The Deep Politics of the Government Shutdown
On this episode of The Time of Monsters: Chris Lehmann on racism, austerity and the Democrats finding courage.
The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
The Time of Monsters podcast features Nation national-affairs correspondent Jeet Heer’s signature blend of political culture and cultural politics. Each week, he’ll host in-depth conversations with urgent voices on the most pressing issues of our time.
The Deep Politics of the Government Shutdown w/ Chris Lehmann
Donald Trump has plunged the nation into another government shutdown. I spoke with my
Nation colleague Chris Lehmann about the larger political stakes. We take up Trump’s shifting
rhetoric, which has started with false and racist claims about undocumented immigrants
receiving benefits and now seems to be about gloating over austerity. We also take up the
Democratic party response, and the way the base of the party has forced the leadership to take
a stronger stance. Chris’ article on the shutdown can be found here.
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Republicans John Thune and Mike Johnson during a news conference at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on October 3, 2025.
(Graeme Sloan / Bloomberg via Getty Images)Donald Trump has plunged the nation into another government shutdown. I spoke with my Nation colleague Chris Lehmann about the larger political stakes. We take up Trump’s shifting rhetoric, which has started with false and racist claims about undocumented immigrants receiving benefits and now seems to be about gloating over austerity. We also discuss the Democratic Party’s response, and the way the base of the party has forced the leadership to take a stronger stance. Chris’s article on the shutdown can be found here.
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The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
The Time of Monsters podcast features Nation national-affairs correspondent Jeet Heer’s signature blend of political culture and cultural politics. Each week, he’ll host in-depth conversations with urgent voices on the most pressing issues of our time.
The End of American Global Power? W/ Anusar Farooqui
The conflict in the Middle East is currently in an intermittent holding action with an extended ceasefire but no diplomatic breakthrough. To assess where things are going, I sat down with the foreign policy analyst Anusar Farooqui, who runs an excellent substack called Policy Tensor and posts on Twitter here. We discussed the resiliency and growing stature of Iran, as well as the signs that unipolar US hegemony is coming to an end, to be replaced by a multipolar world.
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