Deep Background with Noah Feldman

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Blockers: Rebels in the Deep State | A Preview of Michael Lewis's New Audiobook Oct 06, 2026

Show notes

Here's a preview of a new audiobook we think you'll enjoy, Blockers: an inside look at the early days of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, as told by the public servants it targeted and Michael Lewis, one of America’s best storytellers.

Blockers. It wasn’t a compliment. In the new Washington, it was the worst thing you could be—especially if you worked in the federal government and wanted to keep your job. A Blocker was a holdover, an impediment, someone who didn’t get the message—and, most of all, someone who didn’t belong.

Michael Lewis found six of them.

Blockers is the story of people who believed they had a calling, who were convinced they were doing something the country couldn’t do without, and then discovered they were no longer wanted. One kept Americans’ most sensitive tax data out of the wrong hands and another made sure that politicians and civil servants played by the rules. One figured out how to stop wildfires from destroying suburban neighborhoods, another helped uncover the mysteries of cystic fibrosis.

There was also a security guard.

It should come as no surprise that the writer who made subprime mortgages gripping (The Big Short) and who turned baseball statistics into poetry (Moneyball) could transform the first two years of the second Trump administration into a thriller about federal employees. But he does.

And he does something else. He puts before us a clear question: If these public servants can’t survive in government today, then what does that say about us?

Get Blockers now at blockers.fm.

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The Staten Island Problem from Revisionist History Jul 09, 2026

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On the 250th anniversary of the United States, Revisionist History investigates the story of what was, at the time, the biggest secession movement in the U.S. since the Civil War. The Staten Island Problem reconstructs the battle for New York City amidst the turbulent early 1990s — the rise of Rudy Giuliani, the peak of the homicide rate, the Wu-Tang Clan, young Donald Trump, and the first Black mayor of New York — all through the prism of the city’s Forgotten Borough. Staten Island’s secession movement is an early example of the politics of resentment that dominates America today and asks: what do you do when a democracy looks like it’s falling apart? Here’s episode 1. David Dinkins, the first Black mayor of New York City, faces off with the borough president of Staten Island, and tries to hold his city together.

Find more episodes of Revisionist History: The Staten Island Problem wherever you get podcasts.

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Benghazi: Episode 6 - Radicals Oct 06, 2025

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The Tea Party takes over the search for the truth about Benghazi, while the FBI pursues a Libyan militia leader suspected of planning the attack.
For a list of books, documentaries and resources we used to research this episode visit: bit.ly/fiascopolitics

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Benghazi: Episode 5 - Greatest Hits Sep 29, 2025

Show notes

As the political world looks toward the 2016 Presidential election, Benghazi becomes a Clinton scandal.
For a list of books, documentaries and resources we used to research this episode visit: bit.ly/fiascopolitics