Former US president Donald Trump campaigns for the GOP nomination in the 2024 election in Erie, Pa., on July 29, 2023. (Jeff Swensen / Getty)
Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
We swear to god, we haven’t turned into a sports podcast (despite all Matt’s efforts). But it turns out there’s a not-insignificant intersection between the World Cup, democracy, and authoritarianism. So we invited Alex Shephard—a senior editor and writer at the New Republic and founder of Golden Goal, a literary magazine about the 2026 World Cup—to walk us through the dramas, controversies, and political implications of the global tournament that’s kicking off this week. Whether you’re obsessed with sports, like Matt, or have barely heard of them, like Aaron, there’s something in this conversation for you.
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On Monday, Donald Trump became the first president in history to face trial on criminal charges. His polls are down and the stock price of Trump Media has fallen 60 percent. Nation national affairs corespondent John Nichols is on the podcast to discuss.
Also on this episode: TV right now is featuring several prestige historical dramas. John Powers compares and contrasts The Sympathizer, centering on a spy for the Communists in Vietnam and then California in the 1970s; Manhunt, following the search for Lincoln’s assassin; A Gentleman in Moscow, portraying a Russian aristocrat after the Bolshevik Revolution, and Shogun, about feuding 17th-century Japanese warlords. John is critic at large for NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross.
Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
On this episode of Start Making Sense, John Nichols analyzes this week’s primary results in California and elsewhere, and, from the archives, Elmore Leonard talks about where his characters and plots came from.
California’s jungle primary on Tuesday set the stage for the next Democratic governor of the state, and primaries in Iowa, New Jersey and elsewhere tested the strength of progressives in the party. John Nichols has our analysis.
Also: from the archives: Elmore Leonard, who died in 2013 at age 87, was unpretentious about his massive accomplishments: 45 novels, more than a dozen turned into movies, and a reputation as one of the great writers of dialogue. When we spoke in 2000, he had just published Pagan Babies, and his movies Get Shorty, Jackie Brown, and Out of Sight had been hits.
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