

Last week, President Donald Trump dramatically altered the U.S. government’s approach to domestic terrorism. NSPM-7, a little-noticed national security directive, expands the list of terrorism indicators to include any behavior that is deemed anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-capitalist, extreme on gender, hostile towards “traditional American views” on family, and more. Today on Lever Time, producer Ariella Markowitz sits down with independent investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein, who first sounded the alarm about the memorandum’s ability to suppress free speech and target Trump’s political opponents.To check out Ken Klippenstein’s reporting on the new directive, click here.Get ad-free episodes, bonus content and extended interviews by becoming a member at levernews.com/join.To leave a tip for The Lever, click here. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism.

In the first nine months of his second term, President Donald Trump has filed more than 200 executive orders. State attorneys general are filing lawsuits to block the Trump administration’s blatant power grabs, but will our legal system prove strong enough to save American democracy?Today on Lever Time, David Sirota speaks with Minnesota’s Attorney General Keith Ellison (D), who has sued the Trump administration dozens of times, for an on-the-ground look at the battle to stop the Trump agenda.Click here for a full transcript of the episode.Get ad-free episodes, bonus content and extended interviews by becoming a member at levernews.com/join.To leave a tip for The Lever, click here. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism.

President Donald Trump says that U.S. violent crime has spiraled so far out of control that he needs to send troops into Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Memphis. But is that really true? Today on Lever Time, David Sirota speaks with Alec Karakatsanis, award-winning civil rights lawyer and author of the book Copaganda: How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News, about how government officials are manufacturing fear to justify authoritarian rule. Click here to watch the full interview on our YouTube channel. To check out Alec Karakatsanis’s book, click here. Click here for a full transcript of the episode. Get ad-free episodes, bonus content and extended interviews by becoming a member at levernews.com/join.To leave a tip for The Lever, click here. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism.

Today on Lever Time, David Sirota talks with bestselling author Bill McKibben, who says the solar energy revolution has reached a tipping point and is now poised to reshape our world.Click here to learn about Sun Day, a nationwide action this Sunday, Sept. 21, to celebrate and advocate for solar power.To check out McKibben’s new book, Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization, click here.Click here for a full transcript of the episode.To leave a tip for The Lever, click here. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism.

First, they cancelled Stephen Colbert; now they’ve pulled Jimmy Kimmel off the air. The common denominator? Corporate power.On today’s episode of Lever Time, David Sirota talks with media-consolidation expert Craig Aaron and monopoly authority Matt Stoller about how media corporations are transforming the news and information environment to curry favor with the Trump administration. Where is this all heading? Are our most basic freedoms going to survive? Click here for a full transcript of the episode.The kind of accountability journalism that The Lever does every single day is under assault in a way it has never been in our lifetimes. Help us fight back. Click here for a 30% discount on a Lever subscription right now. 

Today on Lever Time, David Sirota speaks with Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary and economics professor, about what he’s learned from working in multiple presidential administrations, where he believes that American politics went wrong, and what the Democratic Party needs to do to save itself — and the country.Click here for more of this interview, in which Reich explains how the Baby Boomer generation failed America.You can check out Reich’s new memoir, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, here. Get ad-free episodes, bonus content and extended interviews by becoming a member at levernews.com/join.To leave a tip for The Lever, click here. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism.

A message from David Sirota about recent violence and what we must do to stop it.

The Democratic Party is in a rut. Democratic voter registration has been steadily declining since 2018, and the party’s approval rating in some polls has dropped even lower than President Donald Trump’s. Feeling pessimistic? We have some good news. On this episode of Lever Time, David Sirota sits down with three Democratic candidates — Michigan’s Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, California’s Saikat Chakrabarti, and New York Lieutenant Gov. Antonio Delgado — who are challenging the gerontocracy and forging a new direction for a party that has lost its way.Click here for a full transcript of the episode.Get ad-free episodes, bonus content and extended interviews by becoming a member at levernews.com/join.To leave a tip for The Lever, click here. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism.

The United States government is taking a 10 percent stake in Intel, blurring the lines between capitalism and state ownership. While critics say it’s a dangerous power grab, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is praising President Donald Trump’s move.On this episode of Lever Time, David Sirota sits down with The American Prospect’s Harold Meyerson and Cornell University law professor Bob Hockett to tackle the deeper question: Should the U.S. government own pieces of big corporations? Get ad-free episodes, bonus content and extended interviews by becoming a member at levernews.com/join.To leave a tip for The Lever, click here. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism.

As American workers are fighting for their basic needs, the country’s richest are getting richer — while inventing perverse new ways to spend and hoard their money. Today on Lever Time, David Sirota sits down with “greed beat” journalist Evan Osnos, who explains why ultrarich oligarchs are running away from the rest of us on luxurious gigayachts, decadent doomsday bunkers, and ill-advised spaceships.Get Evan’s book, The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich, here.Click here for a full transcript of the episode.Get ad-free episodes, bonus content and extended interviews by becoming a member at levernews.com/join.To leave a tip for The Lever, click here. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism.

As Trump presses states to redraw their district maps to favor Republicans, David Sirota gets the inside scoop from Texas Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett, who is on the frontlines of the gerrymandering war. Doggett this week announced a shocking act of self-sacrifice, jeopardizing his own career for the battle against Trump.  Click here for a full transcript of the episode.Get ad-free episodes, bonus content and extended interviews by becoming a member at levernews.com/join.To leave a tip for The Lever, click here. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism.

On today's episode of Lever Time, comedian and writer Ed Helms (The Daily Show, The Office) takes David Sirota on a wild journey through some of history’s greatest screw-ups — from nuclear war near-misses to secret ice tunnels in Greenland to attempts to blow up the moon. Helms, who hosts the podcast SNAFU, explores the risks of putting our trust in leaders who could do things that put us on the brink of extinction. What do America’s biggest blunders teach us about our lack of control, our resilience, and what the future holds?Click here to learn more about Ed Helm's book, SNAFU: The Definitive Guide to History's Greatest Screwups.Click here for a full transcript of the episode.To leave a tip for The Lever, click here. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism.

Health insurance premiums for some Americans could increase by a whopping 66 percent next year. Why are insurers jacking up their rates? And why are Republicans killing off Biden-era subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, despite their overwhelming, bipartisan popularity? Could such efforts backfire and make Medicare for All inevitable? And how can individuals and small businesses prepare for insurance hikes?Today on Lever Time, David Sirota sits down with two of America’s leading experts on the health care system, Larry Levitt and Miranda Yaver, who are sounding the alarm about insurance rate increases. We explore the reasons why the Trump administration is making it harder for Americans to pay for their health insurance — and how the coming perfect storm threatens to sink the Affordable Care Act.To read the KFF study referenced in this episode, click here.Click here for a full transcript of the episode.Get ad-free episodes, bonus content and extended interviews by becoming a member at levernews.com/join.To leave a tip for The Lever, click here. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism.

Today, we’re sharing an episode from our friends over at Scene On Radio, the Peabody-nominated documentary podcast that asks big questions about who we are and how we got this way. This is the premiere episode of its season seven series, “Capitalism,” which explores the rise of the world’s dominant economic system — and examines why the concept is now being questioned in ways it hasn’t been in decades.If you’d like to keep listening to Scene On Radio, visit sceneonradio.org.Get ad-free episodes, bonus content and extended interviews by becoming a member at levernews.com/join.To leave a tip for The Lever, click here. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism

Men are struggling with friendships and feeling lonelier than ever. The male loneliness epidemic is seeping into many facets of life — including mental health, the economy, and American politics — but why are guys having such a hard time making and keeping friends?Today on Lever Time, David Sirota sits down with journalist Sam Graham-Felsen to explore the collapse of male friendship — and why this quiet crisis has deeper political and social ramifications than anyone wants to admit.You can read Sam Graham-Felsen’s New York Times article referenced in this episode here.A transcript of the episode is available here.Get ad-free episodes, bonus content and extended interviews by becoming a member at levernews.com/join.To leave a tip for The Lever, click here. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism.

You might recognize director Ari Aster from his groundbreaking horror films like Hereditary and Midsommar. But Aster just dropped the scariest film of his career: Eddington, a dark COVID-19 comedy starring Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, and Emma Stone, about social media-driven polarization, gun violence, and the looming tech takeover.Today on Lever Time, David Sirota speaks with Aster about the inspiration behind his all-too-prescient film. Did the coronavirus pandemic break our brains, leaving our communities with no commonly accepted set of facts? How do we navigate today’s AI slop-driven informational hellscape? And is it possible to avoid the twisted fate of Eddington, Aster’s fictional New Mexico town?Get ad-free episodes, bonus content and extended interviews by becoming a member at levernews.com/join.To leave a tip for The Lever, click here. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism.