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This podcast will take you on a smart, direct, sometimes scary, sometimes profane, sometimes hilarious tour of the inner workings of American power and of the impact of our leaders and their policies on our standing in the world. Hosted by noted author and commentator David Rothkopf and featuring regulars Rosa Brooks of Georgetown Law School, Kori Schake of AEI, and Ed Luce of the Financial Times, the program will be the lively, smart dinner table conversation on the big issues of the day that you wish you were having...without the calories. Sometimes special guests will join the conversation and always the emphasis will be on providing the unvarnished perspectives others shy away from. Deep State Radio is the insider perspective on American national security and foreign policy that you can't find anywhere else.
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In today’s episode, we talk to Representative Jamie Raskin about President Trump’s corrupt scheme to gerrymander the 2026 midterms—and about Raskin’s new ranked-choice-voting plan. Trump’s rage is growing as Indiana Republicans keep resisting his pressure to gerrymander their state, and he exploded in a wild Truth Social rant over the weekend. Yet for now, state Senate Republicans appear dug in. Worse for Trump, other Republicans are now beginning to argue that his scheme is backfiring. Why? Because Trump is hurting Republicans so badly that those whose seats are made somewhat less safe by gerrymandering might now be at risk. Raskin sees an opening to offer another way: Today he’s introducing a new bill that would require ranked choice voting in congressional races across the country. He tells us about the proposal, discusses how Trump’s gerrymandering chaos shows why ranked-choice is a better alternative, and urges Democrats to fight GOP tactics with hardball of their own.
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On the DSR Daily for Tuesday, we discuss the administration’s huge bailout for farmers, the Supreme Court considering an end to limits on party spending, the first social media ban for minors in the world, and more.
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Pete Hegseth’s defense of the killing of two men clinging to an incapacitated boat is falling apart on multiple fronts. Lawmakers who saw video of this horror are letting it be known that the two men were waving before their execution, suggesting they were either surrendering or beckoning for rescue. And other leaks confirm that the boat very well might not have been bound for the United States to begin with. Meanwhile, some Republicans are abandoning him or acquiescing to legislative language that denies Hegseth funding until video is made more widely available to lawmakers, suggesting his position is weakening. We talked to Tess Bridgeman, co-editor-in-chief of the Just Security website and former national security lawyer in the Obama administration. She explains why Hegseth’s position is untenable, why the entire bombing campaign is illegal, why it’s critical that oversight pin down President Trump’s role, and what the prospects are for true accountability later.
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On the DSR Daily for Monday, we discuss the case before the Supreme Court on federal firings, China’s incredible trade surplus, a fiery interview with Marjorie Taylor Greene, and more.
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Under persistent questioning about President Trump’s unfitness for office at his latest cabinet meeting, White House press secretary offered one of the ugliest defenses we’ve ever seen. She singled out Trump’s vile racist attack on Somalis, and praised it as an “epic moment” that put an “exclamation point” on that meeting “for the whole world to see.” Never mind that Trump appeared to fall asleep there, and in that rant about Somalis, called them “garbage” who “contribute nothing” and suggested he wants them all out of our country, even though many are American citizens. We talked to Vedant Patel, a former State Department and White House official. We discuss what it means that Leavitt went full cult in giving White House sanction to his ugly bigotry, why the targeting of Somalis is so ghoulish, and what Trump really intends when he threatens denaturalization and “remigration,” as he is now doing.
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On the DSR Weekly Wrap-Up for December 5, we cover the administration’s newly released National Security Strategy, the Supreme Court allowing the use of Texas’s gerrymandered map, the fallout from Signalgate, and more.
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Would you use an AI as your stockbroker? Maybe not. Yet more and more individuals and firms are using AI tools to aid in investing. But will AI-powered investment democratize the practice, or ensure that wealth disparity grows as wealthier individuals use better models? MIT professor Andrew Lo joins David Rothkopf to explore the relationship between artificial intelligence and investment and why a cautious approach could yield incredible results.
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Tuesday was a surprisingly difficult victory for the Republicans in red Tennessee. The speical election’s electoral results have a lot to tell us about the increasing tensions and discontent within the Republican party. Norm Ornstein and David Rothkopf are back to discuss the fragile state of GOP leadership, the absurd levels of political corruption within MAGA, and the implications Tuesday’s results could have for 2026 and beyond.
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Democrats have signaled that they’re running in the 2026 midterms on “affordability.” This week, Trump unleashed several angry, wild-eyed rants about their “affordability” message. In one, he raged that this message is a “con job.” In another, he seethed that it’s a “Democrat scam.” He’s angry because these attacks are working, and because he knows it means the GOP’s midterm woes are getting much worse. And right on cue, in this week’s special election in Tennessee that Republicans won, the vote shifted 13 points to the left relative to 2024. That shocked Republicans into a panic: Representative Elise Stefanik openly fretted that Republicans are “underperforming.” Senator Ted Cruz urged Republicans to sound the “alarm.” And a senior GOP strategist called the result a “flashing red warning.” We talked to Amanda Litman, the president of Run for Something, which is recruiting candidates across the country. She digs into the special election results to explain why they’re good news, details how Democrats can keep the momentum going through 2026, and reflects on what could still go wrong.
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Are we really going to war with Venezuela? Just how bad is Hegseth’s war criminal ethos? Can Europe pull itself together to save Ukraine and itself? These are the questions that keep us up at night, but our friends Ed Luce and Rosa Brooks join David Rothkopf to try and give us answers. Will their answers help us rest easy? Tune in to find out!
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On the DSR Daily for Wednesday, we discuss a new pause on immigration applications for 19 countries, a new immigration crackdown in New Orleans, a Democrat loss in the Tennessee special election, and more.
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Suddenly, on many fronts at once, President Trump and his allies are demonstrating how central sheer sadism is to his agenda—and to how MAGA conducts politics. Trump just unleashed a hateful rant to the media about Somali immigrants to set the stage for a coming campaign to arrest them en masse. Meanwhile, MAGA excitement over the Caribbean Sea bombings is spiking: Pete Hegseth tweeted out a deeply sadistic cartoon celebrating these extrajudicial killings. A prominent MAGA personality just declared her desire to see bombing victims “bleed out.” And MAGA figures are raging at reporters who broke the story of the follow-up strike killing two men in the water. We talked to Paul Waldman, who has a good piece on his Cross Section Substack about all of this. We discuss the centrality of hate and bloodlust to Trump-MAGA politics, how the administration’s social media strategy utilizes sadistic imagery, and why the public backlash to all these depravities is heartening.
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How dead is old media? As more and more traditional outlets are swallowed by powerful individuals and corporations, it’s hard to determine what’s worth reading anymore. Are the New York Times and Washington Posts of the world still worth paying attention to? Jeff Jarvis and Dan Froomkin join David Rothkopf to explore these questions and determine who you can really trust in the era of new media.
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President Trump has grown even more authoritarian and bold with each passing day in his second term. With illegal strikes on boats and the pardon of the former Honduran president, it’s clear that the administration is moving recklessly ahead with a dangerous agenda. So what can Congress do? And just as critically, what can every day citizens do to stem the tide of authoritarianism? Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon joins David Rothkopf to answer all these questions and more.
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On the DSR Daily for Tuesday, we break down Trump’s pardon of the former president of Honduras, Hegseth and the White House scrambling in the fallout from a boat strike, Costco’s lawsuit against the administration, and more.
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President Trump’s illegal boat bombings just got even worse. We’ve now learned that after demolishing a boat allegedly carrying drug smugglers in September, two survivors were left behind, and they were both blown apart in a second strike. That’s probably a war crime. On Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt struggled mightily to spin this as perfectly lawful. But all she revealed is how hard it is to defend all this when actual facts are known. Meanwhile, the latest turn in this saga is clearly rattling some Republicans, who feel forced to appear as if they want to exercise more oversight. We talked to Jennifer Rubin, editor-in-chief of The Contrarian, about her good new piece on this latest fiasco. She explains why we should take GOP angst over the bombings seriously, why people inside the chain of command should fear they’re on the hook for illegal acts, and what it will really take to impose accountability.
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On the DSR Daily for Monday, we discuss Benjamin Netanyahu requesting a pardon, Pete Hegseth’s potential war crimes, deadly flooding in Southeast Asia, and more.
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President Trump dreads being seen as weak. He exploded in a long, crazed rant about a harsh new piece in The New York Times about his ongoing decline. Though the piece documented his deterioration in careful detail, Trump insisted in all kinds of ways that, no, really, he’s as physically energetic and cognitively sound as he’s ever been. We think this gets at a bigger story: The illusion that Trump is strong, powerful, and wields absolute mastery over foes is essential to his political mystique. As his wildly unhinged overreaction to the piece demonstrates, he knows this better than anyone. Yet that eruption only confirmed the thesis: The whole fracas even got medical professionals to weigh in on his obvious mental decline. We talked to David Lurie, who writes for the Public Notice Substack, about his new piece depicting Trump as a “lame duck dictator.” We discuss the collapse of Trump’s aura of strength, how the combination of his political debilitation and consolidation of authoritarian power poses new dangers, and the importance of depicting him as the naked emperor figure he truly is.
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Trump’s foreign policy can be summarized with one phrase: FUBAR. The administration’s commitment to Ukraine is laughable, and Trump’s politics are driving a potentially irreversible wedge between us and our closest allies. But if we can’t be thankful for the atrocious politics of our government, at least we can be thankful for the courage and resistance of those committed to democracy, both at home and abroad. Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations joins David Rothkopf and Rosa Brooks to discuss America’s place in the world on the eve of Thanksgiving.
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On the DSR Daily for Wednesday, we discuss a leaked recording of Steve Witkoff, 20 states suing the administration over cuts to homeless housing funding, Trump backing Patel over reports on his potential ousting, and more.
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good job Donny.... could be I (GOD) will let ya get in to HEAVEN after all ... now all ya got to do is increase the ssdi by another 2.8 percent and ya could be mine... as in up there in HEAVEN... ok Donny my boy .. get on about it.... talk at ya later.. (GOD).... 😊😊😊😊
old man lost his marbles .... hey Jorgensen....
oh fuck man can't wait to see how bannon defends this .....
is it just me or trump is literally fucking everything up ,?
you are absolute morons.
Ukraine is America's war. Stop your b.s. the USA provoked this war through Nato expansion
so now AI is the messiah? Or the devil?
this is sickening. the holocaust is happening on Gaza and you ignore it. shame, total shame on all of you.
forget Trump's "base", because he doesn't give a damn about them. Or anyone because he can't run again he doesn't need them. now it's just about him and his "gut".
know this cause its true.... FEAR PARALYSES YOU DURING BATTLE.... BUT WHITE HOT RAGE WINS THAT BATTLE.... It is way better to be angry then scared.... scared gets you killed.... dont let anybody tell you that you're scared.... they're trying to weaken you.... don't trust anybody who tells you that you're scared.... be suspicious of everyone who tells you that you're scared.... you aint scared of nothing.... you're pissed off beyond description.... never scared... fuck fear....
instead of saying something scares you.... say.... something makes me extremely angry.... replace the word scared with angry.... you will feel much better....
what is this about?
I want to meet Grizzly..
canada.... ohh the lake life.... i cant wait.... go get em mr. president.... go get em....
starving under some bridge not an option just so the rich can get richer... take it any which way you like what i mean....
Democrats should vote in favor of Trump and Republican policy to expose all flaws in their rhetoric and agenda. All those Republican business owners who voted for Trump should deal with the consequences of their voting behaviour by losing their lowly paid migrant workforce. Time to pay people an honest wage for dangerous work like construction stop exploiting the migrant population, Accept them as immigrants, offer them citizenship.
shits bout to get real fucky... fuckers.... fuck offs are comin.... fuck you.... 😊😊😊😊
Trump has reviewed to me personally of his good intention of bringing eternal lasting peace solution in the middle. I believe he had the technical mechanism to solve the problem and bring lasting peace and prosperity I the Middle East
Americans voted for him to do what they wanted,and he is doing just that by assembling men who would help him revive the economy and American standing in the world
only dumb ass old people take trump seriously...