Off The Record With Paul Hodes

Philadelphia Inquirer National Columnist and Pulitzer Prize Winner Will Bunch joins to lay out why everything we saw from Donald Trump in the catastrophic town hall last night was terrible...but unsurprising. The real shock wasn't even the way CNN was complicit in setting up the disaster. Rather, it was another group that really brought a low point to the entire night.

As the debt ceiling standoff begins to dominate political discussion, serious legal scholars are beginning to debate whether the Constitution offers a simple way out. Also, Alicia makes a moving plea to her own Republican Party on immigration. And could the writer's strike be good for America?

On Sundays, we post shows from Financial Life Planning with financial advisor Mike Morton and man-in-need-of-advice Matt Robison. This week: we have interest rates now, so what does that mean, in a nutshell, for our daily lives. And is there anything we need to, you know, DO about it? The answer is: YES! We cover: Mortgage Rates - How the increase affects your payments (not in a good way!) Home Equity / Construction Loans - You might want to think twice about borrowing for renovation projects and why I paid off my HELOC. Savings - You will finally earn some interest on your cash CD’s - Some brokerage products are offering 3%-4% interest, something we haven’t seen in almost 20 years Stocks - It’s like Black Friday: with the 20% market decline now is a (better) time to buy stocks.  Stay invested for the long run.

Justin Elliott is one of the team of reporters at ProPublica who conducted the blockbuster investigation that uncovered the Clarence Thomas corruption scandal. Elliot takes us inside the story and how he reported it. His reporting uncovered the financial ties between Harlan Crow and Justice Thomas: millions of dollars in gifts, benefits, and luxury trips. His newest article revealed strange details: a secret real estate deal where Crow bought Clarence Thomas' mother's house, and let her live in it rent free, and also paid years of tuition for Thomas's adoptive son at a swanky private school.

Matt walks into the belly of the beast, joining Alicia Preston guest-hosting on the Jack Heath show, one of the top conservative radio programs out there. They cover the question of when are politicians too old, and the controversial idea that we spend too much money on senior citizens anyway.

US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse joins us to expose a "toxic cocktail of creepy billionaires and phony front groups and dark money" ruling the Supreme Court in this interview coming fresh off a blockbuster Senate hearing. Corrupt right wing Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife have raked in millions from people with cases before the court. It's all part of a broken system that funnels hundreds of millions in dark money to put these people on the court and then tells them what to do.

Republican insiders think so, and they see an emerging strategy to try to take DeSantis down in one particular early primary state. Also, what is up with the big new messaging plan from Democrats on the Republicans debt ceiling plan, and will it work? And how worries should we be that three of the four biggest banking failures in US history happened in the last couple months?

Financial advisor Mike Morton and Matt Robison dive into when it makes sense to borrow money to pay for stuff (like cars) vs. digging deep into your savings. And does it make sense to use a HELOC? And what the #$%^ IS a HELOC anyway?

President Biden is running for re-election, but are his chances of beating Trump uncomfortably...even? Also, what does a new rule say about whether Democrats are swinging too far to the left? And is there a simple deal to be had on the debt that could save America from economic catastrophe?

Tucker Carlson has been a disaster for America, and he is an embarrassment that Fox News is trying to put behind them. But the big question is, will Fox get any better without him? And what about the rest of the media, which seems perpetually locked in both-sides-ism and unwilling to provide the context to help Americans understand what has been happening in our country in the age of Trump. Mark Jacob is a former editor for the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun Times and co-author of six books about history and photography.

Ron DeSantis was the Fox News "Great White Cope" (cope with their soured love affair with Trump, that is)...until things started going south. Now questions are swirling about whether he's been a paper tiger all along. Columnist Jason Sattler and host Matt Robison debate the top five flaws that are most likely to complete DeSantis' flameout, and try to figure out whether he can ultimately turn things around and defeat Trump.

One of the strangest political ads ever and it's strangely...dirty?!? Also what's underneath the move to get Senator Feinstein to resign? Does Kevin MCCarthy actually have a plan to save America from his own insane Republican Congress? And what should we hope for int he Fox-Dominion lawsuit?

How does a forgotten 2016 ruling from the Supreme Court impact the Clarence Thomas corruption scandal and make it so darn obnoxious? Matt joins legendary West Virginia radio host Howard Monroe to talk about the Fox News-Dominion defamation lawsuit and the rapidly growing Clarence Thomas corruption questions.

Fred Wellman, former Executive Director of the Lincoln Project, talks about his provocative substack article connecting the dots between Donald Trump's criminal behavior, Clarence Thomas' corrupt behavior, and Ron DeSantis' authoritarian behavior. They all believe that the rules don't apply to them, and that they are somehow royal.

In the last 20 years Florida has gone from balanced swing state to incubator of far-right Trump clones, and it's about to produce the leading non-Trump Republican candidate for President, Ron DeSantis. So why did Florida go so...nuts? And is Ron DeSantis going to wilt under the national spotlight as so many analysts seem to think? Kartik Krishnaiyer is a writer who focuses on Florida politics at his must-read website The Florida Squeeze and he joins us to wade us through the craziness of the Florida swamp.

And should he do that with the new abortion medicine ruling? Also, what about the astonishing revelations about Clarence Thomas' corruption. What is on the line for Donald Trump in his NEW deposition this week? And what is the big takeaway from the expulsions of two Black Tennessee legislators?

The Wall Street Journal says there’s a five-alarm warning for Republicans happening right now. But is it really a five alarm-warning for all of us? We wanted to ask that question of one of the top experts on American government after an historic and ominous week in America. Norman Ornstein is one of the most famous and respected scholars of American politics and government, he often appears on C-SPAN, CBS, CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, NPR, and “PBS NewsHour,” He served as an election analyst for CBS News for thirty years, and his most recent book was “One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet Deported."

In Part One, former prosecutor and Congressman Paul Hodes walked us through the charges against Donald Trump in New York, and why they amount to such a strong case. In today's Part Two, our panel takes a closer look at the political impact and debates whether Trump can still win the Republican nomination and what it will do with his political prospects in general.

In a word: YES. Here's why this is potentially so devastating...with a read of the indictment itself hot off the presses from former prosecutor Paul Hodes and political operatives Alicia Preston and Matt Robison.

The panel evaluates whether Trump's latest doozy of a rally represents a desperate attempt to keep his fans' attention with even more insane stuff. Also, is DeSantis about to fizzle? Will Republicans repeat their 2016 blunder? Will Democrats' connection with American Jews permanently fall apart over Netanyahu's power grab? And...rainbows!