2,000 episodes

For thirty minutes each day, Pesca challenges himself and his audience, in a responsibly provocative style, and gets beyond the rigidity and dogma. The Gist is surprising, reasonable, and willing to critique the left, the right, either party, or any idea.

The Gist Peach Fish Productions

    • News
    • 4.3 • 62 Ratings

For thirty minutes each day, Pesca challenges himself and his audience, in a responsibly provocative style, and gets beyond the rigidity and dogma. The Gist is surprising, reasonable, and willing to critique the left, the right, either party, or any idea.

    Trump vs Boris Johnson As Cult Leader

    Trump vs Boris Johnson As Cult Leader

    Rory Stewart is back to discuss his new memoir How Not To Be A Politician and his podcast The Rest Is Politics. We discuss America's oversized role in shaping culture and politics beyond its borders. Plus, how the popularity of the UAW strike doesn't mean that much in terms of who will win the strike. And it's the rarest of moments, when an Antwentig comes on the 500th episode of Season 2 of The Gist.

    Produced by Joel Patterson and Corey Wara
    Email us at thegist@mikepesca.com
    To advertise on the show, visit: https://advertisecast.com/TheGist

    Subscribe to The Gist Subscribe: https://subscribe.mikepesca.com/
    Follow Mikes Substack at: Pesca Profundities | Mike Pesca | Substack
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    • 40 min
    Politics Was Making Him Stupider Every Day

    Politics Was Making Him Stupider Every Day

    Rory Stewart is a former member of British Parliament, Harvard instructor, soldier, diplomat, cabinet minister, and traverser of Asia via foot. The co-host of The Rest Is Politics Podcast, we discuss his latest book How Not To Be A Politician. Plus, STOP REGULATING WOMENS BODIES, if by regulating you mean considering whether some lightly compensated past porn with her husband should factor into an election bid. Also, Trump met the Press, so what's the problem?

    Produced by Joel Patterson and Corey Wara
    Email us at thegist@mikepesca.com
    To advertise on the show, visit: https://advertisecast.com/TheGist

    Subscribe to The Gist Subscribe: https://subscribe.mikepesca.com/
    Follow Mikes Substack at: Pesca Profundities | Mike Pesca | Substack
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    • 39 min
    What's An Accurate Intersex Accounting?

    What's An Accurate Intersex Accounting?

    Alicia Roth Weigel, author of the memoir Inverse Cowgirl, is back to discuss her row with conservative radio host Stephen Crowder, and why it's in the interest of activists to state that 2% of the population is intersex. Plus, Hasan Minhaj concocts fakes in the name of comedy. And Merritt Garland testifies before congress, and there's not much interest in his answers.
    To read Mike's Substack “The Broken Shokin theory”, click here.

    Produced by Joel Patterson and Corey Wara
    Email us at thegist@mikepesca.com
    To advertise on the show, visit: https://advertisecast.com/TheGist

    Subscribe to The Gist Subscribe: https://subscribe.mikepesca.com/
    Follow Mikes Substack at: Pesca Profundities | Mike Pesca | Substack
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    • 31 min
    Everything You Wanted To Know About Intersex...

    Everything You Wanted To Know About Intersex...

    Activist and member of Austin's Human Rights Commission, Alicia Roth Weigel discusses her new memoir Inverse Cowgirl about being Intersex. We talk about her experience and discuss the ethics of operations on infants and how much to blame parents working with the best information they have. Plus, Lauren Boebert's theatrics. And the chilling effect of criticizing Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis for issuing a character statement for convicted rapist Danny Masterson.
    To read Mike's Substack on the Hunter Biden Hunters, click here.

    Produced by Joel Patterson and Corey Wara
    Email us at thegist@mikepesca.com
    To advertise on the show, visit: https://advertisecast.com/TheGist

    Subscribe to The Gist Subscribe: https://subscribe.mikepesca.com/
    Follow Mikes Substack at: Pesca Profundities | Mike Pesca | Substack
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    • 35 min
    Politics Is A Fist Utah's Governor Wants To Unclench

    Politics Is A Fist Utah's Governor Wants To Unclench

    Utah Governor Spencer Cox wants his enemies to be heard, his opponents to feel valued, and his sparring partners to never feel wounded. Is this any way to run a state? He says yes, and as Chair of the National Governor's Association, he's taking his "Disagree Better" platform national. Plus, Texas AG Ken Paxton is acquitted by a jury of his peers ... literally, including his wife, because of snazzy lawyerin' and political self-interest.

    Produced by Joel Patterson and Corey Wara
    Email us at thegist@mikepesca.com
    To advertise on the show, visit: https://advertisecast.com/TheGist

    Subscribe to The Gist Subscribe: https://subscribe.mikepesca.com/
    Follow Mikes Substack at: Pesca Profundities | Mike Pesca | Substack
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    • 39 min
    BEST OF THE GIST: Great Leader Edition

    BEST OF THE GIST: Great Leader Edition

    In this installment of Best Of The Gist, with North Korea and Russia’s meeting focusing the news media this week, we listen back to Mike’s 2019 interview with Washington Post reporter Anna Fifield who had just written a fascinating book on Kim Jong-un. She spoke with people who had real life interactions with the man, in an effort to get the clearest picture yet of what the head of the Kim dynasty is really like. Fifield’s book is The Great Successor: The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un. Then we listen back to the Wednesday Spiel Joe and Hunter. 

    Produced by Joel Patterson and Corey Wara 
    Email us at thegist@mikepesca.com 
    To advertise on the show: https://advertisecast.com/TheGist 
    Subscribe to our ad-free and/or PescaPlus versions of The Gist: https://subscribe.mikepesca.com/ 
    Follow Mike’s Substack: Pesca Profundities | Mike Pesca | Substack 
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    • 29 min

Customer Reviews

4.3 out of 5
62 Ratings

62 Ratings

MBelderson ,

Highly entertaining & iconoclastic but sometimes a little wayward

Mike Pesca (and his production team) make sure this is not an echo chamber for the Left. A breath of fresh air. Not every show is stellar—a lot depends upon the quality of the guests—but some are worth six or seven stars (the Eddie Izzard episode, for example). That said, Eddie did gently correct Mike on, shall we say, some of the over-certainty of his style, but, in the world of journalism, he is hardly alone in being so. Some episodes are also hampered by MP’s tendency to sound a little like one of those guys who recite at high speed all the terms and conditions at the end of an ad. If you’re talking so fast that you sound garbled, perhaps it’s time to slow down a little and/or re-record after a little script editing. Or maybe that’s what the half-speed function on iTunes is for? I’d always wondered why it was there. Other times-like his recent spiel on single payer helthcare-Mike gets a little too carried away. The piece was so ridden with logical fallacies that it blew away what might have been a more reasoned argument.

Gar watering ,

Very glad this is back. Sane debate

Welcome return

jonodebshawshaw2 ,

Jono

Mr mike pesca and crew are like the steak...you know when you save the best for last (granted that’s 6 year old mentality)

Top Podcasts In News

Global
Goalhanger Podcasts
Persephonica
Tortoise Media
Goalhanger Podcasts
Goalhanger & Global Enduring Disorder Ltd

You Might Also Like

Slate Podcasts
Peach Fish Productions
Slate Podcasts
WNYC Studios
Slate Podcasts
FiveThirtyEight, 538, ABC News, Galen Druke