Deconstructed

In December, Congresswoman Marcia Fudge was nominated to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development by president-elect Biden. Former Ohio state senator and surrogate for both the 2016 and 2020 Bernie Sanders campaigns Nina Turner quickly emerged as the candidate to beat in the race to fill her seat. Yet when the dust of the primary had cleared on August 3rd, Shontel Brown, the favored candidate of the Democratic Party establishment, was victorious. Turner joins Ryan Grim to discuss what went wrong, her future political ambitions, and what progressives can learn from the race.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The next few weeks will be crucial for the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion reconciliation package, which is central to Joe Biden’s agenda. Pennsylvania congressman Brendan Boyle of the House Ways and Means Committee joins Ryan Grim to discuss how the bill could reshape the American economy.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s become a familiar pattern for West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin: first, announce your opposition to a Biden legislative priority. Second, extract some concessions on the theory that this will attract Republican support. Finally, announce that you’ve had a change of heart and can support the bill, which is of course meaningless since the longed for Republican votes never materialize and no floor vote ever happens. Now Manchin appears to be doing the same old dance with Biden’s budget plan. Whatever the merits of this political strategy, it has certainly turned Manchin into the and most talked-about Senator among DC pundits. But who is he really, and what do West Virginians think of him? West Virginia native Stephen Smith, founder of West Virginia Can’t Wait, joins Ryan Grim to discuss his state’s senior senator. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

More than 45 dead after remnants of Hurricane Ida slammed the Northeast. In Louisiana, where the hurricane hit days before, hundreds of thousands remain without electricity. Meanwhile, massive fires in the West have burned for weeks. Amid all this catastrophe, we continue building new infrastructure to prop up a fossil fuel industry, barreling us toward one climate disaster after another. The most egregious example at the moment is energy company Enbridge’s Line 3 project. Intercept reporter Alleen Brown and attorney and founder of the Giniw Collective Tara Houska join Ryan Grim to discuss Line 3. It's a massive pipeline that snakes across the Canadian border, through Minnesota wetlands, and under the Mississippi River, all so it can transport tar sands oil — the dirtiest of the dirtiest energy — to be refined and, for much of it, exported. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai airport in Kabul on Thursday struck crowds that had gathered in hope of escaping the country. ISIS-K, an Afghanistan-based offshoot of the Islamic State, claimed responsibility for the attacks. Journalist Andrew Quilty joins Ryan Grim to talk about the history of ISIS-K and the aftermath of the attacks. Then, Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar discusses the situation confronting refugees from Afghanistan looking to come to the U.S. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A media consensus has quickly emerged around the Biden administration’s Afghanistan withdrawal, and it goes like this: whatever its merits in the abstract, in its execution the whole thing has been a chaotic debacle. On this week’s Deconstructed, Ryan Grim talks to journalist and author Anand Gopal and to politician and former US army major Richard Ojeda. They discuss what the media are missing, and why the Afghanistan exit is long overdue. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, released the first part of its latest report on the state of the Earth’s climate. It details with greater certainty than ever before the links between human activity and extreme weather patterns: fires, floods, and rising sea levels. Journalist David Wallace-Wells and sociologist Dana Fisher join Ryan Grim to discuss the takeaways from the new report. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last week, congress failed to pass an extension to the COVID-19 eviction moratorium. In response several members of the house, including congresswomen Cori Bush and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, camped out on the steps of the capitol in an effort to pressure the Biden administration into executive action. Congresswoman Bush joins Ryan Grim to discuss this week’s action and how her own life story has informed her understanding of poverty and eviction. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The assasination earlier this month of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse is raising new questions about the threat posed by international mercenaries. It also casts a new light on a story The Intercept published last month that revealed the existence of a 2020 coup plot against the newly elected president of Bolivia, Luis Arcé — successor to the country’s long-serving leftist president Evo Morales. As in Haiti, the plot would have seen foreign mercenaries deployed against an elected leader. Ryan Grim and Laurence Blair, who worked together on that story, look back on their reporting. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last Friday President Biden announced a sweeping executive order aimed at ending what he called a 40-year “experiment of letting giant corporations accumulate more and more power.” Attorney and law professor Zephyr Teachout joins Ryan Grim to discuss the resurgence of antitrust under the Biden presidency. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

25 years before he first ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, 31-year-old Dennis Kucinich was elected mayor of Cleveland, Ohio — at the time, that made him the youngest mayor of a major city in the country. His tenure would be dominated by the fight to prevent the privatization of the city’s public electrical utility, a fight that would pit Kucinich against powerful politicians, the Cleveland Trust bank, and even the mob. Kucinich tells the story of the fight to save Municipal Light in his new book, “The Division of Light and Power.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Since leaving prison in 2017, former intelligence analyst and whistleblower Chelsea Manning has been busy. She ran unsuccessfully for senate in her home state of Maryland, became a Twitch streamer, and was jailed for contempt after refusing to testify in a US government case against Wikileaks and its founder, Julian Assange. Manning joins Ryan Grim and Intercept reporter Ken Klippenstein to talk about prison, prospects for whistleblowers in the Biden era, and what she’s been up to since her release. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Intercept's Lee Fang obtained audio of the powerful West Virginia senator on a call with the centrist political group No Labels. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For decades, economic policymakers have viewed full employment as a scourge to be avoided at all costs, betokening as it does the grim spectre of inflation. If his words are to be believed, Joe Biden wants to break with that consensus and aim for full employment. Economist James Galbraith joins Ryan Grim to discuss. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As part of his “Build Back Better” plan, President Biden has promised to “advance racial equity across the American economy.” In her new book, “The Whiteness of Wealth,” Emory law professor Dorothy Brown argues that meaningfully addressing the racial wealth gap will require wide-ranging reform of the US tax code. Ryan Grim talks to professor Brown about what her research shows. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Republicans in Arizona are hoping to overturn their state’s presidential election result, creating a template that they can apply in Georgia, Wisconsin, and beyond. Meanwhile Mitch McConnell (to no one’s surprise) is making it clear that no Democratic policy objective is going to make it past his filibuster. Does a strategy of legislative obstruction and retroactive electioneering hold any promise for the party? Activist Lauren Windsor and former Senate staffer Eli Zupnick join Ryan Grim to discuss. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On May 7, Israeli police raided the Al-Aqsa mosque in East Jerusalem during the evening prayer. Hamas responded a few days later by launching rockets from Gaza into Israel. Israel retaliated with its own strikes, and the violence escalated. Mariam Barghouti is a Palestinian-American journalist based in the city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. She joins Ryan Grim to discuss this latest flareup in the Israel-Palestine conflict and what US media are missing.The video referenced at the end of the show is Mehdi Hasan’s Blowback: How Israel Helped Create Hamas. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Berta Cáceres was murdered in 2016, she was the leading environmental activist in Honduras and, arguably, the world. A member of the indigenous Lenca people and the founder of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Peoples of Honduras, or COPINH, Cáceres was the most formidable opponent of a powerful energy company called Desarrollos Energeticos Sociedad Anónima, or DESA. Their Agua Zarca dam project would have occupied Lenca land and interfered with waterways sacred to their community. Cáceres worked tirelessly to increase scrutiny of DESA and turn the people of Honduras against the dam, until the early hours of March 3, 2016, when someone had her killed. At the time, David Castillo sat atop DESA’s executive ranks as president and CEO. He is now on trial in the Honduran Supreme Court, charged with ordering Cáceres’s death. Whoever plotted her killing likely underestimated the amount of attention it would bring, drawing Honduras into the international spotlight to a degree unseen since the country’s 2009 coup—but the high-profile case is far from the only one of its kind. Reporters Chiara Eisner and Danielle Mackey join the Intercept’s Maia Hibbett to discuss. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

May Day is the biggest day of the year for the international labour movement, but it passes almost unmentioned each year in the United States. That’s in spite of the fact that the holiday commemorates the workers killed in the Haymarket riot in Chicago in 1886. As a corrective, Deconstructed offers a brief history of organized labor in the U.S. Jimmy Williams of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades joins Ryan Grim to discuss the PRO Act, a labor reform bill currently before Congress. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Wednesday night, Joe Biden gave his first presidential address to a joint session of Congress, though it was sparsely attended so that social distancing could be observed. Biden was there to pitch what he’s calling the American Families Plan, and as Deconstructed guest Matt Bruenig has long noted, support for families and children has been a blind spot in the United States. Bruenig founded the progressive think tank People's Policy Project, which relies largely on small donors. In early 2019, he put out what he called the Family Fun Pack, a sweeping set of policies aimed at making raising kids in the U.S. somewhat less impossible than it is today. He modeled the policies on the most effective programs in operation in Europe and Asia. Matt is also the co-host, with his wife Liz Bruenig, of the great podcast The Bruenigs. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you were reading the news back in 2008, then you probably remember how residential mortgage backed securities fuelled by subprime mortgages tanked the global economy. Well now John Flynn, a veteran of the mortgage securities market, says it’s happening all over again — this time in the commercial real estate market. Flynn joins Ryan Grim and The Intercept’s Jon Schwarz to discuss. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Michelle Lujan Grisham defeated Eric Griego in the race for New Mexico’s 1st congressional district in 2012, it put the left wing of the state’s Democratic Party on the backfoot. 9 years later, the state’s legislature is routinely passing some of the most progressive legislation in the country. What happened? Griego joins Ryan Grim to discuss. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Earlier this week Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware led a congressional delegation to a Texas immigration detention facility housing children who arrived unaccompanied at the border. Also on the trip was Rep. Veronica Escobar of Texas, who joins Ryan Grim to talk about the present and future of U.S. immigration policy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If Joe Biden is looking for inspiration on immigration policy, he might look to a speech he gave in 2013 when he was inducted into the Irish America Hall of Fame. The then-Vice President talked of how his own ancestors found refuge in the US and how the immigration policies of the time made it possible for their entire family to join them and escape the ongoing famine in Ireland. Today, many Central American immigrants are getting a different sort of welcome at the southern border. John Washington and José Luis Sanz join Ryan Grim to discuss. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In his first press conference as president, Joe Biden decided not to address his decision to continue to seek the extradition of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange from the United Kingdom. The outcome of the Assange case could set a major new precedent on press freedom, yet the press largely seems uninterested in it. Ryan Grim talks to Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971, and to Billie Winner Davis, mother of Reality Winner, who was prosecuted and imprisoned for leaking confidential documents in 2017. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week New Jersey congressman Frank Pallone, the chairman of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee, gave the legislative push for single-payer healthcare a major boost by announcing that he would be co-sponsoring the proposed Medicare for All bill and holding a hearing on it sometime in the current term. Pramila Jayapal, Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and physician Abdul El-Sayed join Ryan Grim to discuss the prospects for universal healthcare in the United States. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Saturday, a year after Bernie Sanders won the Nevada caucuses, a slate of progressive candidates swept elections for leadership positions in the state Party. Ryan Grim talks to activist Keenan Korth and to Judith Whitmer, Nevada State Democratic Party Chair, about how they out organized establishment Democrats. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week the House of Representatives passed a $1.9 trillion Covid relief package by a 220-210 vote. It now moves to the Senate, where it will have to make it past a Republican filibuster. Huffpost reporter Arthur Delaney and Elizabeth Pancotti, Policy Director at Employ America, join Ryan Grim to discuss what’s actually in the bill. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After a series of high-profile terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists in France, the country finds itself in a heated debate over some of its most cherished values: laïcité, or secularism, and the principle of race-neutrality, or color-blindness, in public policy. A controversial new bill proposed by President Emmanuel Macron targeting "Islamic separatism" is meeting with fierce opposition. French author, journalist, and filmmaker Rokhaya Diallo joins guest host Vanessa A. Bee to discuss. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the early 2000s, after gaining control of the Texas House of Representatives for the first time in modern history, Republicans undertook a gerrymandering scheme that solidified their control of the state even further. What followed was a multi-decade experiment in deregulation that has now left millions of Texas residents freezing and without power. Ryan Grim talks to former congressional candidate Mike Siegel and University of Austin professor Varun Rai about how it happened—and how it could have been prevented. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In his first significant foreign policy announcement since taking office, President Biden broke with both former presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama and declared an end to U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. But it will take more than U.S. withdrawal to end the violence there. Rep. Ro Khanna, activist Shireen Al-Adeimi, and reporter Akbar Ahmed join Ryan Grim to discuss. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If President Joe Biden is going to be able to pass any part of his agenda, he'll need to get it past the Senate filibuster. That's likely impossible given the chamber's 50-50 split. Is it time to finally change the Senate rules and allow the body to operate on a simple majority basis? Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley and author Adam Jentleson join Ryan Grim to discuss. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

H.R.1, also known as the For The People Act, is a sweeping reform bill that aims to make voting easier, gerrymandering harder, and to generally rein in the out-of-control minoritarianism that has come to characterize American democracy. Does it have a chance of becoming law? Congressman John Sarbanes, political scientist Jacob Hacker, and the Intercept’s Jon Schwarz join Ryan Grim to discuss. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In February, House Democrats will be re-introducing legislation to create a universal, single-payer healthcare system in the United States. Leading the effort will be Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington. Ryan Grim talks to Jayapal about her strategy and, to Jasmine Ruddy of National Nurses United about the organizing taking place outside of congress. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On January 13th, the Cambridge Democratic City Committee met to discuss a resolution calling for the resignation of Massachusetts state party chair Gus Bickford. The resolution was an attempt to reckon with the party’s complicity last summer in the release of allegations against Holyoke mayor and congressional candidate Alex Morse pertaining to his time as an adjunct professor at UMass Amherst. The allegations were vague and did not include any behavior that violated the law or UMass policy, merely suggesting that Morse had had consensual relationships with adult students. The proposed resolution charged Bickford with “aiding and abetting an attack on a LGBTQ candidate.” But the vote turned ugly as one member, forgetting his live mic, used an anti-gay slur against Dan Totten, one of the members arguing for the resolution. Totten joins Ryan Grim to discuss. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When a mob attacked the Capitol building on January 6th in an attempt to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, found herself like many other lawmakers forced to flee the chamber and take cover. While congress was locked down, several Republicans refused to wear masks. Three Democratic lawmakers, Jayapal among them, later tested positive for Covid-19. Ryan Grim talks to the Congresswoman about her ordeal and her hopeful recovery. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Wednesday afternoon supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol building, overwhelming police and forcing the representatives inside into hiding just as they prepared to certify Joe Biden's election victory. Matt Fuller of Huffpost and Jon Farina of Status Coup, who were at the capitol as events unfolded, join Ryan Grim to discuss. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

One year ago, the U.S. government assassinated Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani by drone strike near the Baghdad International Airport. Is it possible that Donald Trump, now entering the final weeks of his presidency, might have further plans for Iran before he leaves office? Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft joins Ryan Grim to discuss. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On election day last month, 52% of Puerto Rican voters answered “yes” to the following question: Should Puerto Rico be admitted immediately into the Union as a State? But the result of the non-binding referendum has gotten little attention in Washington since then. After all, it’s hardly the first time a statehood vote on the island has been answered in the affirmative. Is this time any different? On this week’s show, guest host Vanessa A. Bee talks to Julio Ricardo Varela, the founder of LatinoRebels.com, and to Angelo Guisado, a civil rights lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights. They examine the past and present of Puerto Rico as a colony and U.S. territory, and how that history should inform our understanding on votes like this one. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Tuesday Joe Biden held a zoom call with civil rights leaders from across the country to discuss matters of policy and his cabinet selections. The call was private, but Deconstructed obtained the audio. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With runoff elections in Georgia next month poised to determine control of the US Senate, national media have turned their eyes south. To help you digest the coming avalanche of Georgia coverage, Ryan Grim sits down with Intercept contributor George Chidi to discuss his state’s raucous political history. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Come 2021 the Democrats are likely to find themselves in control of the Presidency and the House but not the Senate — meaning Mitch McConnell will be in a position to block any ambitious legislation from the new administration. But as Trump has shown us, there’s a lot a president can do without congress. Robert Hockett and Demond Drummer from New Consensus and Dave Dayen from the American Prospect join Ryan Grim to discuss just how much Biden can do on his own. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The circular firing squad over the Democrats’ underperformance in congressional races has already begun. Party leaders are blaming “the squad” and other left-wing figures for their talk of “defunding the police.” Meanwhile, progressives blame the establishment for refusing to adopt a more ambitious platform. Chuck Rocha, the head of Solidarity Strategies, and Jonathan Smucker, founder of Pennsylvania Stands Up, join Ryan Grim to discuss the debate. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

November 3rd, 2020 was supposed to be the Democrats’ moment of glory: polls predicted a comfortable victory for former Vice President Joe Biden, as well as gains in both the House and Senate. Instead, Biden seems set to eke out a narrow win while his party loses House seats and fails to gain control of the upper chamber. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and Texas Democratic House candidate Mike Siegel discuss what happened. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Women across the U.S. found themselves suddenly drawn to politics after the shock election of Donald Trump four years ago. On this week’s podcast, Ryan Grim speaks to three such women: Candace Valenzuela and Julie Oliver in Texas, and Annie Weaver in Pennsylvania, about how that day changed their lives and the course it set them on over the last four years. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Donald Trump and Joe Biden met for their final debate before the 2020 election on Thursday night. Trump continued his recent attacks on Biden’s son Hunter and his foreign business dealings, while Biden went after Trump’s mismanagement of the Covid-19 pandemic. Who got the best of the encounter? Rising host Krystal Ball and former Deconstructed host Mehdi Hasan join the show to break down the debate. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Republicans appear set to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Ryan Grim talks to Ilyse Hogue of NARAL Pro-Choice America about the last 50 years of right-wing legal activism. Then Luther Lowe, Senior Vice President for Public Policy at Yelp, breaks down what could become the biggest antitrust case since Microsoft. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When President Trump abruptly reversed an order penalizing the Chinese telecom company ZTE for selling to North Korea and Iran in 2018, it confused almost everyone. Why was the get-tough-on-China-president suddenly caving to their demands? As The Intercept’s Lee Fang and Mara Hvistendahl found out, the story behind Trump’s move on ZTE sheds new light on the role of lobbyists and foreign interests at the highest levels of his administration’s decision-making. And it involves a figure most Americans, even in his home state, have never heard of: Eric Branstad, son of former Iowa governor Terry Branstad. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wordpress entry text: A Georgia senator compares herself to Attila the Hun. An Alaska senate challenger brags about fighting a bear. While the president’s Covid diagnosis has dominated the headlines, local and state races have been getting interesting, and on this week’s podcast DC Bureau Chief Ryan Grim breaks them down with the Washington Post’s Dave Weigel. Then, Pennsylvania’s Lieutenant Governor, John Fetterman, clears up some myths about mail-in voting. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A special message from Deconstructed host Mehdi Hasan. Mehdi talks to Intercept DC Bureau Chief Ryan Grim about where he's headed and what's next for the podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.