POLITICO's Off Message

The Texas congressman talks about his campaign to oust Ted Cruz, the lyrics he wrote in his old punk band, and the ways he wishes he was more like his dad. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Live from SXSW, Arnold Schwarzenegger joins Isaac Dovere for a wide-ranging conversation on politics, the environment — and even the upcoming "Terminator" movie. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jay Inslee, the governor of Washington and head of the Democratic Governors Association, wants gubernatorial races to become a battlefield for the anti-Trump resistance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Retired General and former CIA Director Michael Hayden sees a "convergence" between the Trump campaign and Russia. He's ‘very concerned’ about it—and thinks you should be, too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Utah Governor Gary Herbert explains why he doesn't mind Romney's flip-flop on taking Trump's endorsement, the gun law changes he'd like to see, and why Utah is chasing another shot at hosting the Olympics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy talks about gun violence, what he has in common with Donald Trump, and his time working as a textbook salesman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on the political rise of black women, what it would take for Democrats to win Georgia in 2020, and how it feels to visit your father in prison while you're just a child. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rep. Joe Kennedy III sits down to talk about why Democrats need a big, messy primary in 2020, the reason he thinks Joe Biden would've defeated Trump, his time as Elizabeth Warren's student at Harvard Law, and what it's like to learn about your family members in history class. Last week, Kennedy gave the Democratic response to President Trump's State of the Union speech. The rebuttal heralded Kennedy's arrival in the national conversation at a time when Democrats are desperate to find the right messenger to lead the part into the future. Could that messenger be Kennedy himself? He’s a 37-year-old congressman at a time when the best-known figures in the party have wrinkles and gray hair; he’s started to make a name for himself as a leading liberal voice on health care and other issues; he chairs Congress’s Transgender Equality Task Force; he speaks fluent Spanish from his service with the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic; he met his wife in Elizabeth Warren’s class at Harvard Law. He has the most revered family name in all of Democratic politics. Listen to the full interview now, and visit POLITICO Magazine to read the whole story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Congressman Steve Stivers heads up the National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP's campaign arm. And that means that, among other things, he's faced with figuring out where—and how—President Trump can be helpful to Republican candidates. Here, he sits down with Isaac to talk about whether he'd send the president to campaign in a swing seat, how he convinces incumbents to run for reelection, and whether President Trump makes him proud to be a Republican. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tony Perkins, the head of the Family Research Council, says that evangelical conservatives are willing to overlook Trump’s past behavior—even his alleged affair with porn actress Stormy Daniels—so long as he delivers for them on policy. “I think they are finally glad that there’s somebody on the playground that is willing to punch the bully,” Perkins tells us. What happened to turning the other cheek? “You know, you only have two cheeks,” Perkins says. “Christianity is not all about being a welcome mat which people can just stomp their feet on.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An all-star panel discusses how #MeToo changes the way we think about Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, why the scandals of 1998 would play out differently in today's media environment, and what Trump learned from Clinton's example. Join Politico editor-in-chief John Harris, New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker, Politico chief international affairs columnist Susan B. Glasser, and Yahoo News chief investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff for a roundtable discussion of the scandal that rocked Washington and changed American politics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

DNC chairman Tom Perez is the son of immigrants from the Dominican Republic. He shares his personal reaction to President Trump's comment about 'shithole countries,' and explains why he thinks the "party of Lincoln" is dead — despite the fact the GOP controls the White House, Congress, judicial branch, and most state governments. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jordan Klepper has spent the last three months hosting the Alex Jones-style parody “The Opposition” on Comedy Central, working hard to get into the head of all the conspiracy theorists — including President Donald Trump himself — who’ve latched onto tales of illegal voters and the “deep state” and media witch hunts. And he's scared of what he's seen there. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

John Dean, the former Nixon White House counsel, has a memo for White House lawyer Ty Cobb and the rest of President Donald Trump’s defenders as they enter 2018: believing the investigation and prosecutions will be over any time soon is “wishful thinking.” And, says the man who famously flipped and became the Watergate prosecution’s star witness in the process that helped take down Richard Nixon, no one in the president’s orbit should assume they’re prepared for everything that cooperating witnesses George Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn might be telling Bob Mueller, as they’ve done out of confidence from their own review or just out of public bluster. That’s the mistake Dean saw Nixon, H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman make about him. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio takes a break during his trip to Iowa to sit down with Isaac and assure him he isn't running for president. Hizzoner talks about why he's a polarizing figure, what it's like being a progressive leader in the Trump era, and what he thinks about all the New Yorkers being mentioned as 2020 candidates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joe Manchin is a rare breed: a West Virginia Democrat and self-proclaimed “radical moderate.” He's one of 10 Senate Democrats up for reelection in 2018 in states that Trump won. Red-state Democrats like Manchin should have been putty in the president’s hands. Instead, he’s alienated them to the point that he’s neither feared nor loved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An exclusive preview of our upcoming episode with Sen. Joe Manchin, in which he talks about the sexual misconduct allegations against Al Franken, why he hopes Franken doesn't resign, and what he sees as total hypocrisy on the part of his fellow Democratic senators Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The retired general and former CIA director explains why he thinks Trump’s foreign policy is more continuation than change, what he knows about Mike Flynn, and what his own woes have taught him about life not being an endless series of 'high-five moments.' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie don’t know if Donald Trump will remain a Republican, but they believe Republicans owe him their loyalty. They join Isaac to discuss their new campaign tell-all, Donald Trump, and why they think Paul Manafort deserves what’s coming to him. Also, Eliana Johnson swings by to discuss Trump’s inner circle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Isaac talks with Politico congressional reporters Rachael Bade and Elana Schor about Al Franken, John Conyers, Roy Moore, why Hill staffers fear what leadership will do if they speak out about sexual harassment and what it will take for the ‘dam to break’ and unleash a wave of scandals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chess? That’s not what Garry Kasparov sees Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin playing—three-dimensional or any other kind. But if they did sit down for a game, the former grandmaster knows who’d win: “Both of them despise playing by the rules, so it’s who will cheat first.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry is America’s nuclear conscience — and he’s worried. We talk to him about nukes, North Korea, and the two times he’s stared down the apocalypse. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alec Baldwin inhabits Donald Trump on ‘Saturday Night Live.’ Bradley Whitford spent years in ‘The West Wing.’ Here’s what their time with fake presidents tells them about the real one. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An Election Day special: Heading out on the campaign trail, we talk with former Attorney General Eric Holder, who has taken to the stump himself to rally Democrats in Virginia, and occupies a newly political role. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nancy Pelosi is hated; she’s a hero. She’s the Democrats’ secret weapon; she’s the Republicans’ favorite target. She’s been around politics her entire life — she tells us about a time she ditched her school’s Model UN to sit next to JFK at dinner — and at 77, shows no signs of slowing down. With Democrats out of power and Pelosi under attack from her own members, she has re-emerged as an essential player in Washington. But while the Democratic Party is in a rolling existential crisis, can she hold on? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For years, former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara was one of the most feared prosecutors in America. Then President Trump asked him to resign. Now, as Robert Mueller’s investigation unleashes its opening torrent of indictments, we talk to Bharara about the president who ousted him, what to make the special prosecutor’s investigation into Trump’s orbit, and a similarity between Donald Trump and Vito Corleone. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis discusses his dream of going to Burning Man and how he sees Breitbart and the Huffington Post as the same. The Republican also explains about the need to focus on results in the Senate and his commitment to conservative ideals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Puerto Rico's delegate in Congress discusses what she made of President Trump’s promise to wipe away the territory’s debt, what she thinks will happen now that the White House has backtracked on it, and the new kind of community thinking that’s taken root since Hurricane Maria. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Captain Mark Kelly sits down to discuss gun control in the wake of the Las Vegas shooting, how Gabby Giffords feels about returning to stand with her old colleagues on the Hill, and his own feelings about President Trump’s space council. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Actor and activist Rob Reiner sits down with Isaac Dovere in New York to discuss Russia, Trump, cultural fights sweeping and country and celebrities' role in all of it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley discusses what became of the wind turbine he built in his backyard, how an offhand slight in the math-science center in high school got him started in his first race, and the experience of being watched by North Korean troops last month on his trip to the border. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Texas Congressman Will Hurd has a message for Republicans who don’t like the funding deal President Donald Trump made with Democrats: Get yourself together, or quit complaining. Hurd discusses how President Trump handled Charlottesville, bipartisanship in Congress and even brags about how many of his bills Barack Obama signed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dolores Huerta, the famed labor leader who marched with Cesar Chavez and coined his rallying cry, is still mad as hell—and she was spitting fire when I asked her about President Trump’s plans to stop protecting undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as kids. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan discusses his unexpected write-in victory, turning around the city's urban decline and turning the street lights back on. Plus, the mayor discusses his close relationship with Joe Biden and what John Kelly told him about the city's immigration policy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rev. Al Sharpton and Rep. Jerry Nadler, who battled Donald Trump for years in New York, consider the lasting consequences of his Charlottesville comments and their own experiences with racism and anti-Semitism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards discusses women senators' role in the health care repeal vote, the resilience of volunteers and clinics, and what the future holds for the abortion fight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bill Walker sits down with Isaac Dovere to discuss the last time he saw Sarah Palin, standing in the middle of a river at age 12 when an earthquake destroyed his hometown and what his meetings during Energy Week at the White House were like. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick sits down with Isaac Dovere at Bain Capital in Boston to discuss his decision to join the investment firm, his tight-knit relationship with President Obama and what's next for his political career. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Comedian Maz Jobrani reflects back on his own immigrant experience as a child and how that has influenced his perception of the world, especially now that the country is charged by policies like President Trump's travel ban. Jobrani discusses white protester privilege, finding the funny in Trump, and the president's appeals to some immigrants. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger sits down with Isaac Dovere to discuss gerrymandering, the similarities between politics and show business, and why he gets under President Trump's skin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of the most recognizable journalists from Cuba's state television, Cristina Escobar, sits down with Isaac Dovere to discuss censorship, the impact of President Obama's historic visit in 2016, and Cubans' take on the Trump White House. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper talks high school sports highlights, gerrymandering and building up the Democratic party at the state levels. The governor has eyes on 2018 state Legislature races and potential special elections before then, he is launching a multimillion-dollar, multiyear effort to knock Republicans out of the state capital. Read the full story here: http://politi.co/2uDFX21 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Playbook co-authors Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman join the show to discuss how they have reworked their lives around an early morning schedule that keeps them both going 365 days per year and what they think the chances are for any major legislation passing Congress this year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here’s where Senator Mike Lee, the junior Republican senator from Utah, has landed: Trump makes sense in the White House, as the head of the Republican Party, and as a leader of the conservative moment because that’s what happened. It’s more deduction than enthusiasm. Read full article: http://politi.co/2tEmgpn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Julie Pace, the new Washington bureau chief for the Associated Press, and Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent for the New York Times discuss how they approach covering a president and White House that clearly wants a war with the media and looks for every opportunity to pick a fight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

French Ambassador Gerard Araud gives Isaac Dovere his read on Trump’s personality and the advice he gave Macron on dealing with him before their first encounter. Plus, the ambassador delves into how diplomacy in Washington has changed since the inauguration and what he sees as the possible path back to strength for the European Union. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu wants to turn the Conference of Mayors into a powerful national platform as cities work around, ignore and resist the White House. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maryland Senator Ben Cardin details his bizarre meeting with Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe, how the Trump administration's foreign policy strategy is affecting credibility, his take on Rex Tillerson, and what he's prepared to do if Republicans bring a health care bill to the floor without a hearing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jason Kander, who came shockingly close to ousting Missouri’s Republican Sen. Roy Blunt last November despite Hillary Clinton’s blowout loss in the state—has been a man in demand the last seven months. Isaac Dovere sits down with him in New Hampshire to discuss enlisting on 9/11, how "mug shots" contributed to his rise to political prominence and what's next for the rising star.. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Virginia governor talks skydiving, how he thinks Hillary Clinton needs to step back, taking on Trump, his campaign plans for 2018 and the looming question of whether he'll make his own White House run in 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices