Kushner Goes Double Dutch

This is a preview of The Weekender. Sign up for our Patreon and get access to the full 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 open on the Hegseth impeachment vote that failed by seven, and the eleven House Democrats who missed it because they were at a PAC reception full of defense lobbyists and got stuck in traffic. Jared walks through the three possible explanations and lands on the one nobody wants to hear, while Nick asks how deep the corruption has to run to skip the most popular vote of the year. Then it's Jensen Huang resigning from Nvidia after his affair with a suspected Chinese spy, and the Reuters report that JD Vance met an oil trader the week before the Maduro raid.

Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman open on Trump's first big move after the midterm wipeout: Susie Wiles is out and Stephen Miller is White House chief of staff. Nick notes the country just voted against everything Miller represents, and Jared explains why Miller will ride Trump as far as he can before the post-Trump right cuts him loose. They also play the 60 Minutes clip where Trump tells Ross Douthat his deportation policy might have been too tough, which Jared reads less as a change of heart than a message from the donors who still need cheap labor. Then it's Thomas Massie's eight articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth, which may have enough Republican votes to pass the House. Nick walks through the charges and Jared explains why so many Republicans would happily throw Hegseth overboard to get the MAGA stink off themselves. The back half is Todd Blanche admitting Trump ordered him to investigate Democrats, which Nick calls bragging rather than confessing, and the case for taking the attorney general out of the president's hands entirely. They close on Trump trying to hire Dana White as press secretary and Jared's Miss Havisham theory of a president disintegrating in real time. 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

This is a preview of The Weekender. Sign up for our Patreon and get access to the full 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 take stock of the Democratic landslide and the fight that broke out inside the party about twelve hours later. Chuck Schumer announced he'll be reelected majority leader, and a growing bloc of senators, including Chris Van Hollen and the new class that just flipped the map, immediately said otherwise. Jared explains why that counts as an internal party coup and how listeners can push it along. Then it's JD Vance's long post blaming the Iran war, which Jared reads as the opening move of a post-Trump far right that is already sharpening its knives.

Jared and Nick go live with Muckrake's election night coverage Tuesday, November 3 at 10pm Eastern. Join them for results, reaction, and analysis you won't get on cable news by becoming a patron at http://patreon.com/muckrakepodcast, which also gets you the full Weekender episode each Friday and access to our community discord. Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman open the midterm preview on Haley Stevens, who lost the Michigan primary to Abdul El-Sayed and then endorsed Republican Mike Rogers from a church parking lot two days before the election. Jared reads it as the Democratic leadership's power struggle with its own left wing rather than one woman's breakdown, and wonders what plum job turns up for her in a few months. Nick figures AIPAC simply called in its marker, and notes El-Sayed has raised a fortune off the stunt. Then they work through the Senate races that will decide the night: Michigan, Maine, Texas, Ohio, Kansas, Alaska, Iowa, and South Carolina. Jared is nervous about El-Sayed and a coin flip on James Talarico, but confident about Sherrod Brown and surprisingly bullish on a Democrat in Kansas, thanks in part to Roger Marshall's closing ad about his own patients' debt collections. They close on why the polls can't be trusted, what Todd Blanche and ICE might do on election day, and the scenario that hurts Nick's soul: Democrats reach 51 and John Fetterman announces he's an independent... or worse.

This is a preview of The Weekender. Sign up for our Patreon and get access to the full 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 open on Flavio Bolsonaro, who lost to Lula on Sunday and landed in Miami on Wednesday aboard a private jet the Trump administration helped arrange. He left Brazil in defiance of a Supreme Court order to surrender his passports, and the money laundering probe chasing him reportedly runs through JD Vance's Rockbridge Network. Then it's Israel's deadlocked election and a Wired report on ICE running COINTELPRO-style surveillance against its critics.

Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman open on the Vanity Fair excerpt from Matthew Cole's new book, which claims Dutch intelligence spent months watching Jared Kushner's hacked iPhone. What they allegedly saw was Kushner logging into a Gulf-funded account holding hundreds of millions of dollars. Jared calls Kushner what he is, an intelligence asset, and asks why the same handful of countries show up every time a Trump official gets bought. Then it's the report that the US, Russia, and China want Viktor Orban running the United Nations, and the boys game out whether France or the UK will be the veto that stops it. Lula's comeback win in Brazil over Flavio Bolsonaro gets a look as a preview of midterm fuckery, since the losing side is already refusing to accept the results. They close on Israel's election and the growing drumbeat of a renewed war with Iran, with the military told to prepare for 90 days without civilian power and British officials telling people to stock up on food and water. 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

This is a preview of The Weekender. Sign up for our Patreon and get access to the full 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 open on Vivek Ramaswamy's $4 million attack ad against Amy Acton, which puts her estranged mother on camera to call her a liar and forces a survivor of childhood abuse to relive it on the campaign trail, with JD Vance applauding from the sidelines. Then it's the rat fuckery in Texas, where Elon Musk has dropped $138 million and Russia is pitching in, and FEMA's new message to the states: you're on your own.

Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman open on Trump waiving the Russia sanctions passed in Lindsey Graham's name, two days before they took effect and three months after Graham died. Jared reads it as a thank-you note for the diesel deal and a warm-up for a rumored summit with Putin and Xi, a new Yalta for the authoritarian order replacing the American one. Then it's the riots in France, where Macron is rolling back civil liberties while Marine Le Pen waits in the wings promising law and order, and Albania, where protests against the Kushner resort keep growing, as Jared lays out the cycle in which liberals do the crackdown and fascists collect the reward. They close on the former Josh Hawley staffer who showed up at an Abdul El-Sayed event demanding he disavow the Muslim Brotherhood, and why the dual loyalty smear was run on Thomas Jefferson in 1800 and JFK in 1960 long before anyone aimed it at a Muslim running for Senate in Michigan. 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

This is a preview of The Weekender. Sign up for our Patreon and get access to the full 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 open on Ukraine's drones losing their Starlink connection mid-flight, with Elon Musk insisting it wasn't him and pointing at Trump, whose "energy ceasefire" Russia honored by bombing Ukraine's power grid. Jared has a reminder about what happens to American proxies once a better deal comes along, and then it's on to the Pentagon sending troops south to "fight drug trafficking" while cocaine gets cheaper in Miami, and the hack that cooked the fridges in 400 French supermarkets, which looks a lot like somebody testing the next theater of war.

Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman are back together and open on Monday's ICE and DHS raid of Ilhan Omar's Washington home, a warrant tied to her immigration status that came with no charges and arrived right on schedule for October. Next up is Trump easing restrictions on Russian oil and diesel just before demanding Ukraine swap out Zelensky for someone more willing to deal, while drone strikes on Russian data centers appear to have taken a chunk of the right's online bot army down with them. Jared and Nick then work their way down the corruption nesting doll to its smallest figure, Kimberly Guilfoyle, the ambassador to Greece accused of asking a GOP donor to cover her $100,000 Amex bill in exchange for favors that apparently included booking him on Tucker Carlson and getting Kid Rock to sing his song. They close on the fake story, built from AI-doctored phone calls and boosted by Elon Musk, that James Talarico spent his flu in an Ohio mental hospital, a smear so flimsy even The Blaze passed on it. 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