Prevail with Greg Olear Greg Olear

Billy Ray is a screenwriter and director. His writing credits include Color of Night, Captain Phillips, Richard Jewell, and The Hunger Games. He wrote and directed Shattered Glass, Breach, The Last Tycoon, and The Comey Rule. Since 2016, he’s been the messaging consigliere for the Democratic Party, helping scores of politicians and candidates with issue framing, speechwriting, debate prep, and rapid response.

In this discussion, Billy Ray discusses his political “origin story” and his tips on Democratic Party messaging, reveals the secret to communicating with conservatives, and lauds the achievements of President Biden. They talk about reproductive rights, the Supreme Court, the 2024, how the Dems should frame trump’s criminality, and more. Plus: the Sam Alito blues.

This week, Greg Olear shares 34 thoughts on 34 felony counts. Then, there is a reprise of the May 31 episode of “The Five 8,” in which Greg and LB try, and fail, to remember all of Donald’s crimes. Plus: blowing!

Subscribe to The Five 8:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0BRnRwe7yDZXIaF-QZfvhA

Jason Pack is the Founder of Libya-Analysis LLC, and the co-host of Disorder, a geopolitics podcast co-produced with Goalhanger Podcasts. He is a Senior Analyst for Emerging Challenges at the NATO Defence College Foundation in Rome. In partnership with NDCF, Jason leads a project entitled NATO and the Global Enduring Disorder, which produces a range of content (including the Disorder podcast and series of publications) attempting to sketch out a ‘unified field theory’ of our current era of geopolitics while proposing actionable solutions to our most pressing collective action challenges. His most recent book, Libya and the Global Enduring Disorder (Hurst, Oxford University Press) is a ‘cross-over’ academic book that explores what Libya’s dysfunctional economic structures and its ongoing civil war reveal about our era of 21st-century geopolitics. Jason’s concept – that we no longer inhabit the post-Cold War World, but have entered a new era – the ‘Enduring Disorder’ – was conceived to describe the collective action failures that have come to define international politics.

In this discussion, Jason Pack talks to Greg Olear about the death of Raisi in Iran, the situation in Ukraine, Biden’s policy in Gaza, and why a Labor victory in the UK elections would be good for Joe Biden. Plus: a Republican Party game!

In this special “Rough Beast” book launch episode, the PREVAIL podcast is turned upside-down: Greg Olear is the guest, and the host is his wife, Stephanie St. John Olear. They talk about the new book, confirmation bias, and Biden’s chances of winning in November. Plus: Scar-Jo!

Alessandra is an Italian journalist and political commentator who goes by the pen name Alias Vaughn. She’s been helping me understand the global political landscape—including what’s happening right here in the US—for going on eight years now.
In this conversation, Greg Olear interviews Alessandra about her background and her interest in US politics. They discuss JFK’s policy towards South America, with Alessandra sharing her research on the topic; the current political situation in Italy, including the prime minister and her stance on various issues; the public opinion of Trump in Italy; the similarities between Trump and Mussolini, and much more. Plus: a both sides superhero!

Jenny Cohn is an attorney, election integrity advocate, and political writer whose articles have appeared in the New York Review of Books, Who What Why, The Independent, Salon, and the Bucks County Beacon. She now covers the Christian right at her Substack, the Christian Right Observer Weekly, or CROW.

Cohn talks to Greg Olear about her work on election integrity and the Christian right; her new project, the Christian Right Observer Weekly, and the collaboration with researcher Kira Resistance; the influence of Leonard Leo, a fundamentalist Catholic activist, on the Supreme Court; rightwing efforts to make abortion illegal on a federal level, the Christian right's opposition to LGBTQ rights and contraception, and their goal to undo the sexual revolution; the unholy alliance between religious and economic freedom Republicans; and fetal personhood and the right’s coming assault on women’s health. Plus: a little Elvis.