Off The Record With Paul Hodes

Several weeks ago, an NBC news poll found that the number one issue for Americans was not inflation, but the threat to democracy. Yet, despite American's clear concern, and despite Republican gaslighting about the supposed liberal bias of the media (hint, it's the opposite, as we cover in this episode), former Chicago Sun Times Editor Mark Jacob says that the stunning rise of fascist forces in America and the MAGA takeover of the Republican Party remains stunningly under-covered. "The media is scared of telling the truth when it comes to horrible things happening in politics. Nobody was set up for this rise of fascism...and it is fascism. And also the willingness of the Republican party to cheat in elections and and try to overturn legitimate elections. It's just astounding to me is how the biggest story of our lifetime is sitting right in front of us...yet they're afraid to cover it." Mark Jacob spent 41 years in daily newspapers, mostly in Chicago. He’s the former Sunday editor at the Chicago Sun-Times and

Time Magazine recently described Jesse Ferguson by saying that he "as been one of the quiet forces inside rooms where power has been negotiated, won, or ceded over the last two decades." He's one of the most sought-after messaging experts among Democrats, and he has a lot to say about the key thing that Democrats always seem to get wrong when talking to voters, and how to fix it (hint: there's an easy acronym to remember how...ABC-V). Matt and Jesse also cover how to make the Inflation Reduction Act resonate with voters, how the midterms are shaping up, and favorite stories from the campaign trail. 

The shape of what and how we view things on television is rapidly evolving, with the NFL moving to Amazon, NBC potentially dropping an hour of prime time, and sports looking to a streaming future.  Chris Hill, host of Motley Fool Money, explains the dizzying changes and what might be coming next.  Also, what will the homestretch of the business year look like?

By which we mean the homestretch toward the midterms, with 9 weeks until election day, and the outcome depending on voters' priorities between inflation and autocracy. But also, President Biden's big speech last week depicted a country on the brink of a total meltdown, with MAGA forces poised to upend 250 years of democracy. Are we actually that close to the brink, and if so, was his speech the right thing to do? Plus, if we're so close to a MAGA takeover of government, why are Democrats promoting MAGA candidates? 

Several years ago, Newt Gingrich created a bit of controversy when he said in an interview that feelings are facts, and that the way people perceive an issue has just as much to say about it’s reality as any set of statistics that you could gather. Many people scoffed or reacted with outrage...but the truth is, he was kind of right: for instance, the way people feel about the economy has a strong influence on the objective reality of the economy as seen in the kinds of statistics that we can measure. In fact, economists generally accept the idea that people's feelings and expectations about inflation -- the number one public issue in the country right now -- become self-fulfilling prophecies that manifest in actual inflation. That’s why if you listen closely to our nation's economic leaders like Fed Chair Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, you’ll hear them talk so much about consumer confidence. The leading institution that measures people's feelings about the economy in America is the Univers

We’ve been talking a lot about President Biden's decision to give holders of student loan debt substantial aid by canceling up to $10,000 in debt for those making less than $125,000. It seems like the decision has made no one happy, and that's definitely true of today's guest. Brian Riedl is a Senior Fellow with the Manhattan Institute who is an expert in economic policy, having worked for six years a chief economist senator Rob Portman and Director of Budget and Spending Policy for Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign. He has plenty of policy critiques of the Biden plan...but surprisingly, he has even more criticism for the Republican response and what it says about where the Republican Party has landed today, lacking any kind of coherent domestic policy agenda. He's written an article about it for The Dispatch (image from their article) and he joins us to explain.

Or will it amp it up even further? The panel dives into why Democrats are gaining ground, and whether President Biden's big move on student debt is the right thing to do both economically and politically. Plus, Lindsay Graham makes the MAGA hostage threat explicit: stay away from Trump, or the base will attack (again). Does that mean prosecutors should back off?

In the past week, Republican attacks on the Inflation Reduction Act around how it funds tax enforcement have gotten downright scary, claiming that the IRS will use the additional funding to hire thousands of armed agents and threaten Americans’ life and liberty. It's nonsense, but it's nothing new. Back in December, we did an episode of Great Ideas that ran through the myths, realities, and partisan lies that were emerging then about tax enforcement...and most of it applies just as much now as it did then. 

We work very hard on this show to get out of our bubble and challenge our perceptions about what is happening, so that we don't end up just living in a political echo chamber. There’s no better way to do that for Democrat than to hear from one the very top Republican pollsters working today. Right now, the big question is whether there is a real shift going on in politics...is it just a case of Democrats over tilting on a bit of good news, or is it based on real, tangible signs that voters' fundamental views and drivers of politics are changing? We've heard from Democratic analysts, and now, we get insights from Whit Ayres, a leading Washington, D.C. political consultant with over 30 years of experience in polling and survey research for high profile political campaigns and associations. He’s the Founder and President of North Star Opinion Research, a national public opinion and public affairs research firm where he provides message development and strategic insights to high level political clients including

This week, we're focusing on the question of the big vibe shift in politics: is it just a hazy feeling among Democrats, or a real reflection of a significant change in their favor?  Aliza Astrow is a senior political analyst at Third Way who conducts public opinion research and analysis on voter views, and she walks through whether, how much, and why voters may be warming to keeping Democrats in power. 

Numerous data points are suggesting that there may be some positive trends for Democrats, along with some troubling signs for Republicans.  Dems have been acting downright giddy about what they see as the recent turn.  But is it mostly in their mind?  Is it going to be enough? Or are they getting meaningful traction at just the right time? The panel weighs what we're seeing out there and separates what's real from what's not. 

Since the FBI search on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home more than a week ago, the response from Republican office holders has been to demonize the Department of Justice, FBI, and law-enforcement in general. Republican firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene called for the FBI to be "destroyed and defunded," and the echoes of that exact sentiment have sounded throughout Republican Party leadership. Our guest today  identifies a growing pattern of opposing the rule of law and celebrating lawlessness at the heart of the Republican Party. Caroline Fredrickson is a Senior Fellow at the Brennen Center for Justice at NYU Law. She’s served as the President of the American Constitution Society and she’s a frequent guest on television and radio, including serving as a regular on-air commentator during Donald Trump’s impeachments. She regularly contributes opinion pieces for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other news outlets, the most recent of which was “The Lawless G.O.P. Response to the Raid at Mar-a-Lago”

Chris Hill, host of the country's #1 stock investing radio show, joins Matt to dive into the question of whether we are actually in a recession, and whether that question really matters.  There are confusing, contradictory market signs, promising indications, and warnings that could spell trouble ahead.  Chris and Matt try to untangle the indications from jobs, retailer's earnings, stock market performance, GDP growth, and hiring to understand what the big picture really is. 

A new, highly-regarded poll from the St. Anselm's Institute of Politics is providing the best understanding yet of the politics of abortion after the Supreme Court's historic ruling ending Roe v. Wade. Neil Levesque, Executive Director at the IOP, takes us inside what they found, including how they are differentiating between people's personal views and how they will behave politically, and why this issue really could provide a winning edge for Democrats in some of the nation's most closely contested races this November.  Also, the poll provides new data on the overall political environment and helps fill in the story of what's happened in politics over the past year, and where things may go next.  Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

Our panel of former US Congressman Paul Hodes, conservative columnist Alicia Preston, and former staffer/campaign manager Matt Robison unpacks what we've learned in recent days about Donald Trump's hidden stash of top secret files, and identifies the one big question that no Republican Trump defender seems able to answer.  Also, are things truly turning in Dem's direction politically?

On April 14 2021, President Biden announced that a full withdrawal from Afghanistan -- one that President Trump had previously promised would  happen by May -- would go forward by September 11.  The withdrawal turned out to be chaotic and deadly.  By August 15, Kabul had fallen to the Taliban, and 13 US service-members were subsequently killed. Now, as we approach the one year anniversary of that date, how should we think about the withdrawal decision? Was the price too high?  Or does the recent killing of the world's top terrorist there help show that it was the best decision in the long run? Sean Carberry is a foreign affairs expert, consultant, and an award winning journalist and media producer with unique experience reporting on conflict. He served as NPR’s international correspondent based in Kabul, Afghanistan after reporting for NPR from more than two dozen war torn middle eastern and African countries. He worked for the US department of Defense as the lead on Department of Defense

Former Democratic Congressman and prosecutor Paul Hodes, conservative consultant Alicia Preston, and host Matt Robison break down the early legal and political fallout from the surprise FBI raid on former President Trump.  Paul explains from a prosecutor's standpoint what the behind-the-scenes mechanics are of getting a warrant like this, Alicia analyzes the Republican reaction, and Matt runs through the short and longer term political implications. 

The Senate passage of the Inflation Reduction Act caps a surprisingly successful summer for President Biden and Congressional Democrats in which they passed major legislation to help veterans exposed to toxins, to increase manufacturing competitiveness against China, a bipartisan deal to rein in gun violence...not to mention President Biden holding together the western alliance against Vladimir Putin‘s war in Ukraine, adding two new members to NATO, and taking out the world's number one terrorist. So have Democrats turned around what seemed to be a disastrous trajectory.  And has the picture now changed for the 2022 midterms? Our guest is Navin Nayak, President of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, one of the major organizations that focuses on how policy impacts politics. He previously served as the director of opinion research for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, and you may recognize him from his numerous television program appearances including CNN’s “Crossfire” and MSNBC’s “Hardba

Recently, legendary West Virginia broadcaster Howard Monroe has been wondering: has something deeply changed about the 2024 picture?  It seems like both Donald Trump and Joe Biden's position has been softening in measurable ways. So what is the trajectory of the next presidential race?  Matt Robison joins him to walk through what the indicators are -- and aren't -- telling us. 

The day before Joe Manchin made his thunderbolt announcement of the new Inflation Reduction Act, I had a conversation with one of the Democratic Party's top communications strategists. Jim Manley - who served as senior communications advisor and spokesman for then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid - walked me through the question of whether all this wrangling over President Biden's economic agenda had been all negative, or whether Senator Manchin had actually helped steer Democrats ultimately to a better place.  In the interview, you can hear Jim hint that there's some news coming, and his analysis of what's happened over the past year sounds even more prescient and on-point now that we know what's emerged in recent days. A fascinating discussion about negotiating, finding compromise, and trying to create a coherent message for a party that is frequently all over the place.