The Muckrake Political Podcast

4.6 (518)
Politics
Updated Semiweekly

The Muckrake Podcast is the political podcast that promises to dig deeper. Political analysts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman tackle the news of the day but go beyond the stale and tired narratives to provide historical context and alternative perspectives, all to bring a little order to chaotic times.

20h ago

Snakes Off A Plane

Support the show by signing up to our Patreon to hear the full Weekender episode each Friday as well as special Live Shows and access to our community discord: http://patreon.com/muckrakepodcast Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman dig into the deeply strange story of Trump being smuggled out of Air Force One in a catering cart after Israel passed along intelligence about an Iranian missile threat in Turkey, leaving the entire press corps, Marco Rubio, and members of his own administration behind on the plane he believed was being targeted. They pull apart what that says about Trump's cowardice, Israel's ability to manipulate the administration, and the Secret Service's ongoing institutional failure. From there, they break down the Wisconsin Democratic primary, where Francesca Hong lost to David Crowley by 3,000 votes after corporate media spent weeks framing the race around Thanksgiving tweets and Hassan Piker instead of actual policy, while a $15 million centrist operation quietly bankrolls opposition research against every leftist candidate in the country. The Lakers sale to Bob Iger and Josh Kushner for $12.5 billion gets the full treatment as a case study in oligarchical consolidation under a corrupt administration, with Kushner now sitting on the board of A24 and reviving Life magazine while private equity moves into the Yankees. They close on Caroline Leavitt's resignation and the pointlessness of Ted Lasso season four.
3d ago

The Worst Country You Know Just Made A Great Point

Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman open on the Iran war officially entering quagmire territory, with refineries and tankers getting hit at will while the US has essentially run out of missiles to respond with. They then tear apart Scott Bessent's solution to the Strait of Hormuz crisis, which is to just build underground pipelines and make it irrelevant, a fantasy on par with nuking hurricanes. Todd Blanch gets confirmed as attorney general on the deciding vote of Bill Cassidy, the same man who voted to convict Trump and now can't swallow shit fast enough for him, while Susan Collins pulls her signature move of discovering her conscience only after the votes are already locked. They bid a fond farewell to Ross Douthat, whose 17 years at the New York Times were spent giving conservatives permission to drift further right under the guise of just asking questions. Now he's leaving one of the most influential posts in American media for a cratering 60 Minutes because Bari Weiss told him he'd be a star. The episode closes on Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White declaring themselves eligible for the WNBA, a bad-faith stunt that reveals less about trans athletes than about the right-wing compulsion to hijack anything women build and make it about themselves. Support the show by signing up to our Patreon to hear the full Weekender episode each Friday as well as special Live Shows and access to our community discord: http://patreon.com/muckrakepodcast
Aug 7

Manifesto Destiny

This is a preview of The Weekender. Sign up for our Patreon and get access to the full episode, our Tuesday show, and our Discord. Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman open on Abdul El-Sayed's razor-thin win over Haley Stevens in Michigan's Senate primary, tracing the Islamophobia baked into the attacks on him back through McCarthyism and the original Red Scare against Black Americans. They break down Trump's response and the DOJ's trip to Wayne County polling places, then go point by point through Tucker Carlson's new ten-point platform, one word per point, and land on what he conveniently leaves out. From there it's Rep. Chuck Edwards, the North Carolina Republican censured for showering young female staffers with jewelry, guns, guitar serenades, and thirty flavors of ice cream after a bad breakup, before Jared and Nick close out with what they're watching this week.
Aug 4

The Innovation of Corruption

Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman open on Trump Media's new Truth API, the subscription that lets trading firms pay up to $100,000 a month for early access to Trump's market-moving posts. The scandal isn't that it's insider trading, it's that it technically isn't. The rules were written for corporate insiders who owe a duty to shareholders, never for a president who happens to be the source, the publisher, and a 41% owner of the platform all at once, and the man who'd have to close that loophole runs an SEC built for deregulation. Jared and Nick trace the feedback loop this creates, where Trump's posts move the very market he's now selling access to, and they make the case that any real anti-corruption platform has to go after not just Trump himself but the think tanks, law firms, and accounting giants behind him. That leads into Capital One, which just admitted it closed hundreds of Trump Organization accounts over flagged transaction patterns, a detail that only surfaced because the Trumps sued and discovery pried it loose, and it says everything about a banking system that treats aiding and abetting as a business model. The back half turns darker and stranger, moving from the Max Miller abuse case and the extraordinary statement Bernie Moreno released against his own former son-in-law to the GOP brain drain that one staffer described as a generation of rabid, incompetent idiots. Then, on Michigan primary day, the guys break down what the Tucker Carlson cabin meeting says about a coming "America First" realignment, and why the right keeps absorbing its insurgents while the left just fractures. Support the show, ad-free and editorially independent, at patreon.com/muckrakepodcast, and find us on Bluesky. Content note: this episode discusses domestic abuse.
Jul 31

A Fifth Of Fauci

This is a preview of The Weekender. Sign up for our Patreon and get access to the full episode every Friday, plus special Live Shows and our community discord: ⁠http://patreon.com/muckrakepodcast⁠ Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman start with a war that keeps getting bigger while almost nobody covers it. Ukraine put a missile into an Iranian cargo ship in the Caspian Sea, an Egyptian port took a suspected Iranian drone, Iran-backed militias in Iraq are making noise, and China has a shipment of missiles headed for Tehran. Laura Loomer turned up in a room with Volodymyr Zelensky, preaching MAGA solidarity with Ukraine, which is not something that happens by accident. Jared makes the case that nobody in this administration is steering. The people who are don't hold office and don't care whose flag wins. Then Anthony Fauci in front of Rand Paul's committee, pleading the Fifth over a hundred times while his lawyer gets hauled off the floor. Jared and Nick get into why he's the test case and not the target, who the real target is, and why building bobbleheads of public servants was always going to end this way. Finally, the number that radicalized Jared: Americans put $166 billion into sports gambling last year, more than they spent on movies, books, art and museums combined. He wants it abolished. Nick ran those ads on the other side of his business and is still paying for it. What we're watching: Nick says The Invite is the funniest thing he's seen in years and to see it with a crowd. Jared finally caught Backrooms and can't recommend it enough.
Jul 28

PAC It In

Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman start with the Democratic Party's implosion: the DNC is $2 million in debt, sitting on a fraction of the Republicans' $128 million surplus, and chair Ken Martin is about to be scapegoated for a crisis decades in the making. The base has stopped giving money, and the gap is being filled by PACs and dark money flooding races like the Michigan primary between Haley Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed, where $30 million in outside spending, paid social media posts, and a consultant with Palantir ties are propping up the establishment candidate. Then it's the Iran war: Trump wanted to escalate with boots on the ground and was told the U.S. simply doesn't have the missiles. Over 600 troops have been wounded without a single boot on the ground, and the Houthis are still setting ships on fire in the Strait of Hormuz. The guys connect it all back to oil dependency, the death of the postwar order, and why nobody in power wants to have any of these conversations. Support the show by signing up for our Patreon to hear the full Weekender episode each Friday as well as specials and live shows: http://patreon.com/muckrakepodcast. The Muckrake Podcast is independent media with no corporate backing, and it only exists because of listeners like you.
Jul 24

Saudi's Enrich Quick Scheme

This is a preview of The Weekender. Sign up for our Patreon and get access to the full episode every Friday, plus live shows and our community Discord: http://patreon.com/muckrakepodcast Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman dig into the leaked Saudi Arabia nuclear deal: a 30-year agreement that hands the Kingdom nuclear energy and the potential to enrich uranium with no IAEA oversight, all while the U.S. is bombing Iran over its nuclear program. The guys trace it back through the petrodollar, 9/11, and America's long history of arming the people who eventually turn on us. Then it's Zohran Mamdani declaring Netanyahu a war criminal and what moral clarity actually looks like when everyone else is running political calculus. Plus: an OpenAI model escaped containment and hacked Hugging Face to cheat on an evaluation, and it didn't think it was cheating. The guys unpack why that's the AI story everyone should be paying attention to. Finally, Jared reviews The Odyssey and Christopher Nolan delivers. The Muckrake Podcast has no corporate backing. It only exists because of listeners like you.
Jul 21

Diarrhea Straits

Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman open with the Iran war, where every incentive now runs against the United States: bases getting hit, stockpiles that were never replenished, the Houthis moving to choke off the Red Sea, and a president who responded to all of it with "I don't really care." Jared deteremines: Iran doesn't need to win anything, it just needs to keep bleeding a country that can't admit it lost. Then it's the Cyclospora outbreak sickening thousands across 34 states, and the FDA's suspiciously timed reversal clearing the mega-producer at the center of it, a case study in what monopolization plus a pay-to-play administration does to something as basic as being able to eat lettuce. Finally, two quieter stories with loud implications: the FBI has been told to stop investigating assaults involving ICE agents, and a new four-year visa cap for foreign students that could quietly demolish American PhD programs. If you want to support the show and get access to the Weekender every Friday, plus specials and live shows, become a patron at http://patreon.com/muckrakepodcast. The Muckrake Podcast is independent media with no corporate backing, and it only exists because of listeners like you

See All (698)

4.6

out of 5

518 Ratings

Vital

Feb 25

SirRHP

This should be required for every US citizen.
We need more muckrakers!

Jan 18

lgavs

Never miss an episode. Need these pov’s.
A Podcast for wonks and deep divers and I love it!

12/10/2025

Awake at night always

This is a podcast for people who are paying attention, and have some political science background. You’ll eat it up like me!
Love This

10/23/2025

DrDK2

I love this podcast because you both are intelligent and bring up great points. But you were off in terms of No Kings. It’s called “No Kings” for a reason. We are against a dictator, as you know. And there is lots going on. We are boycotting Avela Airlines. We had post rally virtual meetings to organize next steps. You have to be a part of Indivisible or MoveOn or whatever organizing group you are with. This is a movement. We know it takes more than protests. We are mobilizing. Local groups are creating crisis response, mutual aid, local elections & lobbying. The Tea Party WAS funded by the Koch Bros. We aren’t funded by George Soros. Today you two seem confused. It’s a PEOPLE’S MOVEMENT, not the Democrats’ movement.

The Muckrake Podcast is the political podcast that promises to dig deeper. Political analysts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman tackle the news of the day but go beyond the stale and tired narratives to provide historical context and alternative perspectives, all to bring a little order to chaotic times.