Off The Record With Paul Hodes

In the last 20 years Florida has gone from balanced swing state to incubator of far-right Trump clones, and it's about to produce the leading non-Trump Republican candidate for President, Ron DeSantis. So why did Florida go so...nuts? And is Ron DeSantis going to wilt under the national spotlight as so many analysts seem to think? Kartik Krishnaiyer is a writer who focuses on Florida politics at his must-read website The Florida Squeeze and he joins us to wade us through the craziness of the Florida swamp.

And should he do that with the new abortion medicine ruling? Also, what about the astonishing revelations about Clarence Thomas' corruption. What is on the line for Donald Trump in his NEW deposition this week? And what is the big takeaway from the expulsions of two Black Tennessee legislators?

The Wall Street Journal says there’s a five-alarm warning for Republicans happening right now. But is it really a five alarm-warning for all of us? We wanted to ask that question of one of the top experts on American government after an historic and ominous week in America. Norman Ornstein is one of the most famous and respected scholars of American politics and government, he often appears on C-SPAN, CBS, CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, NPR, and “PBS NewsHour,” He served as an election analyst for CBS News for thirty years, and his most recent book was “One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet Deported."

In Part One, former prosecutor and Congressman Paul Hodes walked us through the charges against Donald Trump in New York, and why they amount to such a strong case. In today's Part Two, our panel takes a closer look at the political impact and debates whether Trump can still win the Republican nomination and what it will do with his political prospects in general.

In a word: YES. Here's why this is potentially so devastating...with a read of the indictment itself hot off the presses from former prosecutor Paul Hodes and political operatives Alicia Preston and Matt Robison.

The panel evaluates whether Trump's latest doozy of a rally represents a desperate attempt to keep his fans' attention with even more insane stuff. Also, is DeSantis about to fizzle? Will Republicans repeat their 2016 blunder? Will Democrats' connection with American Jews permanently fall apart over Netanyahu's power grab? And...rainbows!

As Israel spirals into street protests, strikes, and political chaos, former AP lead Middle East reporter Dan Perry joins us to explain why this is happening and to dive into the eerie parallels between Bibi Netanyahu and Donald Trump, and the political unraveling in Israel and what has been happening in the United States. And we ask what lessons we can learn about how to head off a similar crisis in America. Subscribe to Dan Perry's must-read Substack for more.

The 20th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq has raised important and enduring questions: why did we do it? Why did the press get so fooled by false arguments for invading? How could we have failed in our military planning so badly that we sent our troops to war without the equipment they needed? Was there a "winnable" version of this -- or even are we better off for having done it than we think? And what are the lasting consequences here? Sean Carberry - Managing Editor of National Defense Magazine, Former NPR Kabul correspondent, and former member of the DoD Inspector General's oversight on Iraq - joins us.

How did right-wing MAGA Republicans dupe the media into parroting their undiluted propaganda to the public? Our Blue Amp YouTube Channel partner Cliff Schecter joins podcaster and journalist Greg Olear to trace the history and reasons why we landed here.

Desantis going hard after Trump, other Republicans going to the mat to defend him, and Democrats trying to play it cool. Could Trump come out of this stronger, or are Republicans tying themselves in knots as the world waits for Trump to make his perp walk? Also, a monumental ruling on abortion could come any day...what would a ban on the top medical abortion pill mean?

Will the increasingly likely indictment of Donald Trump somehow help him and the Republicans, or set them up for political misery? Matt Robison joins legendary radio broadcaster Howard Monroe to figure out the answer.  Also, what about Trump's call for protests--how dangerous is that? What about the other pending legal cases?

Today, an abusive Democratic politician, and an inside view as Joe Biden gears up for the re-election campaign. A bombshell story in Politico on Marianne Williamson and her abuse of staff and the people around her features a sole on-the-record quote from our own Paul Hodes. We wanted to understand more about what it's like to put a story together like that, and we also wanted to take the chance to bring our viewers and listeners one of the top White House reporters around as President Biden prepares to run again.  We ask her: is Biden...triangulating?!? Lauren Egan was previously a White House reporter for NBC News, and is now a lead reporter for the West Wing Playbook team for Politico.

No one likes to talk about banking...that is, until a couple of banks go down and everyone starts worrying that spreading panic might bring about another "Great Recession" style financial crisis. Paul Hodes was a member of Congress during that crisis and he takes us inside the differences between now and then.  Also, Republicans have put themselves in a box on cutting the budget, and now they've trapped all of us and the entire US economy inside with them. And, Trump...Stormy Daniels...indictments...sex...money...it's all about to happen, but is it politically going to finally undo the former President?

Disinformation, misinformation, and lies: how do we deal with a fire-hose of mind-warping bullshit in the age of social media? There's been a perfect storm on this topic in the past month: the Dominion lawsuit cast a bright light on Fox News' determination to lie; the House oversight committee’s Festivus airing of invented grievances about the persecution of the right wing by social media; and of course our own experience being mistakenly targeted by YouTube as we talked about exposing election misinformation. Two years ago, Paul Barret wrote a perhaps the definitive analysis on this question of whether there is anti-Republican bias on social media, and how to fix social media platforms. Paul M. Barrett is Deputy Director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.

Our own experience getting pulled down by the YouTube algorithm highlights some of the deep problems with social media, Fox News, disinformation, and the myth of right-wing persecution. A panel conversation featuring guest conservative analyst Michael Graham, former CBS NEws analyst and currently of the NH Journal and the Boston Herald.  Also, do you want to live in Trumpville?

So...we kinda got censored over at YouTube...

Today, the baffling rise and spectacular fall of one of the right wing's biggest stars. When the news broke that James O'Keefe had been forced out of Project Veritas,  the group he founded that conducted stunts, undercover stings, another deceptive tactics to inflict embarrassment on Democrats and media targets, there was one person I wanted to talk to more than anyone else.  She's Lauren Windsor, the executive director of American Family Voices and the executive producer of the grassroots political web Show, the Undercurrent. She's a contributor to HuffPost the Nation, LA Progressive prolific author, and a much quoted voice in media. And she has the wild inside story of being thye most high profile target of O'Keefe's, and how she's personally fought back against the right and won.

New documents in the defamation suit against Fox News for deliberately spreading Donald Trump's "Big Lie" about the election have opened a window on what it looks like when a media company sets out to deliberately mislead the American people, knowing they are lying. What does it mean for the first Amendment, for media coverage, and for the struggle against conspiracy theories?  Also, another monumental Supreme Court case, ands Idaho takes up Marjorie Taylor Greene's call for a national divorce.

How can we make Democrats kick ass again? We have better ideas, a stronger record of getting great stuff done, and we're not insane semi-fascists like some people we could mention. But we still barely eke out wins against a Republican Party led by nuts. This conversation is taken from a live YouTube show on the Blue Amp channel, where our expert guests explained exactly how Democrats can get more aggressive and stronger with their messaging and win more.  Our guests are former Biden ad writer and democratic communications guru Cliff Schecter, and celebrated political scientist, modeling expert, and messaging maven Dr. Rachel Bitecofer.

Possibly the greatest scandal in American intelligence history, and even political history, is unfolding right now. Our guest Craig Unger is the author of a recent article in the New Republic called "Did the FBI's Charles McGonigal help Throw the 2016 Election to Trump?"  It raises the very real possibility that Russia infiltrated the FBI and helped orchestrate a stunning swindle of the New York Times in ways that may have handed the Presidency to Donald Trump. And we're still learning more about it every day. Unger is the widely respected author of New York Times bestselling books like House of Trump, House of Putin, and American Kompromat.