Off The Record With Paul Hodes

As we enter 2022, the biggest question on everyone’s minds – the biggest question in the world – is what will happen with Covid, especially as we deal with the Omicron wave which is continuing to lead to record numbers of cases. So we wanted to check in with one of our favorite guests, Donald G. McNeil Jr. Throughout the pandemic, for millions of readers and podcast listeners in the US and around the world, Donald has been one of the most trusted, thoughtful, and clear explainers on the science of the coronavirus and public health measures to control it. He was the lead reporter on the Covid-19 pandemic for the New York Times in 2020 and since leaving the Times, he’s continued to write and explain the science of Covid to the public. He recently wrote an article titled “Oh, Great. Now I’ve Got Covid.” Donald joins us to explain what happened, why he went with the British approach to quarantining instead of the CDC approach (and what Dr. Anthony Fauci told him about it), and what seems most likely to happen wit

The most fun show of the year where our panel hands out end of year awards: MVP for Dems and for Republicans, most important news story,  surprising polling finding, under-reported news story of the year, and more. Our panel is Republican political columnist Alicia Preston, former Democratic Congressman Paul Hodes, and host and former Congressional staffer Matt Robison. Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

We call the show Beyond Politics for a reason, and today, we once again step way beyond politics for a fun conversation with astronomer John Gianforte about all of the fascinating news in space and astronomy.  What are we going to see with our new $10 billion telescope? Can we stop killer asteroids with a spaceship, like something out of a movie?  And what can we learn from the brief few days where scientists thought we might have finally gotten a message from extra terrestrial intelligence, and in our own galactic back yard?  Photo by Alexander Andrews on Unsplash

The outstanding think tank The Concord Coalition has its own podcast and radio show called Facing the Future, and recently, they hosted Beyond Politics hosts Matt Robison and former Congressman Paul Hodes for a lively discussion about how screwed up things are, and what can be fixed (and what can't).  There's a little friendly dunking on Congress, plus some practical talk about how to make things work on the side. 

Matt joins legendary West Virginia radio broadcaster -- and expert Senator Joe Manchin analyst -- Howard Monroe to talk about Manchin's weekend stunner, what was really driving it, and whether it's the best thing that could have happened to Democrats.

The recently concluded COP 26 summit in Glasgow was supposed to shine an international spotlight on global warming and charge up the next stage of commitments from countries to reduce carbon emissions. There were only two problems. One: it’s unclear how much progress was actually made. The conference did end with a new consensus about the need for action, and some analysts called that a substantial achievement.  But the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg accused the conference of consisting of a lot of “blah, blah, blah.” Two: nowadays, it’s hard to focus on the fact that the world is on fire when global warming is competing for our attention with immediate problems like the worldwide pandemic, economic instability, and the fact that democracy is weakening around the world, and may not have long to go in the US. So we wanted to take a look at where we really are on climate, COP 26, and the US role in it, and to do that we have one of the very best environmental leaders in the United States. Elizabeth Gore i

More than five and a half million Americans out of work in January found jobs by November. In the same period, the jobless rate fell from 6.3 to 4.2 percent, a drop of one-third. Jobless claims in November hit a 52-year low. Real GDP growth for 2021 is expected to be 5.9 percent. (Between 2000 and 2019, real GDP growth stayed lower than 3 percent.) President Biden’s temporary child tax credit, which provides direct cash payments to poor families, cut child hunger rates from 30 percent to 21 percent. That’s 2 million fewer kids who went hungry. Yet Biden’s popularity, as measured by poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight, remains in the doldrums. At 43 percent approval, his numbers are worse  than any postwar president at this point in his term except for his  predecessor, Donald Trump. Author Noah Berlatsky has written an analysis for The Editorial Board in which he says that all this kind of...makes sense. In fact, it may be a sign of democracy working. On the show, Matt and Noah run through his argument,

Chris Hill of Motley Fool Money takes stock of the biggest trends of 2021 for business, the economy, and investing, and the biggest questions ahead for 2022.  He awards CEO of the year (there were three), business story of the year, and a nice piece of good news for investors ahead. 

Av Harris of the national fiscal responsibility advocacy group The Concord Coalition joins the show to share insights from his experience working for some of the most colorful -- and colorfully named -- politicians in America, and to explain the new Concord Coalition report on why immigrants will be so vital to maintaining economic growth in the future. Also, what's up with the Congressional Budget Office saying that the Build Back Better bill won't add to the deficit, and then saying well, if you did a bunch of other stuff, it would? Is that actually a meaningful way to look at this (the Concord Coalition says yes, Matt says no), or just fodder for scoring political points? Photo by Kerwin Elias on Unsplash

On today's show, we highlight the complicated legacy of Bob Dole. For Americans of a certain age, basically age 35 and over, Bob Dole was an avatar of the Republican Party.  After his losing presidential campaign, he went through a transition from a taciturn, gruff politician known as Dr. Gridlock to a much more genial and vulnerable public image cultivated on late night TV, as a spokesperson for World War II veterans, and on behalf of sufferers of erectile dysfunction as a pitchman for Viagra.  In the wake of his death, analysts focused on that later image, and mourned the passing not only of the man, but of a seemingly different and better kind of American politics. But our guest today was one of the few to point out that Bob Dole's record was far more complex, and maybe the nostalgia about the way things used to be in politics isn't quite right. In fact, as much as we praise his military service and personal toughness, it can be argued that Bob Dole was ahead of his time on many of the things tha

Or Rush Limbaugh? Or the same media echo chamber that exists on the right.  Longtime West Virginia radio host Howard Monroe and Matt Robison dive into where the right wing dominance of slanted media comes from (and make no mistake, the right wing does dominate), and whether it is ultimately fixable. 

Today, we're thrilled to welcome back two friends of the show, Mario Broussard and Alex Ivey, who are Senior Vice President and Vice President of Research respectively at Global Strategy Group, one of the premier polling, research, and public affairs companies in America. They have been running an absolutely fascinating research project, Global Strategy Group’s bi-annual series, The Melting Pot: GSG’s Ongoing Look at Racial Politics in America, which is intended to take the temperature of Black America on political issues, social attitudes, and voting behavior.  As we observed in Mario and Alex’s last appearance on the show, Black Americans are the absolute core what the Democratic Party and turn out an engagement from these voters will be absolutely critical to determining the outcome of the elections in 2022 and beyond. Today, we tackle lessons learned from their research about Defund the Police and even more important, Critical Race Theory. How can Democrats talk about it when it is so politically dan

In the last few months American politics has become a little mysterious, if not downright confounding. By almost every measure, President Joe Biden and the Democratic party have had an extremely successful year. Remember we started this year with an insurrection in the very heart of our government, with armed vigilantes roaming the halls of Congress. We also had a brand new set of vaccines but almost no Americans vaccinated against a deadly pandemic. Unemployment was still six and a half percent.  Economic output was hundreds of billions of dollars lower than the start of the pandemic. Fast forward to the end of October: GDP had fully recovered and grown beyond pre-pandemic levels, employers were adding half a million jobs a month, unemployment was down to 4.6%, and people were leaving their jobs at a record rate because the job market was so good.  Wages were up 5.0% over the year. And Americans had accumulated $2.3 trillion more in savings, with the median household’s checking account balance 50 p

Markets have been spooked by Omicron news in recent days.  And Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales are down year-on-year.  So which of these is a bigger concern, or are either of them really a bad sign at all?  Also, Dorsey is OUT at Twitter, Amazon is taking over the shipping market, and what can we learn for business from the Patriots? Chris Hill of Motley Fool Money weighs in. Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

In 2016 the Democratic Party lost control of every branch of government. Countless explanations and excuses have been offered, and despite an anti-Trump backlash in 2018 and eking out the Presidency in 2020, Democrats have been on a continued downward slide down ballot. And now, facing the midterms, their prospects don’t exactly look rosy. The news media is full of doom and gloom, the President’s popularity is underwater despite some massive successes, and Republican voter suppression efforts look likely to keep them with the upper hand into the future. So what’s the answer? Our guest, Tom Reston has one. His book Soul of a Democrat: The Seven Core Ideals That Made Our Party — and Our Country — Great, focuses on the root ideas of the Democratic Party and how to start from the foundation of what the party is supposed to be about. He argues that Democrats need a coherent, blunt set of American ideals and in this book, he provides one.

By most measures, the economy is doing great. The country's economic output is way past where it was before the pandemic. In October alone, the country created 531,000 jobs and set a record for the number of people leaving their jobs, which is a sign the people see a hot job market and want to take advantage of it.  Unemployment is way down, wages are way up, and the average American has 50% more their checking account today than they did just two years ago. Not to mention that businesses are also happy and flush with cash: consumer spending is surging while the stock market was up 7% in October, capping off a strong year. BUT...Inflation. It's on everybody's minds.  It was up 6.2% in October, and that has made Americans feel like the economy is terrible. 68% of Americans told Gallup in October that they thought the economy is getting worse, while the University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey finds that Republicans feel worse about the economy than at the height if the Great Recession. So, ho

Matt joins legendary West Virginia radio host Howard Monroe on his show to talk about his Alternet article describing the government's massive bias toward the old over the young, and why it needs to end. Then, a discussion about Republican infighting and growing threats of violence, what it means, and why it's happening.

Chris Hill of Motley Fool Money explains what to make of the very different things people are saying about the state of the economy / their personal finances, and how they are actually acting. Right now, Americans tell pollsters that the economy is bad and that they are worried. But they are spending, seeking new job opportunities, and investing like things are great. So what does that mean, and what do businesses, investors, and analysts do when those things diverge?

Josh Schwerin is a communications veteran among Democrats, and it sure seems like they need one right now. A former press secretary for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, he served as the National Spokesman for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and as the Senior Strategist and Director of Communications for Priorities USA, the biggest Democratic outside advocacy group and political action committee, where he played a big role in figuring out how to spend $153 million in advertising in the 2020 political cycle, and what to say with all that money. He’s also a veteran of the Terry McAulliffe political operation, which makes him the perfect person to talk about where we are now, and what Democrats need to do in the coming year.

The degree to which President Biden can sell his agenda to the American public maybe the single most important factor in driving the politics of the coming years.  Many analysts have compared President Joe Biden's legislative plans for America to the Great Society program of President Lyndon Johnson -- widely regarded as the most ambitious set of social investments in American history. With the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill and Joe Biden's signature social investment program, the Build Back Better agenda, waiting in the on-deck circle, it appears the President Biden is on track to make that comparison very real. But will the public end up supporting these achievements, and will they reward Democrats politically for them? After all, don't parties in power use their position, especially the position of the President, to sell their ideas to the public and then reap the rewards by touting their achievements? The answer is no. In fact, we may be thinking about how this works all wrong. Dr. Geo