WatchCats

Noah Kunin and Julian Sanchez
  • 5.0 (35)
  • POLITICS
  • UPDATED SEMIWEEKLY

Who watches the watch DOGEs? WatchCats is dedicated to fact-checking and analyzing the new US Department of Government Efficiency Service, aka DOGE. Noah Kunin and Julian Sanchez have a combined 40 years of holding the government accountable. We chat with a broad range of experts to help create a smart blueprint to make government more efficient and effective while giving you an insider-look on everything DOGE. Want to support us? Sign up for our Substack! https://watchcats.substack.com/

  1. JUN 5

    Mike Brock: Technology, Ideology, and Neoreaction | WatchCats #14

    If you’ve been listening to WatchCats for a while, you’ve probably heard us refer in passing to “neoreaction” (sometimes pretentiously dubbed the “dark enlightenment”), a once-fringe political philosophy that holds liberal democracy is not merely dysfunctional but doomed. The only hope for “freedom,” its adherents paradoxically insist, is the installation of a monarchic executive with effectively despotic powers. If this sounds like something a cranky blogger would cook up, well… it is—but from those humble origins, this proudly authoritarian worldview has won itself a shocking degree of political influence, including over the likes of Vice President J.D. Vance, tech billionaire Peter Thiel, and the techies and ideologues running the show at DOGE. So how did this unlikely stew of ideas come to hold such sway in both Silicon Valley and Washington, and how concerned ought we to be? To find out, we spoke with Mike Brock, who had a front-row seat to the spread of neoreactionary ideology as a senior executive at Block, the fintech firm behind payment platforms like Square and CashApp. These days, Brock is loudly sounding the alarm about the neoreactionary “Plot Against America” at his newsletter Notes from the Circus, which is well worth a look. ~~~ Want to support the podcast, get early episodes, and jump into our community Discord?Join our Substack! --FOLLOW OUR SOCIALS-- XBlueSky

    1h 12m

  2. MAY 13

    Jessica Riedl: A Fiscal Conservative Critique of DOGE | WatchCats #13

    If you’d expect anybody to be enthusiastic about the Department of Government Efficiency, it would be Jessica Riedl, a senior fellow and economic policy expert at the Manhattan Institute. A fiscal conservative of unimpeachable credentials, she’s worked as a policy scholar at the Heritage Foundation, as chief economist to Senator Rob Portman (R-OH), and as staff director of the U.S. Senate Finance Subcommittee on Fiscal Responsibility and Economic Growth. She’s a regular on Washingtonian’s annual list of the 500 most influential policy professionals in D.C. Despite her commitment to smaller government and fiscal discipline, however, she’s been conspicuously unimpressed by the results produced by DOGE to date, documenting its faults in a New York Post op-ed, a long essay in The Atlantic, and (most recently) a roundup of expert takes on DOGE in the libertarian magazine Reason. We spoke to her about why DOGE’s efforts to reduce government spending are leaving many fiscal conservatives cold—and what a smarter and more serious effort might look like. ~~~ Want to support the podcast, get early episodes, and jump into our community Discord?Join our Substack! --FOLLOW OUR SOCIALS-- XBlueSky

    58 min

  3. MAY 6

    Nathan Tankus: Tracking the Treasury Payments System Crisis | WatchCats #12

    If you’ve been trying to follow the nitty-gritty details of DOGE’s efforts to seize control of the Treasury Department’s payments system—and why it’s so important—then odds are you’ve already heard of Nathan Tankus. An independent journalist and researcher, his newsletter Notes on the Crises has become essential reading for anyone seeking to untangle the workings of an abstruse but vital piece of financial infrastructure that most of us had never given much thought—or even heard of—before January. (How essential? Tankus is the guy Paul Krugman calls up when he needs an explainer.) In our latest episode of WatchCats, Tankus walks us through what the Treasury payments system is, why it’s so important—and why he thinks DOGE’s insistence on controlling its levers has set the stage for a constitutional crisis. We also explore how the Musk team’s meddling may imperil the Social Security system millions of older Americans rely on to make ends meet. ~~~ Want to support the podcast, get early episodes, and jump into our community Discord?Join our Substack! --FOLLOW OUR SOCIALS-- XBlueSky

    1h 12m

  4. APR 28

    John Davisson: Taking DOGE to Court to Protect Privacy | WatchCats #11

    For more than 30 years, the Electronic Privacy Information Center has been advocating for—and litigating to protect—personal privacy against increasing technological encroachment. No surprise, then, that the folks at EPIC were alarmed when it became clear that DOGE staff were seeking access—for unclear purposes—to an array of highly sensitive and normally stringently siloed federal databases. They filed a lawsuit in February challenging that access under the Privacy Act of 1974, and a host of other federal privacy statutes. This episode, EPIC’s Senior Counsel and Director of Litigation John Davisson joins us to explain their challenge, why they believe DOGE’s efforts run afoul of federal law, and why you ought to care about it.

    45 min

  5. APR 16

    Emily Badger: What DOGE Knows About You | WatchCats #10

    For most of her career in journalism—first at The Washington Post, now at The New York Times—Emily Badger’s beat had been housing, transportation, and urban policy. But since the start of the second Trump administration, she’s distinguished herself as one of the sharpest observers of the fledgling Department of Government Efficiency. The piece that first caught our eye—and the central topic of our conversation—was her impressively exhaustive catalog of the personal information contained in databases DOGE has sought access to. This episode, she walks us through what they want to know about you, and why it has privacy advocates worried. Badger has also done essential reporting on DOGE’s ambitious claims about the money they’re supposedly saving taxpayers—and why those numbers just don’t add up. And most recently, she wrote about why Elon Musk’s latest breathless claims about fraud supposedly newly uncovered by DOGE are misleading. ~~~ Want to support the podcast, get early episodes, and jump into our community Discord?Join our Substack! --FOLLOW OUR SOCIALS-- XBlueSky

    1h 7m

  6. APR 8

    Makena Kelly & Vittoria Elliot: Covering Silicon Valley in DC | WatchCats #9

    For more than 30 years, Wired has been where discerning nerds go for some of the sharpest tech coverage around—but as Silicon Valley exerts ever greater influence over Washington, its writers have been proving time and again that they’re also happy to scoop the traditional press on vital political stories. If you’re trying to keep up with DOGE, their coverage is essential reading. Much of the best of that reporting has recently come from the keyboards of Senior Writer Makena Kelly and Platforms and Power Reporter Vittoria “Tori” Elliot. In a scant few weeks, they’ve explored explored DOGE’s plan to rewrite Social Security’s source code, mapped its myriad corporate connections, audited its approach to auditing, and pulled back the curtain on”Elon Musk’s digital coup.” Makena and Tori joined us for a wide-ranging conversation about their reporting—and where they hope to shine the spotlight next. If you have tips, you can reach them at vittoria89.82 or makenakelly.32 on Signal. ~~~ Want to support the podcast, get early episodes, and jump into our community Discord?Join our Substack! --FOLLOW OUR SOCIALS-- XBlueSky

    56 min

  7. APR 2

    Itir Cole: Preventing a Pandemic (or Not) | WatchCats #8

    It’s a horror movie scenario: People are suddenly falling ill in a small area. Is it food poisoning? Is it a virus? What do the victims have in common? Is a local farm contaminated, or is another global pandemic brewing? Itir Cole was working on software to help hospitals report symptoms that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) would use to trace the contours of the threat when DOGE took control. And it quickly became clear they weren’t interested in the answers. Concluding our series of interviews with U.S. Digital Service alumni, we explore why Cole is no longer working to answer these questions—and what she’s doing next. ~~~ Want to support the podcast, get early episodes, and jump into our community Discord?Join our Substack! --FOLLOW OUR SOCIALS-- XBlueSky

    40 min

  8. MAR 28

    Amy Paris: Coding for Better Organ Transplants | WatchCats #7

    Every day, an estimated 17 people die while waiting for an organ transplant, even as viable organs go to waste. As a deputy digital services lead at the Department of Health and Human Services, Amy Paris was working hard to bring that number down by modernizing and improving the algorithm that hospitals use to match organs with the compatible nearby donors who need them most urgently. Her performance reviews were glowing. But in February, she was summarily fired, purportedly for “poor performance.” Until her termination Paris had also been one of the highest ranking trans women in the federal government, and drawing on her experience and connection to the trans community to craft policies less hostile to trans folks—like the “X” gender marker on passports, and more sensitive security screenings at airports. Have a listen to our conversation, and let us know whether it sounds like the government is more “efficient” without Amy Paris. ~~~ Want to support the podcast, get early episodes, and jump into our community Discord?Join our Substack! --FOLLOW OUR SOCIALS-- XBlueSky

    34 min
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5
out of 5
35 Ratings

About

Who watches the watch DOGEs? WatchCats is dedicated to fact-checking and analyzing the new US Department of Government Efficiency Service, aka DOGE. Noah Kunin and Julian Sanchez have a combined 40 years of holding the government accountable. We chat with a broad range of experts to help create a smart blueprint to make government more efficient and effective while giving you an insider-look on everything DOGE. Want to support us? Sign up for our Substack! https://watchcats.substack.com/

Information

  • Creator
    Noah Kunin and Julian Sanchez
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    15
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Noah Kunin and Julian Sanchez
  • Show Website
    WatchCats