Inside the Hive

Why Did Joe and Mika Really Visit Mar-a-Lago? Nov 21, 2024

Host Brian Stelter is joined by Ian Bassin, a lawyer who served in the Obama administration and co-founder of Protect Democracy, and Michael Calderone, editor of Vanity Fair’s the Hive, just days after Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough revealed their Mar-a-Lago detente with Donald Trump, to discuss what the meeting suggests about the president-elect’s influence on the media and, more broadly, how news outlets are already reeling from Trump’s potential retaliatory efforts. The group also discusses how the press will respond in courageous ways, telling the truth loudly in the face of a president known to threaten journalists.

Why the Elon Musk-Donald Trump Bromance Might Be On a Collision Course Nov 14, 2024

There was a time, not long ago, in which most people might have scoffed at the idea that Elon Musk, an entrepreneur with aspirations to save the world from climate change, would become a right-wing folk hero. And yet, that's precisely the transformation he underwent this year. The billionaire CEO of Tesla—now known for his ardent support of Donald Trump and his endless philippics against the “woke mind virus”—has become a major power player in the MAGAverse, and is set to head up a new initiative in Trump’s second administration, so called the "Department of Government Efficiency." In the latest episode of Inside the Hive, VF special correspondent Nick Bilton and New York Times tech reporter Kate Conger unpack what brought Musk into the MAGAverse, how he plans to gut the regulatory state under Trump, and why the duo’s ego-fueled bromance may be destined to blow up. “I think we are on a collision course of personalities with these two,” Conger predicts. “[Musk is] going to want complete control...and I don't think Trump is going to be willing to give him that."

Are We Going to Be Ok? Nov 07, 2024

On this post-election episode, host Brian Stelter checks in with Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Radhika Jones and contributing editor Jeff Sharlet, getting their gut-level reactions to Donald Trump’s triumph and perspective on the evolving MAGA movement, which now include the likes of Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. They discuss the language of fascism, male identity politics, and the need to cut through the Trumpian noise to uncover what’s really happening in a second term at a national and local level.

To Panic, or Not to Panic? VF’s Pre-Election Rundown Oct 31, 2024

With the election just days away, host Brian Stelter is joined by Vanity Fair executive editor Claire Howorth and politics correspondent Bess Levin to talk about the vibes going into November 5, why this particular election is so close and so stressful, some down-ballot races you should keep an eye on, and how the media will likely approach election night. The team agrees, "Hope is a terrible thing to waste," and confidence is too terrifying to project. Instead, they discuss some good reasons people might go into Election Day with a positive attitude and ways to keep calm as we await results.

Trump Alum Turned Harris Advocate Says She Knows There Is A 'Target' On Her Back Now Oct 24, 2024

The Republican Party has long been lacking in courage. But profiles in it can still be found among the scores of Trump administration staffers who have come out against their former boss, at potentially immense personal cost. One among them: Sarah Matthews, who served as Donald Trump’s deputy press secretary until January 6th. On the latest episode of Inside the Hive, Matthews opens up about the “cognitive dissonance” she experienced as a spokesperson for Trump, recalls how the Capitol riot became her breaking point, and unpacks why she has thrown her support behind Kamala Harris’s campaign, even if doing so puts a target on her back. “Donald Trump is so much bigger than just me,” she says. “The guilt that I would feel” from sitting on the sidelines,” Matthews adds, “would have been much greater than the fear that I might feel right now.”

Fox News & Everything After: Inside Kamala Harris’s 11th Hour Media Blitz Oct 17, 2024

Kamala Harris is making the media rounds in the final weeks of the 2024 face, talking to everyone from Howard Stern to Fox News, “Call Her Daddy” to “The Breakfast Club.” On this episode, Brian Stelter catches up with senior spokesman Ian Sams about the campaign’s campaign strategy and the creative ways they’re trying to reach, and persuade, the small sliver of undecided voters who may tip the election. Plus, Stelter talks with Hive editor Michael Calderone about Donald Trump’s attempt to nail down the bro vote by stopping by podcasts geared toward young, male audiences.

Stacey Abrams: "Either You're a Patriot or You're Not" Oct 10, 2024

Host Brian Stelter is joined by author, organizer, and former Georgia representative Stacey Abrams to examine Kamala Harris’s chances this November inside the swing state, ongoing efforts by Republicans to suppress voting rights and sow chaos across the country, and Abrams’ plans to help salvage democracy. Abrams, whose playbook and organizing power in 2020 helped Joe Biden deliver Georgia, a red–now purple–state that hadn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in more than 20 years, and a trifecta in Washington with the state’s 2021 runoffs, says that part of her strategy is to find voters who wouldn’t otherwise turn out and encourage people to participate in the democratic process even if they don’t plan to vote for the Democrat.

James Carville on Ramping Up the Harris Ground Game and Defeating Trump Oct 03, 2024

James Carville is not known for mincing words. Back in 2021, the legendary Democratic strategist ruffled quite a few feathers when he blamed “wokeness” for the party’s electoral defeats. He still hasn’t backed down from that belief—but he’s also willing to accept that Kamala Harris has a lot more to worry about than safe spaces and language policing when it comes to trouncing Donald Trump. One challenge in particular, he tells Brian Stelter on the latest episode of Inside the Hive, is presenting herself a bold persona with a bright new vision in a period of Trump-era malaise. "I think the best construct for her is ‘fresh versus stale,'" Carville says of Harris. "I've said the most thunderous sound in all of politics is the sound of a turning page."

Nate Silver on Harris-Trump Odds, 538’s “Broken” Model, and Why He Doesn’t Like Politics Sep 26, 2024

With less than six weeks until Election Day, host Brian Stelter discusses the historically close race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump with Nate Silver, the renowned polling expert, statistician, and author of the “Silver Bulletin” Substack newsletter. Silver breaks down the latest numbers in swing states, warns against rapidly shifting media narratives, expresses frustration with his former site, and details the community of risk-takers at the center of his new book, "On the Edge."

America Has a Problem With Political Violence—And It's a Growing One Sep 19, 2024

Host Brian Stelter is joined by Barbara F. Walter, an expert on violent extremism and domestic terror, to examine what exactly political violence is and why it’s becoming more common, includingfactors that may have been at play in the two recent assassination attempts. Walter, a professor at the University of California, San Diego and the author of How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them, tells Stelter there’s a cancer growing in America because a subset of the population doesn’t think democracy serves them anymore.

What's Behind Donald Trump's Right-Wing Bro Podcast Binge Sep 12, 2024

Podcasts are hardly a new medium in American politics. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t disrupting the dynamics of the 2024 presidential race. Consider hotshot hosts like Theo Von, Ezra Klein, and Adin Ross; all of them have been able to give listeners an intimate glimpse at politicians from Donald Trump to Tim Walz, says Atlantic staff writer Helen Lewis on the latest episode of Inside the Hive. Lewis, who is joined by Bloomberg reporter Ashley Carman, contends that podcasts can offer the pols an unique opportunity to get up close and personal with their voters. However, as we’ve seen in the case of JD Vance—whose past audio appearances have come back to haunt him—the medium can cut both ways. “They do kind of lure people into this much more kind of confessional chatty mode,” Lewis says. “And I think that's why maybe they could become quite dangerous…politicians might not realize how that might look in the cold light of day to other people.”

The GOP's "Extreme Policies" on Abortion and IVF Have Not Changed Sep 05, 2024

Host Brian Stelter is joined by Amanda Becker, Washington correspondent for The 19th, to examine the battle over abortion rights in America, including the Florida ballot measure, former President Trump’s all-over-the-place messaging, and the Republican Party’s conflicting views about in vitro fertilization and fetal personhood. The two also discuss the origins of abortion politics and how it’s impossible to disentangle abortion bans from the history of patriarchy in this country. Becker is the author of the forthcoming book, You Must Stand Up: The Fight for Abortion Rights in Post-Dobbs America, and tells Stelter that it doesn’t matter if you aren't in Alabama–an abortion ban there or anywhere can impact you because of the legal pathway in which cases get decided.

DNC Night 4: The Dems Are Riding High, But Kamala Harris Faces New Hurdles Aug 23, 2024

On this episode, host Brian Stelter wraps up the exuberant finale of the Democratic National Convention with Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Radhika Jones and author and contributing editor Ta-Nehisi Coates, who has been reporting this week from Chicago. They discuss how this historic, four-day spectacle, which concluded with Kamala Harris’s stirring acceptance speech, showcased the party’s next generation of political stars, while also showing its limitations, with no Palestinian American getting a slot on stage.

DNC Night 3: Is the Dem "Swagger" All Hype, or Real Change? Aug 22, 2024

Is all the hype real? It’s the uncomfortable question hanging over all the good vibes of the 2024 Democratic National Convention this week. And it’s one that Vanity Fair’s Claire Howorth and James Pogue, who is reporting from the ground, are more than willing to tackle on the latest episode of Inside the Hive. Pogue argues that while Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have electrified the party with a fresh new ticket, the event’s pomp and circumstance still feels “very produced,” with every Democrat in lockstep about how to communicate their message, avoiding any topic that might touch a nerve. Still, argues Howorth, there is an undeniable feeling that the party is getting its “swagger” back—and a sense that the Harris-Walz ticket might help Democrats “reclaim the idea of patriotism” from the GOP. “The Republicans have no problem being ultra-confident and cocky and smug,” she says, “and, you know, that’s not the worst stage direction for Democrats right now.”

DNC Night 2: "Fake Parties," Real Influencers, and the Return of the Obamas Aug 21, 2024

As the 2024 Democratic National Convention rolls on, host Brian Stelter talks with Vanity Fair special correspondent Molly Jong-Fast, as she runs around Chicago, and Michael Calderone, editor of Vanity Fair’s the Hive, in New York. Jong-Fast describes the vibes around the United Center as Democrats appear both anxious about the election and pleased with their candidate. She notes the heavy police presence around the city and explains the difference between the fabulous convention parties (John Legend hosted by JB Pritzker) and the fake convention parties (read: panels). Calderone highlights the effectiveness of the programming so far, including the 2008 energy seen on night 2 as the Obamas take the stage. He remarks on how media coverage of the conventions and presidential candidates have changed, with the huge number of influencers and content creators present at this convention. The big question is whether Kamala Harris and Tim Walz can meet voters where they are, no matter the medium. Look out for special editions of Inside the Hive each morning this week.

DNC Night 1: A "Giant Emotion Cannon" for Kamala Harris in Chicago Aug 20, 2024

As the Democratic National Convention kicks off, host Brian Stelter catches up with senior editor Maggie Coughlan, in New York, and special correspondent Joe Hagan, from the United Center in Chicago. Hagan finds attendees fired up on night one, which featured speeches from party stalwarts (Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton) and future stars (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jasmine Crockett), as Coughlan highlights how internet culture is coming to life in the convention hall. While the early weeks of Kamala Harris’s campaign, as well as the start of the party’s convention, have been a rousing success, the big question is whether the good vibes will continue. Look out for special editions of Inside the Hive each morning as the DNC rolls on.

Sweet Emotion: How the Harris-Walz Ticket Wields Joy Against Donald Trump Aug 15, 2024

To say that there has been a “vibe shift” among Democrats is an understatement. Since taking Joe Biden’s mantle as the presumptive Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris has ushered in an unmistakable wave of positivity within the party. The joy and optimism suffusing her campaign have thus proven powerful antidotes to the fear and anger being sold by Donald Trump. That is, according to MSNBC analyst Anand Giridharadas, who has been writing extensively about the political potency of emotions in his popular newsletter, The Ink. In the latest episode of the Inside the Hive, Giridharadas discusses why everyone is picking up such “good vibes” from Harris and running mate Tim Walz—and how the duo pulled Democrats out of their anti-Trump doom loop. “You have to compete with authoritarianism by doing some of the things it does: by commanding attention, by catering to feeling, by making people feel like they can see a future,” he says. “The Harris campaign has somehow tapped into that.”

Inside Kamala Harris's Surging Campaign—and the Authentic Aura of Tim Walz Aug 08, 2024

On this episode, host Brian Stelter speaks about Kamala Harris’s surging campaign and new VP pick, Tim Walz, with Eugene Daniels, a Politico White House correspondent and Playbook co-author. Daniels, who has spent years closely covering the vice president, speaks about her challenges inside the Biden White House, relationship with the news media, and shifting communications style as she has ascended to the top of the Democratic ticket.

How the "PayPal Mafia" Threw Silicon Valley Into a Trump Trance Aug 01, 2024

It used to be that Silicon Valley was considered a blue bastion, and supported social causes like education, public health and climate action. But, if that perception wasn’t already crumbling before now, then it was utterly shattered in 2024. This past month has seen countless tech elites flock behind Donald Trump as their candidate of choice in the presidential election, leaving many in the media scratching their heads—and wringing their hands. But not for Roger McNamee, the veteran venture capital investor, who, on the latest episode of Inside the Hive, breaks down all the financial incentives at play and unpacks why tech leaders are “abandoning” the values they seemingly once held. “Their belief in cryptocurrency and their belief that low taxes and lack of regulation are essential to the prosperity of the tech industry,” he says. “These guys historically had an omerta. They did not speak ill of each other. And basically over the past six weeks or so, the political disagreements have come out into the open.”

From In the Dark: Season 3, Episode 1 Jul 30, 2024

Today, we're bringing you a special preview of the new season of the New Yorker investigative podcast In the Dark, hosted by Madeleine Baran. The series examines the killings of twenty-four civilians in Haditha, Iraq, and asks why no one was held accountable for the crime.
In Episode 1, a man in Haditha, Iraq, has a request for the In the Dark team: Can you investigate how my family was killed?
In the Dark is available wherever you get your podcasts.

Will America Finally Put a Woman in the White House? Jul 25, 2024

Kamala Harris is up against a whole lot. As the presumptive Democratic nominee, she’s fighting against years of political malaise among her own voters, while competing against a man who has a cult-like following within his base. But these challenges, as Hillary Clinton learned herself in 2016, hardly get at the biggest question mark: Is America finally ready for a woman in the White House? That’s the subject of this week’s episode of Inside the Hive, which features NBC News Capitol Hill Correspondent Ali Vitali, who unpacks the long-standing gender inequities of performing on the national stage, the unique challenges faced by the vice president, and what a Harris victory might mean in the decades to come. “The more Black people, the more women who you see in positions of power, the more you realize, ‘Hey, this is normal. Of course, when they run, they can win,’” Vitali says. “And that's partly why we’re seeing this coalescing around Kamala Harris right now.”

How Donald Trump Turned Christian Nationalists Into an Electoral Army Jul 18, 2024

Love thy neighbor: It’s one of the most commonly uttered Biblical verses in the Christian faith. But when it comes to Christian nationalism, the movement doesn’t always practice what it preaches. Such is the subject of Inside the Hive’s latest episode featuring Katherine Stewart and Sam Perry, two experts on the religious right who discuss why Christian nationalists are now “much more ideological than theological,” how Donald Trump has wielded them as a political voting bloc, and why the former president’s failed assassination only reinforces his messiah-like mythology. “Everybody's saying it’s providence, he was saved by God,” says Stewart. “We’ve had eight or more years of this…A sector of the movement has, frankly, consistently framed the contemporary political landscape as being one of spiritual warfare.”

How Trump and Project 2025 Will Mold America “In the Image of a Dictatorship” Jul 11, 2024

What would America actually look like under a second Trump term? Few resources paint a clearer picture than the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, the right’s blueprint for a vast overhaul of the federal bureaucracy, as well as a playbook of immediate executive actions that could annihilate decades of Democratic progress in days. This week, the former president sought to disown the document, but Vanity Fair’s Molly Jong-Fast and Jeff Sharlet, are more than a little skeptical. And, on the latest episode of Inside the Hive, the two discuss precisely what voters should fear most in the 900-page plan—from mass deportations to crackdowns on reproductive rights—and whether the country truly condones or even wants a fascist MAGA makeover. “The majority will accept fascism,” says Sharlet. “I’ve never seen a country where that wasn’t true.”

The Hard Truths About Biden's Dicey Position Jul 04, 2024

Chris Hayes of MSNBC’s “All In with Chris Hayes" joins Inside the Hive host Brian Stelter for a special episode—unplanned on a holiday break, but here we are. As President Biden's disastrous debate performance and the "catastrophe" of the SCOTUS immunity ruling converge in an existential question about America's future, Stelter and Hayes—who recently launched a series called The Stakes in his Why Is This Happening? podcast feed—parse the crush of headlines, and offer new behind-the-scenes details from the debate that has become an inflection point for the history books.

From The New Yorker: The Most Profoundly Not-Normal Facts About Trump’s 2024 Campaign Jul 03, 2024

On this recent episode of The Political Scene, hosts Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos discuss the unusual and dangerous aspects of Donald Trump’s reëlection campaign, from his quid-pro-quo offer to oil executives to his daughter-in-law Laura’s new leadership position on the Republican National Committee.

To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker visit newyorker.com/podcasts

This episode originally aired on May 17th, 2024

Pod Save America Is Staying Positive About 2024. That Doesn’t Mean They Don’t Fear the Worst Jun 27, 2024

We’re all feeling it: The exhaustion. The malaise. The discontent. The nagging suspicion that U.S. politics are futile. But if there is any year to resist the temptation of tuning out, say Jon Favreau and Tommy Vietor,it’s 2024. The two co-hosts of their popular “no bullshit” podcast Pod Save America join Inside the Hive to discuss the enduring appeal of Donald Trump, the palliative power of seeing comedy in political tragedy, and why voters should view themselves as change agents come November. “Your vote is not about rewarding or punishing Joe Biden or Donald Trump or any candidate,” says Favreau. “Your vote is about yourself and your future and what kind of country you want…The only way forward is to be involved and to try to make things better.”

How Prison Time Could Burnish Steve Bannon’s MAGA Cred: “It’s Amazing Clout” Jun 20, 2024

It’s not easy to stay in Donald Trump’s good graces. But throughout the years, Steve Bannon, host of the popular right-wing War Room podcast, has continued to prove an indispensable voice for the former president, saturating the airwaves with pro-MAGA propaganda while galvanizing Trump’s base into action. On the latest episode of inside the Inside the Hive, Puck National Correspondent Tina Nguyen and Washington Post National Political Reporter Isaac Arnsdorf discuss how the infamous and canny GOP strategist helped Trump come out of his post-election hibernation, whether Bannon is more bark than bite, and why his impending time behind bars could burnish his MAGA bona fides. “It’s amazing clout,” Nyugen says of Bannon's prison sentence, “for someone in the MAGA world in these MAGA times with a MAGA audience.”

“It's the Wild West”: Why Silicon Valley’s AI Race Could Leave the Media In Tatters Jun 13, 2024

Ever since the rise of social media, news publishers have always been playing an unwinnable game of catch-up, chasing the changes in Big Tech’s byzantine algorithms to ensure the clicks keep coming. But with AI now in the picture, the playing field is about to get even more lopsided, according to Wired editor in chief Katie Drummond and Axios Senior Media Reporter Sara Fischer. Joining Brian Stelter on the latest episode of Inside the Hive, the two media mavens discuss how tech companies like OpenAI have painted outlets into a corner by offering lucrative licensing deals that could later come back to bite them. “If you strike a deal, you get to experiment with the top technology in generative AI while your competitors do not,” says Fischer, but you “don’t fully understand…the risk of what you're giving up and how valuable it could be.”

Big Tech Has Destroyed Public Trust. Can We Fix It Before the Election? Jun 06, 2024

Parsing fact from fiction is a requisite skill for any journalist. But for Steven Brill—the founder of Newsguard, a website dedicated to countering misinformation by ranking the reliability of news sources—it’s his life. Fresh on the heels of his new book, The Death of Truth, Brill joins host Brian Stelter to discuss Big Tech’s catastrophic moderation failures, how “pink slime” sites have infiltrated the news deserts, and why regaining public trust in the “referees” of real information is paramount for the 2024 election.

Mary Trump Expects a Post-Conviction "Revenge Tour" May 31, 2024

In a special episode, host Brian Stelter discusses the Donald Trump guilty verdict with Mary Trump, a writer, psychologist, and niece of the former president and now-convicted felon. She describes how Trump has long tried to suppress feelings of humiliation and why she expects him to lash out even more after his conviction.

The Democratic War Room Against RFK Jr. May 23, 2024

Host Brian Stelter is joined by veteran Democratic operative Lis Smith to examine the campaign inside the Democratic Party to stop Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from spoiling the presidential election. They discuss why the Democratic Party is "leaving nothing to chance" this election cycle and the motives behind implementing a war room to explicitly ensure that third-party candidates receive the same type of scrutiny that major-party candidates traditionally receive. They also reflect on Kennedy's affinity for conspiracy theories, his running mate Nicole Shanahan, and what it means that his rhetoric and policy positions have shifted to the far right.

Trump on Trial: The "Big Whoa" Moment (So Far) May 16, 2024

As the Trump hush money trial heads toward closing arguments, CNN's chief legal correspondent Paula Reid tells host Brian Stelter about the biggest surprises thus far and previews the range of possible outcomes from the jury. Reid also shares an inside look at day-to-day television news coverage of the trial.

Why Black Twitter Isn’t Fleeing Elon Musk’s X May 09, 2024

From ‘Scandal’ to social justice, Black Twitter has dominated digital discourse, a phenomenon Prentice Penny explores in his new Hulu docuseries, “Black Twitter: A People's History,” based on Jason Parham's 2021 feature for Wired. Penny and Parham, along with J Wortham of the New York Times Magazine, join host Brian Stelter to discuss Black Twitter's cultural impact, and its future.

'We Got Locked in the Bathroom' by Secret Service: Notes from the Trump Trial May 02, 2024

Host Brian Stelter examines the media circus surrounding Donald Trump's hush money trial with Olivia Nuzzi, Washington correspondent for New York magazine, and Vanity Fair staff writer Dan Adler. They discuss what it's like to cover the criminal trial today while it seemingly feels like 2016 and why it's essential for journalists in the courtroom to shout every detail and talk about every aspect. They also reflect on the personalities in the room amid the controlled environment and what's to come, as the trial hasn't even touched on the alleged crime yet.

“You Can’t Believe This Happened”: A “Surreal” Trial and Tabloid Tales of Donald Trump Apr 25, 2024

On this week’s Inside the Hive with Brian Stelter, Vanity Fair writer Dan Adler and Hollywood Reporter special correspondent Lachlan Cartwrightexamine Donald Trump’s sordid relationship with David Pecker, the former National Enquirer executive at the center of the ex-president’s criminal hush money trial in Manhattan. Adler and Cartwight, both reporting from inside the courtroom, describe the “surreal” dynamics of this week's proceedings, and reveal how the back-scratching world of tabloid media ended up creating a monster. “You can’t believe this happened. You can’t believe it’s being litigated,” says Adler. “It all still is sort of like, a decade later, a little bit hard to process.”

25 Years After Columbine: Why The Massacre Was a Turning Point for America Apr 18, 2024

Host Brian Stelter checks in with Vanity Fair’s Dan Adler, who describes the strange scene at Donald Trump’s hush money trial. Then Stelter speaks with “Columbine” author Dave Cullen about the 25th anniversary of the Colorado school shooting. Cullen discusses what changed, and what didn't, about American culture, police practices and gun laws. He also reflects on his personal connection with the families intricately linked through an unending American tragedy.

From WIRED Politics Lab: How Election Deniers Are Weaponizing Tech To Disrupt November Apr 13, 2024

This is a preview episode of WIRED Politics Lab. Election deniers are mobilizing their supporters and rolling out new tech to disrupt the November election. These groups are already organizing on hyperlocal levels, and learning to monitor polling places, target election officials, and challenge voter rolls. And though their work was once fringe, its become mainstreamed in the Republican Party. Today, we focus on what these groups are doing, and what this means for voters and the election workers already facing threats and harassment.

Listen to the full episode of WIRED Politics Lab here.

Be sure to subscribe to the WIRED Politics Lab newsletter here.

The Caitlin Clark Effect Apr 11, 2024

Host Brian Stelter speaks with ESPN women's basketball reporter Alexa Philippou and Vanity Fair contributing editor Tom Kludt about a sport seemingly at an inflection point and surging in interest at both the college and pro levels. The group discusses stars who have helped drive enthusiasm for the game, including Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and coach Dawn Staley. They also reflect on challenges inside women's basketball and women's sports more broadly, particularly how record viewership still hasn't led to pay parity.

Trump's Truth Social Is a Meme Stock—So What Happens Next? Mar 28, 2024

Host Brian Stelter speaks with journalist Scott Nover about how Donald Trump, in the midst of legal and financial turmoil, just got a huge lifeline by way of Truth Social. No, the social media network for the MAGA crowd isn’t suddenly a raging success. But through a “meme stock media merger,” as Nover recently described it for Vanity Fair, the presumptive GOP nominee netted billions this week—at least on paper. Questions remain, though, as to how and when Trump can actually take this money out of the market?

Delay, Delay, Delay: Will Trump Ever Be Held Accountable? Mar 21, 2024

Host Brian Stelter examines the many criminal charges against Donald Trump with Bess Levin, a politics correspondent at Vanity Fair, and Vanity Fair staff writer Dan Adler. They discuss the details of the four indictments, including whether the tone of the Manhattan "hush money" case featuring the contents of a 2005 Access Hollywood tape will come across as an embarrassing, scandalous tabloid story for the former president or a technical, financial case. They also reflect on Trump's decades-long go-to legal strategy of invoking delay tactics and avoiding legal repercussions and what that could mean for the 2024 election and beyond.

Polls Schmolls: Dan Pfieffer, Former Obama Advisor, on Why the Election Is a “Coin Flip” Mar 14, 2024

How reliable are political polls in an era when almost no one answers the phone? Pod Save America co-host Dan Pfeiffer tells Brian Stelter that he takes polls "seriously," if not literally, and says Democrats dismiss the data at their own peril. "We are living on the knife's edge," Pfeiffer says, with Donald Trump showing the "slightest of leads right now" over Joe Biden. Pfeiffer explains why he'd rather be the Biden campaign than the Trump campaign and gives tips about how to digest media coverage of the presidential campaign.

“Donald Trump Is the Leader of a Global Fascist Movement”: One Democratic Senator’s Warning Mar 07, 2024

Host Brian Stelter talks with Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz about the challenge of getting anything accomplished in Congress amid GOP dysfunction and Donald Trump’s demands, with a bipartisan border-security being the latest casualty. Schatz doesn’t mince words about Trump’s “fascist” tendencies, warns that democracy can be overthrown under a legalistic veneer, and chides the news media for failing to meet the moment.

“This Is a Freedom Issue” Texas IVF Patient Brings Lawsuit Over Abortion Bans Feb 29, 2024

This week’s Inside the Hive explores the recent IVF ruling in Alabama and the very personal fight for reproductive rights in America. Host Brian Stelter talks with Amanda Zurawski, who is suing the state of Texas after being denied an abortion, about nearly dying during her difficult family planning journey. He also speaks with Washington Post reporter Leigh Ann Caldwell about Republicans’ complicated relationship with IVF that has involved a lot of misunderstanding of both the science and the political consequences of the ruling.

"They Knew Better,” Says Kara Swisher: Why Big Tech Turns a Blind Eye to Trump’s Depravity Feb 22, 2024

On this week’s episode of Inside the Hive, host Brian Stelter talks to Kara Swisher, the crusading tech journalist, ahead of her forthcoming release, Burn Book, a no-holes-barred accounting of the tech titans who are wresting more and more control over the American economy—and attention span. They discuss the absurd antics of Elon Musk, the follies of Mark Zuckerberg’s privacy policies, and why the industry is in dire need of more capital “A” adults. “They don't feel like they have any responsibility for the things they say and the impact it has in the real world,” she tells Stelter. “And that’s always been a pressing issue for me as 2016 dawned, when you could see the implications of it.

Can Joe Biden Win Over TikTok? Feb 15, 2024

Host Brian Stelter explores how Joe Biden’s campaign is embracing TikTok with Makena Kelly, a senior writer at Wired, and Harry Sisson, an NYU junior and TikTok political commentator. They discuss how politicians can effectively harness the platform and how the 81-year-old president's team is hoping Dark Brandon can help sway Gen Z voters.

Why Tim Cook Is Putting AI in the Backseat With the Apple Vision Pro Feb 08, 2024

Host Brian Stelter chats with special Vanity Fair correspondent Nick Bilton about the Apple Vision Pro, which hit shelves last week, as well as his sit-down with CEO Tim Cook at the company headquarters. They discuss how the long-awaited product is the future of spatial computing, why Cook isn't betting so big on AI, and whether augmented reality can really enhance the human experience in the years to come.

Wayne LaPierre Finally Takes the Fall. Will the NRA Survive Without Him? Feb 01, 2024

Host Brian Stelter talks with Will Van Sant, a staff writer for The Trace, a nonpartisan newsroom covering guns, about whether the National Rifle Association can recover after the NRA corruption trial and the resignation of CEO Wayne LaPierre over lavish spending. They discuss the damning evidence against LaPierre, who he is as a calculating grifter and stoker of culture wars, and if the NRA and LaPierre's downfall ultimately even matters at this point when it comes to gun control measures.

From In the Dark: The Runaway Princesses Jan 30, 2024

The wives and daughters of Dubai’s ruler live in unbelievable luxury. So why do the women in Sheikh Mohammed’s family keep trying to run away? The New Yorker staff writer Heidi Blake joins In the Dark’s Madeleine Baran to tell the story of the royal women who risked everything to flee the brutality of one of the world’s most powerful men. In four episodes, drawing on thousands of pages of secret correspondence and never-before-heard audio recordings, “The Runaway Princesses” takes listeners behind palace walls, revealing a story of astonishing courage and cruelty.

“The Runaway Princesses” is a four-part narrative series from In the Dark and The New Yorker. To keep listening, follow In the Dark wherever you get your podcasts or via this link https://link.chtbl.com/itd_f

What E. Jean Carroll's Case Says About Trump's Other Legal Hurdles Jan 25, 2024

Host Brian Stelter talks with NPR’s Andrea Bernstein, who has been in the courtroom for E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case against Donald Trump, along with Vanity Fair special correspondent Molly Jong-Fast. They discuss Trump using the backdrop of these legal proceedings to portray the system as rigged against him—a running grievance on the campaign trail—and how is public outbursts and continued attacks on Carroll could be a preview for the criminal trials to come.

“People Respond to Trump Like He's Taylor Swift”: Next Stop, New Hampshire Jan 18, 2024

Host Brian Stelter checks in with veteran political reporter and CNN anchor Kasie Hunt fresh off her reporting trip to Iowa, where Donald Trump trounced Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, and on to New Hampshire, the next stop in a GOP race that already feels all but settled. They consider whether Nikki Haley can blunt the frontrunner’s momentum, how Trump’s celebrity status is his superpower with the Republican base, and what this unusual primary cycle portends for a likely Trump-Biden rematch in November.

Are Democrats the Party of Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders? Jan 11, 2024

Inside the Hive host Brian Stelter explores the battle for the soul of the Democratic Party with Joshua Green, Bloomberg national correspondent and author of The Rebels. Green, who in his last book charted the right-wing populism of the Trump era, is now studying to the other side of the aisle, where popular figures like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez helped lead an economic "backlash" to the 2008 financial crisis that pulled the party leftward.

Are You Ready for an Election Year? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Jan 04, 2024

Host Brian Stelter talks with Michael Calderone, editor of Vanity Fair's The Hive, and Vanity Fair executive editor Claire Howorth about the defining issues of the 2024 election, including what's to come in the GOP primary, liberal fantasies and panic, and what's driving Trump ideology now. To an extent, the media has been preparing for how to cover Donald Trump in 2024 for almost a decade. The team discusses what the news media has learned, the forceful objectivity that has tripped up news organizations in covering the former president, and how to overcome voter political fatigue.

From The New Yorker: How Henry Kissinger Conquered Washington Dec 28, 2023

Henry Kissinger, who died this year, at the age of a hundred, served in the Nixon and Ford Administrations as national-security adviser and Secretary of State; for a period, he was both at the same time. Kissinger fled Nazi Germany as a teen-ager, and went on to advise a dozen U.S. Presidents, from John F. Kennedy to Joe Biden. He opened up relations between the U.S. and China with Richard Nixon, pursued détente with the Soviet Union, and made decisions that led to death and destruction across Southeast Asia and beyond. Earlier this year, he travelled to Beijing to meet President Xi Jinping in an attempt to massage U.S.-China relations. “There are not that many hundred-year-olds who insist upon their own relevance and actually are relevant,” the New Yorker staff writer Susan B. Glasser says. Glasser calls Kissinger “the paradigmatic Washington figure,” and says that despite Kissinger’s history of destructive foreign-policy decisions, the American national-security establishment had a “collective addiction” to his thinking. How did Kissinger shape U.S. foreign policy, and what enabled him to remain a central political player in Washington long after he left office? The New Yorker staff writers Jane Mayer and Evan Osnos join Glasser to weigh in on The Political Scene.

How Elon Musk Made Himself the Internet’s Main Character in 2023 Dec 21, 2023

Host Brian Stelter breaks down Elon Musk’s erratic stewardship of Twitter, now X, with Zoë Schiffer, managing editor of Platformer and author of the forthcoming book, “Extremely Hardcore.” They discuss Musk’s rightward shift and war against the “woke mind virus,” the ramifications of him blowing up Twitter’s verification system, and whether it’s responsible to still post on X as misinformation and toxicity flow.

A Dem Strategist Calls Bullshit on Biden Polling Doom Dec 14, 2023

Host Brian Stelter talks with Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg about Joe Biden’s chances in the 2024 general election. Rosenberg’s approach to politics relies heavily on data, and he explains why he’s optimistic for Democrats about 2024. He also tells Stelter why he believes the campaign will be brutal and offers advice to the Biden campaign.

Trump Doesn't Fit the Perfect Evangelical Mold. That Works to His Advantage Dec 07, 2023

Host Brian Stelter explores the fracturing of the evangelical church with Tim Alberta, an Atlantic staff writer and author of “The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory.” Alberta, the son of an evangelical pastor, charts the church’s rightward trajectory and embrace of Donald Trump, who is seen as a champion in an Us vs. Them political showdown. Stelter and Alberta also discuss how a steady diet of outrage on cable news, talk radio, and social media has helped radicalize the flock.

Monica Lewinsky On Her Plan to Fix the Constitution Nov 30, 2023

Host Brian Stelter talks with Vanity Fair contributing editor Monica Lewinsky about her proposal to add six amendments to the Constitution to help safeguard democracy, such abolishing the electoral college, establishing term limits in Washington, and blocking presidents from pardoning themselves. They’re joined by Georgetown Law Professor Neal Katyal, who addresses the merits of Lewinsky's proposal—and the steep legislative bar to making it a reality.

Why UFOs Freak Out the Government Nov 16, 2023

Host Brian Stelter joins author Garrett Graff for a deep dive into the world of unidentified anomalous phenomena and intelligent life elsewhere, the subject of his new book, “UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government’s Search for Alien Life Here—And Out There.” They discuss how we might discover another civilization and what Hollywood gets wrong, the government’s focus on greater transparency of UFO research, and where conspiracies stem from.

Dominion’s Fox News Case Was Just the Beginning Nov 09, 2023

Host Brian Stelter speaks with Stephen Shackelford and Davida Brook, two of the lead attorneys in Dominion Voting Systems' lawsuit against Fox. "We have so much work ahead of us," Shackelford says, because even though Fox paid $787.5 million earlier this year to settle the case, Dominion is still suing many other defendants, including Newsmax and Rudy Giuliani. Those cases are "all proceeding towards trial," Brook says. Shackelford says Dominion was "put through hell" by Donald Trump's election lies in 2020 – "hell that continues to this day." Brooks says the ongoing litigation is about "setting the record straight."

Naomi Klein on 'Selective Information' About Israel and Gaza Nov 02, 2023

Host Brian Stelter joins Naomi Klein for a trip into the mirror world, the subject of her unsettling new book, “Doppelganger.” They discuss Klein’s own mirror self—the conspiratorial writer Naomi Wolf—how Steve Bannon shapes political narratives, and the challenges of understanding what’s happening on the ground in Israel and Gaza as an information war plays out alongside the carnage.

Exclusive: Mitt Romney Says Trump Is "Such a Whack Job" Oct 26, 2023

The GOP's least favorite party pooper had some choice words after Donald Trump complained about McKay Coppins' new book. Host Brian Stelter explores Mitt Romney's path from Republican standard-bearer to party pariah with Coppins, who interviewed Romney dozens of times for “Romney: A Reckoning.” Coppins discussed Romney’s decision to unburden himself after the January 6 attack; the senator's own complicity in the GOP’s Trumpian trajectory; and fears about the future of democracy.

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Speaker Flop Sweat: Right Wing Media Inflames GOP Oct 19, 2023

Host Brian Stelter breaks down the GOP dysfunction in Congress with Vanity Fair national political reporter Abigail Tracy, who has been covering the speaker fracas from the Capitol, and Brian Rosenwald, the author of “Talk Radio’s America.” They discuss Jim Jordan’s rise from fringe firebrand to the party’s pick, and the toxic synergy between House hardliners and right-wing media.

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Journalists In Israel and Gaza Discuss a Reporter’s Role In War Oct 12, 2023

Host Brian Stelter gets firsthand perspective on the Israel-Hamas war, first from Avi Mayer, the editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, followed by Mohammed Mhawish, a Palestinian journalist reporting from Gaza City. Both journalists discuss the physical dangers and psychological toll of covering an unfolding tragedy, along with the challenges of combating disinformation.

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How RFK Jr's Media Paranoia Shapes His Worldview Oct 05, 2023

With RFK Jr. expected to launch a third-party bid for president, Vanity Fair special correspondent Joe Hagan tells host Brian Stelter about visiting the Kennedy family compound in Hyannis Port and why he thinks the candidate isn't great for the Kennedy name and legacy. Hagan traces the once-celebrated environmental lawyer’s path down a conspiratorial rabbit hole and describes how Kennedy, despite being a charmless "bully" in person, could be a spoiler in the 2024 campaign.

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Bob Menendez Shames Democrats Into Dumping Him Sep 28, 2023

Host Brian Stelter talks with WNYC’s Nancy Solomon and The Messenger’s Dan Merica about the corruption scandal dogging Bob Menendez and how the seemingly teflon senator from New Jersey may finally lose his grip on power. Allegations of gold bars and cash-filled envelopes have led Democrats to call for his resignation, with a 2024 senate race on the horizon. But what if Menendez doesn’t budge?

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With Rupert Murdoch Out, Is a Fox Sale Possible? Sep 21, 2023

On a special episode, host Brian Stelter talks to Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman about Rupert Murdoch stepping down as chairman of News Corp and Fox, the 92-year-old media mogul’s legacy, and the future of his sprawling empire. Theories are flying as to why Murdoch officially passed the reins now to his oldest son, Lachlan, including that it might help the family patriarch avoid testifying in another 2020 election case.

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The Exquisite Agony of Being Kevin McCarthy Sep 21, 2023

Host Brian Stelter talks to Vanity Fair’s Abigail Tracy and veteran political journalist John Harwood about Kevin McCarthy’s failure to control his House GOP caucus as a government shutdown looms. Bombthrowers like Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Lauren Boebert are “not serious people,” says Harwood, a Polis Distinguished Fellow at Duke University. “They're on television, they have podcasts or whatever,” he adds, “but they're not built to do what politicians have to do to make government work.”

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Republicans Are Putting Democracy on Life Support Sep 14, 2023

Host Brian Stelter discusses the Republican Party’s anti-democracy trajectory with Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, Harvard professors and co-authors of the new book “Tyranny of the Minority.” The pair, who sounded the alarms with their acclaimed 2018 book, “How Democracies Die,” discuss increasing threats ahead of the 2024 election, and which constitutional changes could keep America on the path toward multiracial democracy.

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Mitch McConnell's Health Scare and the Future of the GOP Sep 07, 2023

Host Brian Stelter talked to Politico columnist Jonathan Martin about Mitch McConnell refusing to step down despite a couple on-camera, freeze-ups–and how Republican senators (for now, at least) are standing by him. They discuss the 81-year-old Minority Leader’s relationship with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the senate stalwart's response to Trumpism, and how he factors into America’s political gerontocracy.

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If Biden Falters, Dems Have Prepped the Bench Aug 31, 2023

Host Brian Stelter takes the pulse of the Democratic Party with Vanity Fair contributing editors Chris Smith and Jennifer Palmieri. They discuss the party's strong bench and possible scenarios if the president and presumptive 2024 nominee, Joe Biden, were to exit the race before election day—from a governor like JB Pritzker or Gretchen Whitmer getting in the ring to Vice President Kamala Harris moving to the top of the ticket.

How Donald Trump Got the Upper Hand on Fox News Aug 24, 2023

Host Brian Stelter explores Donald Trump’s tangled relationship with Fox News with Sarah Ellison, national enterprise reporter at The Washington Post, and Oliver Darcy, senior media reporter at CNN. Trump’s decision this week to skip the first Republican debate on Fox News only escalates his war with the Murdochs, even as the cable channel’s hosts remain largely in the former president's corner. And given Trump’s commanding lead in the 2024 primary, it’s looking like Fox needs Trump more than he needs them.

The RICO Case That Even Trump’s Closest Cronies Might Flip Over Aug 17, 2023

Host Brian Stelter breaks down the Georgia racketeering charges against Donald Trump with Anthony Michael Kreis, a professor at Georgia State College of Law, and Anna Bower, a Georgia native covering legal affairs in Fulton County for Lawfare. They discuss how the case brought by District Attorney Fani Willis differs from Trump's three previous indictments, the likelihood of any of the ex-president's 18 co-defendents flipping, the potential for cameras in the courtroom, and if this trial can even get underway before the 2024 election.

How Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump’s Toxic, Twisted Bromance Nearly Drove the Country Off a Cliff Aug 10, 2023

Host Brian Stelter talks to Rudy Giuliani biographer Andrew Kirtzman and Vanity Fair executive editor Claire Howorth about the epic fall of “America’s Mayor” and his decades-long, symbiotic relationship with Donald Trump. “There's something about Rudy that makes Donald Trump swoon,” says Kirtzman, a veteran political reporter who recalled Giuliani as a “calm, fatherly general” in responding to the Sept. 11 attacks, only to spiral after his failed 2008 presidential bid and sink even lower in the aftermath of the 2020 election. They explore what's next for Giuliani, who may face charges in Georgia and Washington D.C., where he appeared to be co-conspirator #1 in the DOJ's latest indictment of Trump.

“Unusually Strong”: A Mueller Prosecutor Says Trump's Indictment #3 Packs a Wallop Aug 03, 2023

Host Brian Stelter breaks down the latest indictment against Donald Trump with Andrew Weissmann, a former federal prosecutor, NYU professor, and co-host of MSNBC’s “Prosecuting Donald Trump” podcast. The “variety of sources of evidence” in the DOJ’s election case against Trump is “rock-solid,” says Weissmann, and the forthcoming trial, he adds, should not be viewed through a political lens, but about “whether we are going to adhere to the rule of law.”

Can the DeSantis Campaign Pull Out of a Death Spiral? Jul 27, 2023

Host Brian Stelter talks with Marc Caputo, national political reporter at The Messenger, about Ron DeSantis’s early stumbles on the campaign trail, as he trims staff and shifts strategy. The Florida-based reporter breaks down why his state’s twice-elected governor (and Fox-friendly culture warrior) has so far failed to wrest the MAGA mantle from Donald Trump.

'Barbenheimer’ Is What Hollywood — And the World – Needs Right Now Jul 20, 2023

Host Brian Stelter discusses the cultural impact of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” with Vanity Fair Executive Hollywood Editor Jeff Giles and Senior Vanities Correspondent Delia Cai, along with the state of an industry in disarray as actors join writers on the picket line.

The Dangerous Evolution of Marjorie Taylor Greene Jul 13, 2023

The Trump-loving Congresswoman just got booted from the far-right Freedom Caucus, yet is wielding more power than ever on Capitol Hill. Host Brian Stelter talks with author and New York Times staff writer Robert Draper about Greene’s political path, from pushing QAnon conspiracies to working closely with Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (and feuding with Lauren Boebert.) “I’ve never seen this level of school-yard taunting and juvenile misbehavior,” Draper said, “that I’ve seen amongst these Republicans.”

How a "Whitelash" Took America From Barack Obama to Donald Trump Jul 06, 2023

Host Brian Stelter talks with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Wesley Lowery about the historic challenges of building a multiracial democracy, the focus of his new book, American Whitelash: A Changing Nation and The Cost of Progress. The pair also address how race plays out in the courtroom, on the heels of the Supreme Court striking down affirmative action in college admissions, and in the newsroom, where journalists, at times, struggle to provide clarity and context.

Can Anyone Fix California? Jun 29, 2023

Host Brian Stelter goes deep on the state of California with Vanity Fair special correspondent Joe Hagan, whose feature on California’s crises is stirring debate this week, and Marisa Lagos, a government and politics correspondent for KQED in San Francisco. They discuss the state’s pressing issues, from homelessness to climate change to crime, along with how California’s challenges are perceived by locals and portrayed in the national media.

The Jan. 6 Case Against Trump Is "A Shark Beneath the Water" Jun 22, 2023

CBS News's Robert Costa joins Brian Stelter to dig into the existing indictments against the former President — and take a close look at the swirling waters ahead. "What has happened here with January 6," Costa says, "remains a systemic shock to the American system." Costa, who co-authored "Peril" with Bob Woodward, says "witnesses, lawyers to witnesses, people familiar with the investigation" into election interference have said the probe is "moving like a shark beneath the water."

It’s the Clarence Thomas Court Now Jun 17, 2023

Michael Waldman, CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice and author of the new book, THE SUPERMAJORITY, joins VF’s Bess Levin and Claire Howorth to discuss new SCOTUS rulings from a polarizing, polarized court; the ongoing ripple effects of the leaked Dobbs opinion; and the way Donald Trump’s legal issues are shaping up.

CNN's Shakeup and the Media's Identity Crisis Jun 09, 2023

The ousting of the CNN CEO Chris Licht on the heels of a damning magazine profile is just the latest symptom of an old order’s waning adroitness across legacy media, digital media, and social media. This week on Inside the Hive, Delia Cai and Hive staff writer Charlotte Klein discuss the prescient Licht profile and what it reveals about media’s larger state of crisis—one where Tucker Carlson has turned to Twitter, once promising players like BuzzFeed News and VICE have failed, and everything just kind of feels like the depressing Succession finale.

Elon Musk’s Twitter Threat to Fox News Jun 01, 2023

On this week’s episode, Brian Stelter talks to Vanity Fair special correspondent Gabriel Sherman and NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik about how Rupert Murdoch’s empire is covering the early stages of the 2024 Republican race—and whether Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis will emerge as the Fox News favorite. Plus, the trio of Murdochologists assess threats to the 92-year-old patriarch's power coming from Elon Musk and elsewhere.

HBO’s Succession Is Ending. The Murdoch Family Drama Plays On. May 25, 2023

As the Succession finale nears, host Brian Stelter catches up withVanity Fair executive editor Claire Howorth about the stunning plot twists in the fictional drama—and within the real-life media dynasty. And when it comes to politics, do powerful TV networks or the president—whether Jeryd Mencken or Donald Trump—really run the show?

Fox News Is Losing Its Grip on the Base May 18, 2023

On this week’s episode, host Brian Stelter talks to Vanity Fair staff writer Caleb Ecarma and Bulwark political columnist Amanda Carpenter about the expanding right-wing media ecosystem, from Newsmax to The Daily Wire, “The War Room” to “InfoWars.” (Not to mention Tucker Carlson taking his talents to Twitter.) Can Fox News stave off the insurgents and keep its audience glued to the channel?

Tucker and Twitter and Trump, Oh My! May 11, 2023

On this episode, host Brian Stelter checks in with Vanity Fair senior media correspondent Joe Pompeo and Washington Post national enterprise reporter Sarah Ellison about Tucker Carlson’s Twitter gamble before diving into Donald Trump and Fox News’s dysfunctional relationship, and whether the Murdochs’ network will be in his corner in 2024.

The Tucker Carlson Implosion Continues May 04, 2023

On this week’s episode, host Brian Stelter talks to Vanity Fair’s Charlotte Klein and New York Times Magazine contributor Jason Zengerle, who is writing a book about Tucker Carlson, about the latest revelations surrounding the now-former Fox News star, and whether a newly surfaced text is really a smoking gun.

Inside The Hive: Fox vs. Tucker Carlson Apr 27, 2023

On this week’s episode, host Brian Stelter talks to Gabriel Sherman and Bess Levin about the bombshell Fox dropped before the Dominion dust had even settled: the ouster of prime-time star Tucker Carlson. The Vanity Fair writers discuss what it means for the company, the viewers, and the host who seemed to have no boundaries.

Fox on Trial: Fox News Won’t Apologize—Or Change Apr 20, 2023

Dominion won an eye-popping $787.5 million settlement this week, but Fox also notched a major victory in keeping the Murdochs, its top executives, and stars like Tucker Carlson off the witness stand. On the latest episode of Inside the Hive, host Brian Stelter talks to Vanity Fair special correspondent Molly Jong-Fast and Hive editor Michael Calderone about the fallout from the payout, the future of the network, and how the public is losing out in the trial's abrupt end.

Fox on Trial: Rupert Murdoch’s Date With Destiny Apr 13, 2023

Will the 92-year-old media mogul be able to steer his empire through an incoming legal maelstrom? On the latest episode of Inside the Hive, Brian Stelter and Gabriel Sherman, who have been following Murdochland for decades, spill the tea on what Monday’s trial could mean for the dynasty—and democracy at large.

The Winners and Losers in Trump’s Stormy-Weather Week Apr 07, 2023

New York may have seemed sedate during his arraignment, but elsewhere in Trump’s America, the MAGA faithful are as committed as ever.

Who Actually Still Wants to be An Influencer? Apr 03, 2023

As the creator economy reaches a saturation point—even Barbie’s an influencer now!—growing concerns about children’s rights and parasocial celebrity relationships paint an increasingly grim picture.

Can the news media ever learn to resist Trump’s psychodrama? Mar 29, 2023

On this, the last episode of Inside the Hive featuring cohosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan, the Vanity Fair

Correspondents reflect on 3 years of covering and discussing Trump and ask whether indictments will finally chasten Trump—and whether the media will remain hopelessly addicted to his noise.

All You Need to Know About the "Absolute Utter Shitshow" on Wall Street Mar 22, 2023

Nick Bilton talks to author Zach Carter about SVB, Credit Suisse, and whether or not a total meltdown is on the horizon

Gen Z Takes the Dems Mar 17, 2023

Maxwell Frost represents a generational shift in the Democratic Party—one where activism is at the fore.

(Rerun) Lis Smith Says the Path to Trounce Ron DeSantis Is Straight Through Right-Wing Media Mar 15, 2023

This week, Inside the Hive cohost Joe Hagan talks to Lis Smith, Democratic campaign veteran and author of the new memoir Any Given Tuesday: A Political Love Story, which details her journey, the public one and the private one, through Democratic campaigns over the past 17 years, for candidates as varied as Jon Corzine, Barack Obama, Pete Buttigieg, and, most infamously, former governor Andrew Cuomo, whose lurid political demise she details down to the last moments of his time in office. A savvy political operator, Smith trains her sights on stubborn problems like Florida governor Ron DeSantis, and what to do about President Joe Biden, who, despite his abysmal poll numbers, she says is preparing to come out swinging in advance of the midterms.

“If the [midterms] are a referendum on Democrats, we will be screwed in November,” says Smith, but if Biden and his surrogates can effectively target Trump-tainted election deniers and antiabortion Republicans, “that’s a terrain we can win on. And that’s a switch that we need to flip—we need to flip that switch pretty soon. And we have the opportunity to now.”

Smith, who helped take Buttigieg’s star to the national level, is now working with Michigan state senator Mallory McMorrow, who went viral with a searing counterattack on anti-LGBTQ+ Republicans. Smith puts McMorrow on a short list of candidates, along with Kansas City mayor Quinton Lucas, to form the future of the party.

Let’s Just Say It: The GOP Is Obsessed With Penises Mar 10, 2023

From Trump’s “Tiny D” moniker to Tucker Carlson’s ball-tanning, Republicans can’t seem to stop talking about that body part. Is somebody feeling insecure? Hive politics correspondent Bess Levin and seniorVanities editor Maggie Coughlan take a look at the uniquely toxic world of Republican men and their obsession.

(Rerun) Inside Ozempic’s Rise as Hollywood’s Latest ‘Miracle’ Diet Drug Mar 08, 2023

On this week’s episode of Inside the Hive, dietician Kim Shapira joins Emily Jane Fox to talk about the new weight loss drug taking Hollywood and TikTok by storm—how it works, why everyone seems to be talking about it, and what kind of message the “quick-fix” trend is sending. Plus: Fox and Joe Hagan break down Michael Avenatti’s sentence and what it could mean for other wayward political figures.

Is the Party Over for Peak TV? Mar 03, 2023

Natalie Jarvey and Joe Pompeo explain the course correction in Hollywood, as the sun begins to set on streaming’s golden age and TV writers gird for a possible strike.

Who Is the ‘New Right’ Anyway? Mar 01, 2023

Poser fascists? Dilettante preppers? The new elite? James Pogue and Jeff Sharlet join Joe Hagan to discuss and debate the specific contours of America's rising fringe

(Rerun) An Interview with Hunter Biden Feb 22, 2023

On this week’s episode of Inside the Hive, Emily Jane Fox sits down with the First Son to talk about his addiction, his dad, what makes a Biden love story, and why he thinks the GOP, and Don Jr. in particular, are obsessed with him.

The Right's Obsession with Culture Wars Feb 17, 2023

Molly Jong-Fast and Chris Murphy break down the conservative outrage machine, and the right's obsession with using national events like the Super Bowl and the Oscars to push their agenda.

The Dark Scandals and Power Struggles of Sumner Redstone, Les Moonves, and the Companies They Controlled Feb 15, 2023

This week, “New York Times” reporters James Stewart and Rachel Abrams join “Inside the Hive” cohost Joe Hagan to discuss their explosive new book, “Unscripted: The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy,” which details the unseemly power struggles around the late Sumner Redstone, who controlled Viacom and CBS, and the downfall of CBS chief Les Moonves, whose attempts to cover up years of alleged sexual misconduct exploded at the height of the #MeToo movement.

America’s Grifter Obsession Feb 10, 2023

Joe Pompeo and Maggie Coughlan jump down the rabbit hole of some of the all-time greatest grifter sagas, tracing our obsession back to the 19th century and bringing it forward to Anna Delvey and George Santos.

Inside Biden's SOTU Victory Lap Feb 08, 2023

Our team of Hive all-stars came together post State of the Union Address to break down how President Biden commanded the room, owned the Republicans, and what this could reveal about what a Biden-Trump head-to-head could look like in 2024.

“We’re Going to See Benghazi 2.0” Feb 03, 2023

Hive minds Bess Levin and Abigail Tracy analyze the GOP’s House afire with chaos and investigations, and why a DeSantis presidency is not necessarily better than a Trump one.

“He's Running. There’s Almost No Doubt In My Mind.” Feb 01, 2023

Bestselling author and White House insider Chris Whipple talks Biden 2024, party divisions, the GOP’s “hair on fire” chaos, and what Jill Biden could be thinking.

Is George Santos the End of the GOP? Or the Beginning of a Reboot? Jan 25, 2023

On this week's episode of Inside the Hive, Molly Jong-Fast dishes on George Santos's most egregious lies, what they reveal about the Republican thirst for power above all else, and how Democrats could leverage the shenanigans to their advantage.

How California Plans to Navigate a Future of Apocalyptic Weather Jan 19, 2023

After weeks of torrential rain storms that have flooded communities, toppled trees and brought on huge economic devastations, Yana Garcia joins Inside the Hive to share how environmental justice will play a role in recovery.

For weeks, a battery of atmospheric rains has bombarded California, destroying roads, triggering mudslides, and flooding homes and farms — all that following months of drought, and before that, wildfires. This week, Inside the Hive is joined by Yana Garcia, California’s Secretary of Environmental Protection, who describes the damages wrought by these extreme storms, and explains what California is doing about it — including facing off with oil companies over the fossil fuel emissions the state argues have intensified weather events in California and beyond. Garcia was an environmental justice lawyer before becoming head of the state’s environmental protection agency, and a native Californian, describes the weather changes she’s observed first hand growing up in Oakland, and the way forward in the fight to correct the climatological balance (plus, she tells us what her mysterious tattoos mean).

Inside the Congressional Shitstorm That (Maybe) Ruined the GOP Jan 11, 2023

On this week’s episode of Inside the Hive, co-hosts Joe Hagan and Emily Jane Fox are joined by their Hive colleague and Capitol Hill all-star Abigail Tracy, who was in the halls of Congress last week as the House speaker debacle played out in real time. She gives a window into the chaos—and the consequences for both parties—as well as what it could mean for the 2024 races.

Kevin McCarthy and the GOP’s Cult of No Personality Jan 04, 2023

Joe Hagan and Molly Jong-Fast analyze the war inside the Republican Party as California congressman Kevin McCarthy is thrice denied his bid for Speaker of the House. In disarray and denial, the GOP appears intent on kicking off the New Year with the same old extremist politics that have depressed its fortunes through the past three election cycles.

Then, Jong-Fast discusses her exclusive interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, who has the Sisyphean task of tackling immigration—an issue the GOP will surely exploit between now and 2024.

(Re-run) Inside the "New Right" Dec 28, 2022

Author James Pogue talks to cohosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan about the so-called New Right, the intellectual movement congealing around tech billionaire and MAGA mega-donor Peter Thiel and the Trumpist GOP, which he wrote about for this month’s Vanity Fair. After embedding himself with the vanguard of intellectuals whose reactionary politics, antagonism for democracy and visions of retro-patriarchy inform the agendas of people like Tucker Carlson and JD Vance, Pogue demystifies fringe ideas like the “black pill,” “trad wives,” and “ball tanning."

Trump’s Inner Circle Is “Running the Other Way” Dec 21, 2022

Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan discuss the implications of the January 6 committee’s criminal referrals to the Department of Justice over Donald Trump’s alleged crimes. Jack Smith, the special prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, faces a complex calculus: Will prosecuting the former narcissist in chief bring long-awaited justice, or only help reanimate Trump’s political fortunes for 2024? Plus: some of the best in this year’s culture.

Elizabeth Taylor’s Lonely Campaign Against AIDS Dec 14, 2022

On this week’s episode of Inside The Hive, author Kate Anderson Brower joins Emily Jane Fox to discuss her new authorized biography, Elizabeth Taylor: The Grit and Glamour of an Icon [https://www.amazon.com/Elizabeth-Taylor-Grit-Glamour-Icon-ebook/dp/B09V2ZZ7KK]. Andersen Brower takes us inside the lesser known sides of one of the most famous women of all time. Brower, who interviewed 250 people for the book and combed through thousands of never-before-seen personal effects, paints a vivid portrait of Taylor as a mother, humanitarian [https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2022/11/elizabeth-taylor-aids-book], and friend—and the toll that fame exacts on even those who are destined for it.

Inside Ozempic’s Rise as Hollywood’s Latest ‘Miracle’ Diet Drug Dec 07, 2022

On this week’s episode of Inside the Hive, dietician Kim Shapira joins Emily Jane Fox to talk about the new weight loss drug taking Hollywood and TikTok by storm—how it works, why everyone seems to be talking about it, and what kind of message the “quick-fix” trend is sending. Plus: Fox and Joe Hagan break down Michael Avenatti’s sentence and what it could mean for other wayward political figures.

“People Are Paying With Real Lives”: May Jeong Joins the Hive to Talk China Uprising Nov 30, 2022

This week, Vanity Fair contributing editor May Jeong joins Inside the Hive to examine the popular uprising against the Xi Jinping regime over its repressive COVID policies, which have held China’s 1.4 billion citizens in virtual captivity. Jeong, who visited China in 2019 to investigate what happened to the country’s biggest movie star, Fan Bingbing, sees parallels to recent uprisings in Iran—specifically, women on the front lines. “The intersectional ways in which our struggles are linked is interesting,” she says, “and something that Americans can draw from as well.”

Plus, Joe Hagan talks to Emily Jane Fox about her latest feature: a look inside the gilded post–White House life of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, who want to live a normal, everyday billionaire’s existence in Miami—and have no desire to return to DC should Donald Trump win in 2024.

“Sit Back and Let Trump Implode”: 2024 Looks Better and Better for DeSantis—But Dems Need a Message Nov 16, 2022

In the short but long weeks since Elon Musk took over Twitter, it seems like the platform, along with the social media class, has been put through the spin cycle. Between debates over who could be verified and how much that might cost, employee layoffs, and, of course, the lingering question of whether and when Donald Trump might be replatformed, there have been many questions about the fate of Twitter.

Vanity Fair’s Nick Bilton, who literally wrote the book on Twitter, joins this week’s episode of Inside the Hive, taking listeners inside his notebook to lay out the problems that Twitter faces as both a company and a barometer of the mindset of the country.

“Jack Dorsey and all the folks at Twitter used to say that Twitter is a reflection of society,” Bilton tells ITH listeners. “I think that it is a reflection of the extremes in society, and it brings out the best and, a lot more times, the worst in people because of the way it is designed.” What will happen to the platform given the political atmosphere, and can it help propel someone into the White House—or keep them out?

“Trump Is Furious”: What the GOP’s Midterms Flop Means for a Trump-DeSantis 2024 Showdown Nov 09, 2022

Gabe Sherman, fresh off his Ron DeSantis feature, and Molly Jong-Fast, the Hive’s newest contributor, join Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan for a Wednesday-morning revel in what the midterms portend for the future of the country—not to mention for pollsters and the pundit class—and how the Democrats can contend with the GOP’s “extreme gerrymandering” in battles ahead.

T-Minus 5 Days. Molly Jong-Fast Joins the Hive Team to Talk Midterms Nov 02, 2022

With less than a week to go until the midterms determine our country’s future, Joe Hagan and Emily Jane Fox sit down with The Hive’s newest star, special correspondent Molly Jong-Fast, and VF national political reporter Abby Tracy to break down the final stages of races across the country, including how abortion is playing as an issue.

Plus, CNBC’s Julia Boorstin stops by for a timely discussion about women in power as her new book, When Women Lead, hits shelves. In conversation with Fox, who recently profiled The Wing cofounder Audrey Gelman, Boorstin runs through some of the common traits she sees in women leaders, such as Lena Waithe, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Whitney Wolfe Herd, who are among the interviews in the book.

“I Think You’re Reading Too Much Into That”: Ben Smith Talks the Steele Dossier, James Bennet, and—Obviously—Semafor Oct 26, 2022

The former BuzzFeed editor and New York Times media columnist offers pushback on critiques of his new media offering.

“He’s Running.” Star Strategists Mark McKinnon, Jen Palmieri, and John Heilemann Talk Trump and ‘24—But First, the Midterms Oct 19, 2022

With J.D. Vance, Kari Lake and other Big Lie Republican candidates, America is going to go down a “rabbit hole” of chaos, according to the hosts of The Circus. Plus, Anand Giridharadas toughens up progressive messaging

GOP Hopes “Women Have a Short Attention Span”: James Carville Talks Dem Midterm Prospects Oct 12, 2022

This week, Joe Hagan talks to James Carville, veteran Democratic strategist and cable news stalwart, about the lead-up to the midterms. On the table: abortion rights, how Ron DeSantis handledHurricane Ian(“Do you know what Florida needs more than anything else in the world right now? I do. Immigrants," says Carville), Herschel Walker (“You cannot tell me that anybody 60 years old would trade brains with Herschel Walker, cuz you wouldn’t”), and who won the debate between Trump-approved candidate JD Vance and opponent Tim Ryan in Ohio (“That was a T.K.O.”).

Given the political environment, he says, Democrats wouldn’t ordinarily stand a chance in 2022. “You have an election with 'wrong track' for the country at 65%, presidential approval at 41%—all that is a guaranteed landslide [for Republicans],” he says. "Why has this electorate been resisting this and resisting it hard? That's the question that we should be asking ourselves."

Also this episode: Hagan talks to Narges Bajoghli, a professor of Middle East Studies at John Hopkins, about her recent story on the women leading uprising in Iran, and the implications for gender equality around the world. Hive senior editor Tara Golshan joins a conversation that asks: Where does the revolution go from here?

Fisher Stevens and Karim Amer Talk Their Lincoln Project Doc on Showtime Oct 05, 2022

The co-directors of “The Lincoln Project,” a new five-part docuseries about the eponymous anti-Trump operation, talk to Emily Jane Fox about what it was like to embed at the peak of the 2020 election cycle, as the Lincoln Project’s star rose, then combusted amid scandal. Plus, Joe Hagan and Nick Bilton go deep on Elon Musk's latest Twitter twist.

Can Ron DeSantis Incept Trump’s Cult of Personality? Sep 28, 2022

As the Florida governor shows his bully stripes, Inside the Hive asks what his 2024 chances could be. Plus, ‘Creem’ rides again

Inside the Ron DeSantis Plan to Overthrow Trump and Trumpism

This week Vanity Fair published Gabe Sherman’s profile of Florida Governor and would-be Trump slayer Ron DeSantis [https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/09/ron-desantis-the-making-and-remaking-of-a-maga-heir]. On Inside the Hive, Joe Hagan and Emily Jane Fox discuss whether DeSantis’s aggressive push for national prominence—coming as Trump's legal peril mounts and a slew of new Trump books hits stores this fall—signal the last throes of the Ex-POTUS’ political potency. The answer, if DeSantis has anything to do with it, is clearly yes. But as DeSantis' polling takes a hit following his controversial immigration stunt, the next question becomes: Can a charmless bully survive the spotlight?

Plus: A conversation with J.J. Kramer, who has revived his father’s storied rock magazine Creem decades after it stopped publishing. The irreverent 1970s magazine still bills itself as “America’s Only Rock ’n Roll Magazine,” but does rock and roll still matter? And what does it mean in 2022? Kramer, who inherited the magazine when he was four years old, has an idea—and big dreams.

“We're Going to Put Janeane Garofalo or Eddie Vedder in the White House”: The Legacy and Future of Generation X Sep 21, 2022

In this special episode of Inside the Hive, three guests—Vanity Fair editor in chief Radhika Jones, writer and podcaster Molly Jong-Fast, and standup comic Patton Oswalt—discuss the cultural and political legacy of Generation X. Asks Hive cohost Joe Hagan: How has the slacker generation, once known for irony and ambivalence, weathered the 21st Century?

The promise of ironic detachment may not have lasted, but Gen X-ers have become the last skeptics of the digital age. The generations that followed "introduced this 24/7 grind mentality,” says Oswalt, "where the people that wanted to live like little lives on the fringe, doing creative stuff, and making enough money to survive—those people are being pushed out…It's like if you're not grinding all the time, you should be wiped off the map. And that, to me, is really, really scary.”

“We are skeptical of effort for effort's sake,” observes Jones. "So there's a way in which we're motivated by substance, and we're skeptical of anything that is not substantive.”

Thirty years ago, Generation X celebrated what’s now being called “quiet quitting," but as some recent polling has shown, a large chunk of Americans born between 1965 and 1980 also leaned toward Donald Trump in recent elections—a perplexing data point. “We had this sort of belief that we were entitled to certain things,” surmises Jong-Fast. "And if you feel entitled to something, and mad and convinced that someone else has it, that can lead to Trumpism.”

If nothing else, Gen X have always been superb at spitballing from the sidelines: “We are good critics,” says Jones.

“We Are Currently Being Harmed” by Trump’s Info Breach: Andrew Weissman Breaks Down the Case Against the ExPOTUS Sep 14, 2022

Never has there been a time in U.S. history when lawyers were as in the foreground as they have been during the era of Donald Trump. Many of them have ended up under the bus, from Michael Cohen to Paul Manafort to Rudy Giuliani. But the many twists and investigatory turns over the last half decade also made household names of a number of bright legal minds. Andrew Weissman is chief among them. As a lead member of Robert Mueller’s special counsel’s office and a professor, Weissman knows how to meticulously break down the facts when it comes to all the president’s mess.

On this week’s episode of Inside the Hive, he explains just how significant Trump’s national security breach was, without even knowing what’s in the documents secreted away at Mar-a-Lago. And what’s Attorney General Merrick Garland poised to do? Weissman has an idea.

Plus, Hive media reporter Joe Pompeo on the birth of true-crime mania and his new book, “Blood & Ink.”

“This Is Why We Have Laws”: Bloomberg’s Tim O’Brien on the Case Against Trump Sep 07, 2022

This week, cohosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan talk to Tim O’Brien, executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion and author of "TrumpNation," about the latest obstacle in the Department of Justice’s investigation into Trump’s handling of top secret documents. The decision by Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, to appoint a “special master” to review the documents and slow the investigation, reeks of politics, says O’Brien. “Does this send a signal to other Trump appointees that you should carry the bag for your handler?” he asks.

Despite Judge Cannon’s recent ruling, "the reality is this is a very robust and existentially threatening investigation to Donald Trump,” O'Brien adds, and Trump’s political power in the coming midterms is clearly on the wane. Can the law prevail over politics?

Also in this episode: Hagan talks to Edward Buckles, Jr., director of the searing HBO documentary, “Katrina Babies.” A filmmaker from New Orleans who was 13 at the time of Hurricane Katrina, Buckles explores the tragic fallout on the lives of his friends and loved ones, most of whom never returned to their homes, part of an African-American diaspora largely ignored after the tragedy faded from the American consciousness.

“No More Bullshit”: Insurgent Congressman Pat Ryan Says Dems Win by Getting “Real” Aug 31, 2022

Virtually every poll this summer had Democrat Pat Ryan losing his campaign for Congress to Republican challenger Marc Molinaro, including one released on the day of the election. This week, Ryan joins Inside the Hive’s Joe Hagan to talk about his shock victory in a rural New York district that’s now being viewed as a bellwether for Democratic hopes this fall. Ryan’s campaign (to replace Antonio Delgado, who left his seat to become New York’s lieutenant governor) began at about the same time as the leak of the Supreme Court’s draft Dobbs opinion in May. Ryan, a former Army officer and West Point graduate, leaned into the abortion issue and discovered a highly energized Democratic base. His campaign, he says, focused on “freedom and choice and the idea that I don’t want the government telling me or my fellow Americans what to do in their personal lives. That is clearly a resonant thing, and really a patriotic thing, and so I think that's one of the big takeaways here.”

Along with the Dobbs decision, Ryan says, the January 6 hearings and the Mar-a-Lago raid have underlined the fragility of democracy in the face of GOP overreach, which has become a top issue among voters. “What we’re seeing happen nationally is a wake-up call that these are sort of deeper, more foundational rights,” Ryan says. “We’re not as divided as people might want to make us out to be.”

“No one expects to agree on everything, that’s crazy,” Ryan observes. Voters “just want you to not bullshit them—no more bullshit. Be real, be a human being, be outraged that freedoms are literally being ripped away from people. And when you do that, it connects. That should not be surprising, but somehow in today’s politics the bar is so low that it somehow does connect and stand out.”

Also this week: Cohost Emily Jane Fox talks to Hive correspondent Joe Pompeo about his juicy exclusive interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, amid her new role and the broader shifting landscape of cable news.

Re-Run: Paris Hilton, In Reflection Aug 24, 2022

Her fame has endured. Her brand has expanded. The way the media has framed who she was and how she is talked about has changed. Paris Hilton sat down with Emily Jane Fox for an interview to talk about that shift, that sex tape, and nostalgia culture.

(Re-run) “The Only Winning Move Is Not to Play”: Vanity Fair's Tech Correspondent on How to Beat Social Media Aug 17, 2022

This week, Vanity Fair tech correspondent Nick Bilton speaks with cohost Joe Hagan about the recent leaks from Facebook that reveal the company knew of the toxic impact of their platforms, including Instagram, on users, especially teenage girls. In a world in which the social media giants—FAANG, or Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google—are too rich and powerful to be contained by limp political and regulatory systems, “we’re left to the wolves,” says Bilton. After covering the social media world for a decade, Bilton says the only way to beat the media giants is to hack the system—ourselves—by reprogramming our behaviors, which are the literal coins of the social media realm.

(Re-run) An Interview with Hunter Biden Aug 10, 2022

On this week’s episode of Inside the Hive, Emily Jane Fox sits down with the First Son to talk about his addiction, his dad, what makes a Biden love story, and why he thinks the GOP, and Don Jr. in particular, are obsessed with him.

"They are damaged in the exact same way": What Do Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump Want? Aug 03, 2022

Hive correspondents unpack Jared Kushner’s romantic and financial spin in his upcoming memoir and try making sense of Donald Trump burying his ex-wife, Ivanka’s mother, on a New Jersey golf course.

”It Is All So Very True.” Stephanie Grisham Talks Cassidy Hutchinson’s J6 Testimony and Sounds the Alarm on Trump in 2024 Jul 27, 2022

Former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham joins Inside the Hive to talk about what she witnessed on January 6th, Melania’s “lazy” run as First Lady, and what people should know ahead of 2024.

Lis Smith Says the Path to Trounce Ron DeSantis Is Straight Through Right-Wing Media Jul 20, 2022

This week, Inside the Hive cohost Joe Hagan talks to Lis Smith, Democratic campaign veteran and author of the new memoir Any Given Tuesday: A Political Love Story, which details her journey, the public one and the private one, through Democratic campaigns over the past 17 years, for candidates as varied as Jon Corzine, Barack Obama, Pete Buttigieg, and, most infamously, former governor Andrew Cuomo, whose lurid political demise she details down to the last moments of his time in office. A savvy political operator, Smith trains her sights on stubborn problems like Florida governor Ron DeSantis, and what to do about President Joe Biden, who, despite his abysmal poll numbers, she says is preparing to come out swinging in advance of the midterms.

“If the [midterms] are a referendum on Democrats, we will be screwed in November,” says Smith, but if Biden and his surrogates can effectively target Trump-tainted election deniers and antiabortion Republicans, “that’s a terrain we can win on. And that’s a switch that we need to flip—we need to flip that switch pretty soon. And we have the opportunity to now.”

Smith, who helped take Buttigieg’s star to the national level, is now working with Michigan state senator Mallory McMorrow, who went viral with a searing counterattack on anti-LGBTQ+ Republicans. Smith puts McMorrow on a short list of candidates, along with Kansas City mayor Quinton Lucas, to form the future of the party.

Listen to Joe's record: "Earl’s Closet: The Lost Archive of Earl McGrath, 1970-1980."

How Chrysta Bilton Found Her 35 Siblings—And More Life-Changing Truths Jul 15, 2022

This week’s episode of Inside the Hive first dives into the latest revelations from the January 6th committee, and explores what could happen next as the panel draws to a close

Then Chrysta Bilton, along with her husband Nick Bilton, join Emily Jane Fox to discuss “Normal Family,” Chrysta’s memoir that recounts her discovery of more than 35 biological siblings from the same sperm donor. She describes her colorful upbringing, the shock of a lifetime in finding out that she was perhaps unknowingly dating her half brother, and how this experience shaped her views on nature versus nurture

Civil War Is “On the Table.” Vanity Fair's Jeff Sharlet on the Martyrdom of Ashli Babbitt and What’s to Come Jul 08, 2022

This week, Vanity Fair contributing editor Jeff Sharlet joins Inside the Hive to talk about his journey into the far-right world of Jan. 6 insurrectionists, Qanon-ers and Trump cultists — who they are, what they’re saying, what they believe, and what their still-growing movement might portend (including the specter of civil war in America).

Also: Willem Marx, a London-based contributor to Vanity Fair, discusses the fall of British PM Boris Johnson as well as his latest report on the undue influence of Putin-connected Russian oligarchs in the British establishment - including, allegedly, Johnson himself.

"I Wasn't Cynical Enough." Cecile Richards Discusses the New Fight to Get Back Abortion Rights Jul 01, 2022

On this week’s episode of Inside the Hive, the former head of Planned Parenthood joins Emily Jane Fox to discuss abortion rights, contraception, and advocacy in the wake of Roe “I thought that at some point, there would be some group within the Republican party that would go, ‘whoa, whoa, whoa. This is too far,” she said.

“If You Bite the Head Off of the Snake, the Rest of the Snake Will Die”: Daniel Goldman on Prosecuting Trump Jun 24, 2022

This week Inside the Hive features two guests focused on the Jan. 6 hearings. First, Daniel Goldman, former federal prosecutor and newly-announced candidate for New York's 10th congressional district, analyzes the findings of the Select Committee investigating the insurrection from the point of view of a lead lawyer in the first Trump impeachment. “If [Merrick Garland] doesn't charge him because Trump is a former president, then that ispolitical,” Goldman says. “And so if you want to de-politicize the Department of Justice, you can't not charge him.”

Second, Inside the Hive talks to Alex Holder, the British filmmaker whose exclusive access to Donald Trump and his family before, during and after Jan. 6 has turned his forthcoming documentary, Unprecedented, into explosive new evidence for the Committee and the filmmaker himself into a possible witness. After witnessing Trump’s “tone of belligerence," says Holder, “I predicted that [the Jan. 6 insurrection] was going to happen the night before.”

“Thoughts and Prayers, Thoughts and Prayers”: How Two Comics Pranked the NRA Jun 17, 2022

This week, Inside the Hive co-host Joe Hagan talks to Jason Selvig and Davram Steifler, the comedy duo known as The Good Liars, about their viral prank on the National Rifle Association in late May. Selvig, posing as an NRA ally, stood before Wayne LaPierre and thanked him for his continual “thoughts and prayers” for mass shootings, presenting a brutally exhaustive list. The duo has attended 15 Trump rallies, poking at the QAnon insanity inside, and were eyewitnesses to the insurrection on Jan. 6th—which they also managed to turn into pointed comedy. “You couldn't help but feel like they were getting ready for a battle reenactment or something,” says Steifler. "Everyone we stopped was like, ‘This is 1776.’”

Is It Hopeless to Hope For Gun Reform? Jun 10, 2022

Author Dave Cullen, who has been covering mass shootings in America for two decades, joins Emily Jane Fox for this week’s episode of Inside The Hive, to talk about the slow progress he has witnessed in how new groups are taking on the NRA for the first time, and what he is hearing from survivors of mass shootings about how they are dealing with the repeated trauma.

“He’s a One-Man Crime Wave”: Rep. Jamie Raskin on Donald Trump and the Jan. 6 Hearings Jun 03, 2022

Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, a key member of the Jan. 6 Committee investigating the Capitol attack, gives Inside the Hive an exclusive preview of next week’s primetime hearings.

After nearly a year of investigating the insurrection, Raskin says the most surprising discovery has been "the role that money played, and the role of a financial motive behind all these events, to keep the money pouring in.” The committee, he promises, will also draw direct and indirect lines between “the top of the Republican hierarchy” and the "violent hooligans and street fascists” who overran the Capitol.

But will Donald J. Trump himself be implicated? Raskin has said the former president will get his “comeuppance" but whether he’ll face direct criminal justice for his “premeditated” role in an attempted coup remains an open question. Tantalizingly, Raskin deflects on the question of whether former VP Mike Pence has spoken to the committee or might testify against Trump. "I can't get into it,” he says.

Plus: Raskin offers a powerful message and emotional plea to Democrats demoralized by the political landscape facing the party going into the midterms.

We Don't Deserve Beto O'Rourke May 27, 2022

The only public figure with the guts to confront cynical Republicans over gun laws and the Texas massacre was a defiant Democrat who the media class long ago dismissed: gubernatorial nominee Beto O’Rourke. Inside the Hive cohosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan grapple with the horrors of this week's events in Uvalde and what they say about our broken politics and national backslide. When rare instances of idealism and courage are framed by political elites as mere opportunism, is there any hope left? Where do we go from here?

"This Is a Razor Thin State": PA Gubernatorial Candidate Josh Shapiro on His All-Important, Closely-Watched Race May 20, 2022

On this week's episode of Inside the Hive, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who is running to be the state's next governor, joins Emily Jane Fox fresh on the heels of Tuesday's primary elections. In November, Shapiro, who ran unopposed in the Democratic primary, will face Republican Doug Mastriano, the Trump-backed far-right candidate who wanted to overturn the 2020 election results, whom Shaprio called "extremely dangerous. Fox and Shapiro dive into his opponent's role in the January 6th insurrection and how to message to voters who believe in The Big Lie. Plus, Shapiro speaks to what he learned from Democrats' campaigning mistakes in 2016, why he believes freedom is on the ballot, and his thoughts on how to win in a swing state.

“We’re about to live in hell again”: How Screwed are the Democrats? May 13, 2022

On this week's episode of Inside the Hive, co-hosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan are joined by Hive political reporter Abigail Tracy to talk about the plight of the Democratic Party leading into this year’s midterms. With the right savaging Democrats on the economy and culture-war issues, and a total loss of congressional power to the Trumpist right looming, what is the Democrats' message to voters and why isn't Joe Biden delivering it?

“This Is The Terrifying Future”: Feminist Writer Rebecca Traister On The Death Of Roe v Wade May 06, 2022

Rebecca Traister, feminist, author and New York Magazine contributor, talks to co-host Joe Hagan about the shocking Supreme Court leak that all but confirms the impending death of Roe v. Wade. Democratic leadership from President Joe Biden to Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi have failed, Traister says, to formulate a "robust and morally persuasive message” to counteract the decades-long march of anti-choice Republicans who are set on reengineering society to the past. With consequential elections on the horizon, the fall of Roe could very well mean the toppling of other progressive rulings, from the right to contraception to marriage equality and even interracial unions. Traister finds slivers of hope in a new generation of progressive female voices who are forcefully connecting abortion rights to economics, class, and race as they face "an era that none of us can imagine.”

Inside the “New Right” May 02, 2022

Author James Pogue talks to cohosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan about the so-called New Right, the intellectual movement congealing around tech billionaire and MAGA mega-donor Peter Thiel and the Trumpist GOP, which he wrote about for this month’s Vanity Fair. After embedding himself with the vanguard of intellectuals whose reactionary politics, antagonism for democracy and visions of retro-patriarchy inform the agendas of people like Tucker Carlson and JD Vance, Pogue demystifies fringe ideas like the “black pill,” “trad wives,” and “ball tanning."

Will Elon Musk Save Twitter Or Burn It To The Ground? Apr 29, 2022

On this week's episode of Inside the Hive, Nick Bilton--who literally wrote the book on Twitter--returns to dissect why Elon Musk is trying to buy the company, what employees and investors are talking about behind closed doors, and whether or not he thinks the deal will even go through.

"He Just Wants To Be Feared": Bill Browder on Putin, Sanctions, And Being a Russian Target Apr 15, 2022

On this week's episode of Inside the Hive, Bill Browder joins Emily Jane Fox to talk about how governments around the world can more effectively turn the screws on Russia, and how, if the Russian people begin to see Putin as what Browder calls a "failed, corrupt, tinpot dictator," he could be stripped of his power.

“There’s evil out there”: Rep. Charlie Crist on Florida, DeSantis and Disney Apr 08, 2022

This week, Inside the Hive cohost Joe Hagan talks to Florida Congressman Charlie Crist, former Republican and one-time governor, about the culture wars emanating from his home state and specifically, from Governor Ron DeSantis. As DeSantis passes discriminatory new laws targeting gay and trans people, generating partisan bile for a potential presidential run, Crist is betting DeSantis is a “paper tiger” who is weaker than he appears. "I think he's terribly vulnerable,” he says. “[His] support is a mile wide and an inch deep.”

Taking a page from Biden’s playbook against Trump in 2020, Crist thinks voters secretly want civility and not bullying, Disney and not DeSantis, even if current polling shows DeSantis trouncing Crist in a theoretical match up. "I'm an optimist, I'm idealistic, and I believe good will triumph over bad,” Crist says.

“Seven Hours and Thirty Seven Minutes”: Robert Costa of CBS News on Trump’s Jan. 6 “Gap” Apr 01, 2022

This week, cohost Joe Hagan digs into the latest on the Jan. 6 story with CBS New correspondent Robert Costa, who, along with legendary reporter Bob Woodward, broke the news that the House Committee investigating the insurrection discovered a 7 hour and 37 minute gap in Donald Trump’s call logs from that day. Costa explains the importance of that Watergate-like hole in Trump's story — when he was MIA while the Capitol burned — and what it may portend for the investigation. He also defends the Department of Justice against critics who believe AG Merrick Garland isn’t doing enough to probe Trump’s involvement in an attempted coup. “Maybe we just don't know the full story because they work like sharks,” he says. "They're underwater in a way congressional committees are not.”

The Tangled, Messy Roots of Fake News Mar 25, 2022

People were grappling with "fake news" long before it became Donald Trump's favorite term.

Fake news might feel new — but the concept has a long twisted history in the United States, as Andie Tucher, a Columbia Journalism School professor and author of the new book "Not Exactly Lying: Fake News and Fake Journalism in American History," tells Inside the Hive cohost Emily Jane Fox this week. How did we get to this moment, with its toxic mix of hyperpartisanship, disinformation, and seemingly endless turmoil? What is the role of social media, and of Donald Trump and Fox News in making our understanding of reality feel so dire? Tucher also explains how Democrats and Republicans, as well as liberal media and conservative media, communicate about truth differently, and explores how we can restore faith in our sources of news.

Kyiv "Looks Like A Fortress": CNN's Matthew Chance On Covering Russia's Brutal War Mar 18, 2022

CNN senior international correspondent Matthew Chance flew to Kyiv in January as Russia began amassing troops on Ukraine's borders, and was in the capital on February 24 when it launched its brutal assault. He tells Inside the Hive cohost Joe Hagan about covering a war that has transformed a country overnight, sending millions fleeing and others into the resistance as Russia targets civilians in its quest to take over the country. Chance describes what he witnessed, and what it’s like to be a journalist on the ground, as fellow reporters lose their lives. He also mulls what the war could mean for the global order, and the hopeless quagmire Vladimir Putin now finds himself in. Now recouping in London, Chase says the Kyiv he last saw was the tragic shell of a formerly vibrant metropolis, a hollowed-out death trap awaiting Russian forces with "a javelin anti-tank missile in every window.”

The Human Toll of Putin's War Mar 11, 2022

On this week's episode of Inside the Hive, Emily Jane Fox talks to The Hive's editor and resident Russia-Ukraine expert Miriam Elderabout what is happening on the ground in Ukraine. As Russia escalates its war in Ukraine, including its bombing of a maternity and children's hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, Elder talks through the human toll of this war: the impossible choices families are having to make, the horrors children are living through, the impact on a pediatric cancer hospital, and what Russian families are facing at the same time. Then, author Rebecca Fox Starr stops by to discuss how we talk about hard things with children, teach kids to take in events with empathy and how we process our own feelings about what is happening in this world.

“The Money Was Too Good”: Who Are the Oligarchs and What Do They Want? Mar 04, 2022

This week, Inside the Hive cohosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan talk to an expert on the ultrarich oligarchs behind Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Dartmouth sociologist and author Brooke Harrington. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has implicated Putin’s feudal system of corrupt oligarchs, rallying the West to trying to seize their offshore bank accounts and superyachts. Taking their stuff could weaken them, but Harrington says tarnishing and destroying their social status in London and New York, where they’ve built opulent fiefdoms, may be just as effective. Also, Harrington tells of her efforts to join the White House’s new anti-oligarch task force, KleptoCapture—with distressing results.

Follow our guest, Brooke Harrington:

https://twitter.com/EBHarrington

Follow Emily and Joe on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/emilyjanefox

https://twitter.com/joehagansays

“He's A Small Man Of 5’6" Saying he's 5’7”: The Psychology Behind Putin’s War Feb 25, 2022

Russia expert Nina Khrushcheva and Trump impeachment hero Alexander Vindman explain what is driving Putin's assault on Ukraine — and how Republicans also have blood on their hands.

Cohosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan interview two leading experts about Russia's invasion of Ukraine — how it happened and how it could reshape the world as we know it. First, Nina Krushcheva, a Russia expert and professor at the New School in New York, takes us inside the mind of Vladimir Putin, how he was underestimated and whether the cold, calculated ex-KGB man has finally succumbed to a world-historic megalomania. Next, Hagan talks to Alexander Vindman, the former Army Lt. Colonel and outspoken participant in Trump's first impeachment trial that revolved around the then president's attempts to dig up dirt on Joe Biden in Ukraine. Vindman reserves his harshest criticism for Putin sympathizers in the GOP: “These folks have blood on their hands. They're going to own this.”

"Becoming Lucy Sante”: What does it mean to transition? Feb 18, 2022

This week, cohost Joe Hagan talks to renowned writer, culture critic, and scholar Lucy Sante, whose essay in the February issue of Vanity Fair describes her transition at age 67. Sante expands on her many stages of personal revelation—how the “egg” was cracked—and the relief and liberation she experienced in embracing her long-denied gender as well as the challenges she still faces, personally, socially, and romantically. While she works on a new book about her self discovery, the author of nonfiction classics like Low Life and Factory of Facts is navigating the misunderstood nexus of gender and sexuality with her signature erudition, wit and curiosity.

Are Republicans Slowly Backing Away from Trump? Feb 11, 2022

This week, Inside the Hive cohosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan examine potential cracks in the American ice. On one side of the aisle, Republicans Mike Pence and Mitch McConnell appear to have distanced themselves from the Jan. 6 insurrection. On the other, Democrats have begun backing away from COVID restrictions. Are these maneuvers for political advantage in advance of the 2022 midterms, or signs of something more? Plus: Fox and Hagan weigh in on this year's Oscar nominations.

L'Affaire Zucker: Why Did CNN’s President Really Leave? Feb 04, 2022

This week, cohost Joe Hagan talks to Hive media correspondent Joe Pompeo, who helps unwind the Succession-worthy melodrama around the departure of CNN president Jeff Zucker in the wake of the ouster of anchor Chris Cuomo, which itself came in the wake of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s resignation following accusations of sexual harassment. How does one ouster connect to the other? And was the reason Zucker gave for his exit — failing to disclose a romantic relationship with a top CNN executive — the true reason he left or is there something more at work? Pompeo explores the possibilities and reveals new details. All this and the drama surrounding Joe Rogan too on the latest episode of Inside the Hive.

Why Does the Economy Look So Good And Feel So Bad? Jan 28, 2022

The week’s episode of Inside the Hive gets to the heart of this puzzling economic moment—with inflation on the rise and the supply chain a mess but the rest of the fundamentals stronger than they have been in years. Economist Beth Ann Bovino breaks it down and looks ahead to what comes next.

“Bragging and Blaming”: Paul Begala on How Joe Biden Makes a Comeback Jan 21, 2022

On this week’s Inside the Hive, cohost Joe Hagan and Paul Begala, CNN analyst and former counselor to Bill Clinton, discuss the woeful state of the Biden White House and the fate of the Democrats, including the latest defeat over the Voting Rights Act and the filibuster. With Biden trying to be both a “normal” President and an FDR change agent for the ages, he’s managed to do neither and please no one as his polls sink. Begala offers his analysis and advice for rebuilding Democratic prospects in the midterms and countering a Republican Party hellbent on destroying democracy.

What You Actually Need to Know About the State of the Pandemic From Your Local Epidemiologist Jan 14, 2022

The CDC's messaging around Omicron has been a disaster, and with cases surging and despair on the rise, Dr. Katelyn Jetelina stops by this episode of Inside the Hive to give a clear picture of what we should know about the virus right now. The epidemiologist, professor and author of the popular "Your Local Epidemiologist" newsletter answers all of our questions about when the variant might peak, what comes next, what we should know about schools, and where to find some silver linings.

What Happens In a Post-January 6 World? Jan 07, 2022

On this week's episode of Inside the Hive, co-hosts Joe Hagan and Emily Jane Fox are joined by their colleague Abigail Tracy to talk about what's next for the January 6 commission, what is at stake in an election year, and whether it will practically mean anything to half of the country.

Inside the Hive Holiday Special Dec 24, 2021

This week, Inside the Hive cohosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan discuss strategies for surviving holiday isolation and anxiety during the COVID resurgence. In that spirit, Hagan talks to Don Was, famed record producer and president of Blue Note Records, about the transporting power of music, taking listeners through his own personal playlist of favorite recordings and the stories behind them, from Norah Jones and Iggy Pop to the Wayne Shorter and Charles Lloyd. A holiday special for the news weary. (Find an exclusive playlist on Spotify under "Inside the Hive Holiday Special.")

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/26EFfPAJpggIMELvWuy30u?si=c59e5615593c46e9

In a New Memoir, Katie Couric Is “Going There” — But Where Was She Exactly? Dec 17, 2021

This week, Katie Couric, legendary onetime cohost of NBC’s Today show, talks to Inside the Hive's Joe Hagan about her frank and searing new memoir, Going There, which pulls back the curtain on her starry and sometimes starcrossed life and career. Couric recounts the sexist culture of network TV but also examines her own place in a culture that allowed alleged abusers like Matt Lauer, Jeff Fager and Les Moonves (Couric allies all) to thrive. There’s plenty of blame to go around - including Couric's charge, in her book, that Hagan’s 2007 cover story on Couric in New York magazine was a “hit job.” Hagan and Couric visit the spirits of media Past, Present and Yet to Come.

Should Hunter Biden Be Selling Paintings for $300,000? Dec 10, 2021

This week, Inside the Hive cohosts Joe Hagan and Emily Jane Fox explore the crossroads of art and politics, discussing Hagan’s recent Vanity Fair profile of Hollywood director and democratic socialist Adam McKay, and Fox’s new profile of Hunter Biden, the son of the President of the United States who has taken up painting and developed a lucrative career in the shadow of ethical questions and his own lurid personal history. One wants to change the world with movies; the other wishes the world would just leave him alone. An exclusive peek behind the stories.

Beatlemania!: Inside Peter Jackson’s New Docuseries Dec 03, 2021

This week,Inside the Hive cohost Joe Hagan invites resident Beatles fanatics Miriam Elder and Mike Hogan, Hive executive editor and VF.com digital director, respectively, to analyze, review, and otherwise obsess on Peter Jackson’s sprawling 7.8-hour Beatles docuseries Get Back, available on Disney+. From the George Harrison psychodrama to the John-Paul balancing act to the “fifth Beatle” to Ringo’s drumming to what’s up with Yoko, this is the conversation you need whether you’ve seen one, three, or none of the episodes.

What To Talk About at Thanksgiving Nov 24, 2021

Inside the Hive cohosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan hash out the big Thanksgiving dinner-table talking points, from the confounding economy to Joe Biden’s political fortunes to what movies and TV shows everybody needs to watch. A survival guide and an offer of gratitude.

Did the Lingerie Business Make Jeffrey Epstein Possible? Nov 19, 2021

As the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell starts up this week, Inside the Hive cohost Joe Hagan talks to Vanity Fair correspondents Vanessa Grigoriadis and Gabriel Sherman about their reporting on the Jeffrey Epstein scandal—what we know, what we don’t know, and what the whole sordid affair tells us about power and sexism in America. Grigoriadis’s latest podcast series, Fallen Angel: The Victoria’s Secret Story, details the fascinating history of the lingerie chain and the cultural damage it did to a generation of women, including its own models. Sherman, a featured voice, explains how Ohio-based owner Les Wexner came under Epstein’s spell and helped finance his predatory designs on women and girls. The ironies are rich: “This man who was so connected to Jeffrey Epstein is also the man who was making that lingerie that young girls were coveting,” observes Grigioriadis.

Is There a Way Out of the Internet? Nov 12, 2021

On this week's episode of Inside the Hive, Pod Save America host Jon Favreau stops by to talk about his new podcast series, Offline, about the ways in which the internet is changing and possibly breaking everything.

Will the metaverse be filled with Nazis and racists? Nov 05, 2021

This week, cohost Joe Hagan reviews the news with Miriam Elder, executive editor of the Hive, examining Tuesday's election results and what they portend for Democrats and President Joe Biden. Are voters really afraid of critical race theory, or was Virginia's Terry McAuliffe just a terrible candidate? Also: What’s a metaverse, and will it save us from ourselves or become just another hothouse for the culture wars?

Inside Nap Dress Nation with Nell Diamond Oct 29, 2021

On this week's episode of Inside the Hive, Hill House House founder and C.E.O. Nell Diamond talks with Emily Jane Fox about creating an "it" item on Instagram, building a community around a commodity, and how to get direct to consumer right.

All Politics Are Local Oct 22, 2021

On this week's episode of Inside the Hive, co-hosts Joe Hagan and Emily Jane Fox talk how climate change, shipping delays and local school boards could impact midterm elections. Plus: what they're watching and reading to get through the darkness.

As Texas Goes, So Goes the Nation: Lone Star Candidate Matthew Dowd on How Democrats Can Win in 2022 The veteran political adviser and analyst talks about now running for office himself on Inside the Hive. Oct 15, 2021

Matthew Dowd, former Bush campaign adviser turned analyst, has spent his career behind the scenes. But now he’s running as a Democrat for lieutenant governor of Texas in 2022—with eyes locked on hard-right incumbent Dan Patrick, the man responsible for pushing through the infamous voter-suppression and antiabortion bills that have galvanized Republicans and alarmed Democrats. On this week’s Inside the Hive, Dowd analyzes the state of the Democratic Party and makes the case that if Texas can be turned blue (finally), the spread of Trumpism can be stopped nationally too. And even if the Biden administration can’t pull out of its current slump, he argues, Democrats can still beat Republicans at the state level. Dowd weighs in on Biden, congressional Democrats, Beto O’Rourke—and his favorite Matthew McConaughey film.

Back to Reality: Whistleblowers, Trump Derangement, and Democrat’s Big Problem Oct 08, 2021

On this week’s episode of Inside the Hive, co-hosts Joe Hagan and Emily Jane Fox talk about what COVID attitudes feel like in different cities, what the Facebook whistleblower revealed about social media algorithms, and debate whether or not we should ever talk about Trump again.

“The Only Winning Move Is Not to Play”: Vanity Fair's Tech Correspondent on How to Beat Social Media Oct 01, 2021

This week, Vanity Fair tech correspondent Nick Bilton speaks with cohost Joe Hagan about the recent leaks from Facebook that reveal the company knew of the toxic impact of their platforms, including Instagram, on users, especially teenage girls. In a world in which the social media giants—FAANG, or Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google—are too rich and powerful to be contained by limp political and regulatory systems, “we’re left to the wolves,” says Bilton. After covering the social media world for a decade, Bilton says the only way to beat the media giants is to hack the system—ourselves—by reprogramming our behaviors, which are the literal coins of the social media realm.

“Texans Are Being Held Hostage”: Julián Castro on “WTF Is Happening” in the Lone Star State Sep 24, 2021

This week, Julián Castro, onetime Democratic presidential candidate and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under Barack Obama, joins Inside the Hive to discuss the hard-right push on guns, abortion, and voting in Texas, which has become a blueprint for recalcitrant Trumpist states, and what Democrats are going to do about it. Castro is worried about what he calls Biden’s relatively weak leadership—especially his handling of the border crisis. “My hope is that the Biden administration is going to reverse course on this very soon,” he says. He also sketches out a scenario in which his former competitor, Beto O’Rourke, runs for governor of Texas in 2022 and helps Democrats retake power after years of dashed hopes: “I believe that he has a shot to beat Greg Abbott.”

Family Matters: Gillian Laub Explores the Political Divide Sep 17, 2021

On this week’s episode of Inside the Hive, photographer and author Gillian Laub talks about her beautiful new book, in which she documents her family’s love and their divide over President Trump.

"I thought you said you’d never forget”: A conversation on 9/11 with author Elliot Ackerman Sep 10, 2021

This week, co-host Joe Hagan talks to novelist Elliot Ackerman, a veteran of both the Afghan and Iraq wars, on the meaning of 9/11 and the long-term impact on American life, politics and culture. A critic of the Biden administration’s exit from Afghanistan, Ackerman has struggled with feelings of bitterness over the wars that defined his life and redefined the nation. As media and politics have become more extreme and polarized in the 20 years since 9/11, the country has become more cynical and demoralized, less able to unify in a crisis. An optimist in a pessimistic time, Ackerman looks for signs of hope in America's founding ideals--enlightenment, reason--even if the country never quite lives up to them.

“Like A Mad Max Movie Plot”: Confronting The Texas Abortion Ban Sep 03, 2021

In the wake of the shocking Supreme Court move that has allowed Texas to effectively ban abortion, cohost Joe Hagan conducts back to back interviews with Amy Hagstrom Miller, of Whole Women’s Health, which operates abortion clinics in Texas, and Wendy Davis, a veteran of Texas politics and founder of Deeds Not Words, a nonprofit committed to gender equality. Addressing the law and its ramifications for women (and especially women of color), Miller and Davis bring front line news and historical context to this demoralizing moment in the years-long battle for women’s reproductive rights. They also consider the political fallout and offer ideas for a path forward in what is sure to be a long and rocky road ahead.

Anti-Vaxxers, Afghanistan, and the Late-Summer Bad News Cycle Aug 27, 2021

Inside the Hive cohosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan analyze the latest bad news from Afghanistan and the pandemic resurgence sweeping the country, especially Florida. Twenty years after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in search of Al Qaeda, was a bloody and chaotic exit the only possibility? When Donald Trump can’t convince his own followers to get vaccinated (he was booed for suggesting as much), has the weaponized ignorance he helped foment finally gone rogue? How will these world-historical events be woven into our politics? Plus: a touch of good news with a bonus clip from a newly unearthed live recording of John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme.”

“Damn, what do we do now?”: A conversation with Afghan TV chief Saad Mohseni Aug 20, 2021

This week, cohost Joe Hagan talks to Saad Mohseni, chief executive of the MOBY Group, which has been broadcasting television news and entertainment programming in Afghanistan since 2004. As the Taliban take over the country following the US’s chaotic exit last week, the fate of Mohseni’s media outlet in Kabul, staffed with 450 Afghans, hangs in the balance. Will the Taliban shut down or take over the TV network? Even as Mohseni looks for signs of hope in a young population weened on TV and Internet access (including the Taliban themselves), he remains wary of the Taliban's extremism, misogyny and censorship and expresses anger at the Biden administration’s handling of the pullout, which has left his beloved country to a grim fate after decades of cynical US foreign policy.

How Florida Turned American Politics into a Tabloid Nightmare Aug 13, 2021

This week, Vanity Fair correspondent Gabriel Sherman joins cohost Joe Hagan to discuss the “Floridization” of conservative politics, from the hanging chads of the 2000 election to Trump’s “Southern White House” in Palm Beach to Governor Ron DeSantis’s ostensible 2024 campaign slogan, “Make America Florida.” The Hive correspondents explore the history of tabloid and conservative media in Florida and the inevitable merger of the two in the form of Trumpism, expanding and riffing on Hagan’s feature in the September issue of Vanity Fair, “Postcards from the Edge."

Is “Hot Vax Summer” a Total Bust? Aug 06, 2021

Cohosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan discuss the latest COVID wave and how it’s affecting our health, social lives, politics, and summer plans. Mask mandates are back, and not even Barack Obama can throw a birthday party on Martha’s Vineyard without it becoming a national incident. Also discussed: the Tokyo Olympics; what we’re reading on the beach this summer; and what you’ll find inside the newest issue of Vanity Fair.

What’s on Mark’s Mind?: Journalist Sheera Frenkel on the “Ugly Truth” about Facebook Jul 30, 2021

This week, New York Times reporter Sheera Frenkel, coauthor of the blockbuster book “An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination,” describes her and coauthor Cecilia Kang's deep dive into the history and ambitions of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. How and why did Zuck allow his tech behemoth to become a hothouse of hate speech, misinformation and coordinated attacks on world governments? And what has he done about it? Frenkel explains to cohost Joe Hagan how Zuckerberg's pursuit of power has run roughshod over social responsibility, as he cashes in on Kumbaya connectivity instead. With Donald Trump suing Facebook for temporarily evicting him and Joe Biden accusing the platform of “killing people” by spreading vaccine misinformation, Zuckerberg keeps his eyes on the 5 billion customers that remain to be converted to the platform. An in-depth conversation.

“Long-Term Disaster Is the Best-Case Scenario”: Author Nathaniel Rich Sounds the Alarm on Climate Change Jul 23, 2021

Floods, wildfires, skies filled with smoke and ash—it’s been a summer full of alarming signs of climate change. This week, journalist and novelist Nathaniel Rich joins Joe Hagan on Inside the Hive to discuss the looming catastrophe we’ve known about for decades but have consistently failed to slow, let alone stop. Should we take the climate fight to politicians and corporations, or is our system too hopelessly broken to respond to the earth’s rising temperatures? How much do individual choices like eating vegan or driving electric cars really help? The author of Losing Earth: A Recent History talks about his personal response as he paints a portrait of ignorance and bad faith among the powers that be. Rich also suggests new ways to change and deepen our relationship to our planet in crisis—including the power of fiction.

Baby on Board: Balancing Work and Parenthood on Inside the Hive Jul 16, 2021

This week, we welcome cohost Emily Jane Fox back to the podcast from paid family leave to discuss some personal breaking news: the arrival of infant daughter J.R. last week and the implications for work-life balance, family, marriage and podcasting. Plus, a review of the summer news cycle, what readers of Vanity Fair can expect in weeks to come, and a squeak or two from the new podcast cohost.

Why New York Matters: The Hive’s Chris Smith on the State of the World’s Greatest City Jul 09, 2021

This week, veteran Hive correspondent Chris Smith talks to co-host Joe Hagan about the winner of the Democratic primary for New York mayor, Eric Adams, and his journey toward the most powerful office in the city. Smith has been covering city politics for more than two decades, through Bloomberg’s three terms and Bill DeBlasio’s seven tumultuous years, and understands better than most the risks and opportunities for a city trying to reinvent itself after the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests of last summer. Can a former policeman and savvy self-promoter like Adams lower crime, enact police reforms while also earning the trust of the NYPD and shepherd the city to prosperity? Chris Smith explains it all to you.

“S--tcoin” from Shinola: Vanity Fair’s Nick Bilton Explains Cryptocurrencies Jul 02, 2021

This week, Vanity Fair special correspondent Nick Bilton returns to Inside the Hive to help cohost Joe Hagan (finally) understand what cryptocurrencies are — how they came to be, how they work, and where they’re headed. From Bitcoin to Ethereum, from Elon Musk’s favored Dogecoin to the dreaded “shitcoin," Bilton, who has covered technology for over a decade, links cryptocurrencies to the evolution of an Internet culture driven by speculators, conspiracists and opportunists — and then answers the $33,000 question (the current price of Bitcoin): Should we actually invest in these things?

The Paid Leave Motherlode Jun 25, 2021

On this week's episode of Inside the Hive, Emily Jane Fox talked to White House press secretary Jen Psaki about the administration's plans to pass paid leave and support working families, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian about paternity leave and the stigma around fathers taking time off (if they even get it, that is), and Rent the Runway C.E.O. Jenn Hyman about how offering fair and robust leave to employees makes economic and moral sense for employers.

A Warm and Fuzzy Start To Summer Jun 18, 2021

On this week's episode of Inside the Hive, Joe Hagan and Emily Jane Fox talk about 60 hours of Beatles footage, the fallibility of memories, and recording moments big and small in our own lives. Plus: what's happening in Washington and what's to come next week.

How Jon Chu’s In the Heights Bet on the Big Screen and Won Jun 11, 2021

A year ago, when the pandemic was first raging, director Jon Chu faced a painful decision: He could send his new musical adaptation of Lin Manuel Miranda’s “In the Heights” straight to streaming on HBO or wait for the theaters to reopen once the pandemic was over—a depressingly indeterminate time. Now it looks like that decision has paid off. Chu and his film editor Myron Kerstein return to Inside the Hive to talk about the experience of keeping their dream alive while the world twisted and turned. The movie — about a community of immigrants friends and families struggling to keep their “suenitos” alive in New York’s Washington Heights — arrives in a poetic new context that not even Hollywood could have dreamed up: “In the Heights,” screening in 5,300 theaters in the U.S., is the first real blockbuster film to test the power of cinemas after a year of closure. Chu and Kerstein discuss the long journey to the screen, the influences and ideas that went into making it, Chu's desire to mint a new cast of unknown Latino stars (like Anthony Ramos), the unlikely story of how the soon-to-be-iconic swimming pool sequence was conceived and created, and their hopes for a financial success that will make similar musicals possible.

Did Cable News Just Die? Jun 04, 2021

On this week’s episode, Vanity Fair’s senior media correspondent Joe Pompeo breaks down what’s happened to all the news networks post-Trump and what he thinks will happen to the hosts, ratings, and news-obsessed viewers now.

Infrastructure, Incentives and Settling Back In May 28, 2021

Co-hosts Joe Hagan and Emily Jane Fox talk vaccine incentives, the two kinds of infrastructure we need to be investing in, and the joys and pains of taking a first reporting trip in more than a year.

Danny Meyer on the New Future of New York City Restaurants May 21, 2021

A year ago, when restauranteur Danny Meyer first stopped by Inside the Hive, the restaurant industry—and every industry, really—was in peril. He’d just laid off 2,000 employees, closed all of his restaurants, and had no idea how they could pivot or when things would get better. This week, he joins co-host Emily Jane Fox to discuss preparing to operate at 100 percent capacity as a vaccinated New York City roars back to life and how he thinks the business will change forever.

From D**k Pic Renegade to Space Travel Trailblazer: Inside the Mind of Jeff Bezos May 14, 2021

On this very special episode of Inside the Hive, dear friend of the podcast Nick Bilton is back to interview author and reporter Brad Stone, whose new book on Jeff Bezos and his earth-shaking company—Amazon Unbound—is out this week from Simon & Schuster. In it, Stone traces the evolution of Amazon as a company, as well as the progression of Bezos himself from startup engineer to one of the most powerful men in the world.

An Interview with Hunter Biden May 07, 2021

On this week’s episode of Inside the Hive, Emily Jane Fox sits down with the First Son to talk about his addiction, his dad, what makes a Biden love story, and why he thinks the GOP, and Don Jr. in particular, are obsessed with him.

How to Be Happier: an Interview with ABC News’s Dan Harris Apr 30, 2021

After the longest year in history—or four, to be honest—ABC News anchor and founder of meditation app 10 Percent Happier Dan Harris stops by this week’s episode of Inside the Hive to talk about meditation for skeptics, the toll a year of isolation takes on our mental health, and what we can all do to be just a little bit more at peace.

After George Floyd: An interview with Minneapolis Activist Sheila Nezhad Apr 23, 2021

This week, Inside the Hive cohost Joe Hagan interviews Sheila Nezhad, the Minneapolis activist whose candidacy for mayor against incumbent Jacob Frey has been powered by the protest movement in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. Nezhad gives an eyewitness account of the scene when former Officer Derek Chavin was convicted of murder and manslaughter this week, a verdict that left the city relieved but with unanswered questions about the future of law enforcement and racial justice. With the Justice Department investigating the practices of the Minneapolis Police Department, Nezhad sees an opening for a different kind of American city, one without a police department but with more social services and a larger safety net. Whether Nezhad's vision is unrealistic or inevitable is both the key to her political future and the knife’s edge of a national reckoning.

Paris Hilton, In Reflection Apr 16, 2021

Her fame has endured. Her brand has expanded. The way the media has framed who she was and how she is talked about has changed. Paris Hilton sat down with Emily Jane Fox for an interview to talk about that shift, that sex tape, nostolgia culture, and life in quarantine on this week's episode of Inside the Hive.

Beautiful and Not So Beautiful Things: Inside the Hive Reviews the Hunter Biden Memoir Apr 09, 2021

This week, cohosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan pour through the pages of Beautiful Things, the eye-popping new Hunter Biden memoir, to highlight the best revelations and insights—not only into a President’s son, but into the Biden presidency itself and this peculiar (but hopeful) moment in American history. A tearful and candid tale of addiction and familial love, the book describes in excruciating detail the death of Hunter's brother Beau, the Biden family's private struggles in the aftermath, and Hunter’s lurid descent into alcoholism and crack addiction. He also attempts to set the record straight on the Burisma controversy that made him the political whipping boy for Donald Trump. An Inside the Hive book review.

Bonus: Speaking of beautiful things, Emily Jane Fox has a life-altering revelation of her own for podcast listeners.

The GaetzGate We Deserve Apr 02, 2021

On this week's episode of Inside the Hive, co-hosts Joe Hagan and Emily Jane Fox dissect the allegations against Congressman Matt Gaetz—namely that he bankrolled the travel of a 17-year-old with whom he was romantically involved—and his puzzling spin on them. Plus, Infrastructure Week is for real this time, and perhaps Twitter is a construct we could all do without.

"I've Got to Do Something. I've Got to Say Something”: A Conversation with CNN’s Don Lemon Mar 26, 2021

The Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 catalyzed Black Americans far and wide, and CNN’s Don Lemon, the only African-American cable news anchor in primetime, was no different. Lemon joins Inside the Hive to discuss his bestselling new book, This Is the Fire: What I Say to My Friends About Racism. In it, Lemon describes how the Trump years exposed America’s racial wounds, but also cleared the way for a new era of accountability. "People are being held accountable and they cannot just say something bigoted or racist or insensitive or inappropriate with impunity anymore,” Lemon observes.

But he also believes in forgiveness. Addressing free speech and “cancel culture,” Lemon says, "I think you have to allow people grace in the conversation and in the act of trying to do the right thing.”

Despite the divisions of the last four years, Lemon remains optimistic about the promise of pluralism, if for no other reason than demographics and the logic of capitalism. “We're all gonna have to learn to get together because that's what our country will be,” he says. “I think the way that we're going to do that is not by segregating ourselves, but by having relationships with people who don't look like us, because when you do that you get to experience other people's humanity, it is harder for you to treat them as other."

What Does Life Post-Vaccine Look Like? Mar 19, 2021

Joe Hagan and Emily Jane Fox talk about returning to normal after this year, in terms of news coverage, daily routines, and the way we treat one another going forward.

COVID A Year In: Where We Are and Where We're Headed Mar 12, 2021

On the anniversary of the coronavirus changing everything, Harvard epidemiology professor Willam Hanage stops by Inside the Hive to break down the new CDC guidelines, vaccine messaging and myths, and what we should all be doing to prepare for this next phase. Plus, co-hosts Joe Hagan and Emily Jane Fox dissect the royal family drama and ultimate queen, Oprah.

“It Was a Test of My Mettle. Am I Really About What I Say I'm About?”: A Conversation with Late Show Band Leader Jon Batiste Mar 05, 2021

This week, Inside the Hive welcomes special guest Jon Batiste, leader of the Stay Human Band on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Hot off his Golden Globe win for his work on the score of Pixar’s Soul, Batiste's latest album, We Are, represents a vivid turn from straight jazz into a joyful, danceable pop and neo-soul. It's also a bold declaration of conscience: catalyzed by the Black Lives Matter movement of last summer, when he rallied protestors with an ad hoc street band, Batiste wanted to deliver a personal statement on his own experience as a Black man in America. “We have to hold ourselves accountable to the things that we profess to believe,” he says.

Batiste collaborated with 200 musicians, producers, and friends, including Quincy Jones, Mavis Staples, and even author Zadie Smith, with whom he held regular singing sessions over Zoom at the height of the pandemic. Here he recounts his own musical evolution, from Louisiana, where he grew up in a storied musical family, to New York, where he studied jazz piano at Juilliard and later developed what he’s come to call “social music,” a sound that draws on, in addition to New Orleans jazz, Duke Ellington, Stevie Wonder, Wu Tang Clan and even Bjork to find a common humanity in a time of division.

A Return of Normalcy Feb 26, 2021

On this week's episode, Joe Hagan and Emily Jane Fox extoll the virtues of having time to talk about actual issues--confirmation processes, the minimum wage, Potato Heads. Plus: what the future could look like for the Republican party and a very special superfan email that will make your week.

The “Absolute and Abject Failure” of the GOP: Democratic Stars Joe Neguse and Beto O’Rourke on Trump, Cruz, and Finding Hope Feb 19, 2021

In this double feature episode of Inside the Hive, cohosts Joe Hagan and Emily Jane Fox interview rising Democratic star Joe Neguse, Congressman from Colorado, about last week’s impeachment trial of Donald Trump and what was and was not achieved after Republicans refused to convict. Neguse takes us behind the scenes with the impeachment managers, including the controversial decision not to call witnesses before a final vote, and considers what lessons Democrats should draw from it.

That's followed by Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke, who talks to Hagan about the state of emergency in Texas and the intransigence of his former rival for Senate, Ted Cruz. O’Rourke lays into Cruz, who flew to Cancún during statewide blackouts: "I don't know how much we were expecting from him to begin with,” he says. “That guy wants nothing to do with government, or at least our form of it.” Whether voters, suffering from food shortages following a freak snow storm, will make the GOP pay—and create an opening for O’Rourke to run for Texas governor in 2022—remains to be seen. But O’Rourke finds optimism for the country in new leaders like Neguse, who he calls “an all-time American hero.”

Life On the Disinformation SuperHighway Feb 12, 2021

On this week's episode of Inside the Hive, NBC News's Brandy Zadrozny and Ben Collins talk about the roots of the disinformation that gets planted online, fed on social networks and tech platforms, and spread all the way to Washington.

Can Trump’s Grip on the GOP Be Loosened?: Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger Says Yes Feb 05, 2021

This week, Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois, joins Inside the Hive to talk about his campaign to steer the GOP away from Donald Trump, the QAnon conspiracy cult, and the insurrection of January 6. In advance of an impeachment trial in the Senate, Kinzinger has allied himself with Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney and voted to remove Trump ally and QAnon adherent Marjorie Taylor Greene from her congressional committees. But he acknowledges a tough battle ahead, not least the struggle to bring Trump’s base out of the “fog” of disinformation, comparing the current crossroads to the morning after a Friday-night “bender”: “The easy answer is to drink a Bloody Mary and just feel a little better and start up again,” he says. “Or you can take a look at what you did and…bear the pain a little bit.” The congressman recently started a PAC to support “country first” Republicans and predicts that sanity will prevail and Trump’s support will deteriorate within six months. “[Trump] doesn't have Twitter, he's not blinding people,” he observes. “And I think folks are gonna wake up … and say, ‘The party of Trump is not the party that's going to be in the majority of the future.’”

"Fake Famous": The Dark Side of Influencer Culture Jan 29, 2021

Nick Bilton stops by Inside the Hive to talk about his upcoming HBO documentary, Fake Famous, about a social media experiment that explores the influencer economy, but not before discussing all the ways in which people are trying to get COVID-19 vaccines, and how Joe Biden’s administration is trying to correct course.

“I Don’t Tense Up in Atlanta When I See the Police": An Interview with Author Charles Blow Jan 22, 2021

This week, Inside the Hive co-host Joe Hagan talks to New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow about his provocative new book, The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto, which proposes a reverse migration of young Black people from northern cities to the South to try replicating what Stacy Abrams achieved in Georgia in the 2020 presidential and congressional races. Post-Civil Rights empowerment for Black populations has failed to materialize, argues Blow, with racism as pernicious, if not more so, in the “liberal” north as the south. The only way for Blacks to claim true power, he says, is through self determination—creating large Black population centers in places like Atlanta and turning the political tide in their direction. Blow paints a searing portrait of fair-weather liberals whose BLM protests last summer he likens to "a social justice Coachella” that ultimately failed to deliver policy changes. “Somehow Black people are supposed to pat white people on the back and say, ‘You're getting there, I'll keep waiting?’” he says, calling Dr. King's dream of white and Black children joining hands a naive vision. "I have three children in this world,” Blow says. “The idea that they can still be fighting some form of the thing that I'm fighting today, when I am gone from this earth, is insane to me.”

"The Poison in This Was Donald Trump": PA's Attorney General Talks Insurrection, Elections, and Consequences Jan 15, 2021

On this week's episode of Inside the Hive, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shaprio joins Emily Jane Fox to discuss what he's doing to hold violent rioters accountable, why he thinks impeachment is essential, and how to protect democracy going forward into a post-Trump era.

“Nothing About What Trump Does Surprises Me": An Interview with Democratic Superlawyer Marc Elias Jan 08, 2021

This week, Inside the Hive welcomes Marc Elias, the lawyer who defended the election results against the Trump campaign’s assault, winning 62 out of 63 court cases in multiple states. Despite the fraud claims of seven senators and 121 members of congress who rebelled against the certification of Joe Biden's win this week, Elias says “not a single judge found a single vote that was fraudulent. None. Zero.” The bloodshed at the Capitol on Wednesday was more predictable than it was shocking, he says, and “the Republicans are even now still invested in trying to salvage the kernel of Trumpism.” What follows is an in-depth conversation with the election lawyer at the front lines of history.

A Look Ahead to 2021 Jan 01, 2021

Our good friend Nick Bilton stops by for the first episode of the year, to usher in the new, dissect the old, and resolve what will and should look different. We resolve to mention President Trump less, talk about how all politics are local, what excites us about the new administration, and discuss what we're most looking forward to covering in our reporting.

The Best of the Worst: Everything That Was Worthwhile in 2020 Dec 25, 2020

For the final episode of this very tough year, co-hosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan go through what they read, watched, listened to, and loved over the last 12 months.

Michael Cohen Predicts Trump’s Future Dec 18, 2020

For years, Donald Trump's personal attorney had to live in Donald Trump's head. He knew his every move. He understood his every action and reaction. On this week's episode of Inside the Hive, he talks with co-host Emily Jane Fox about what he's sure Trump will do next, what investigations hang in the balance, and whether he thinks they'll ever speak again.

"America’s Kind of Crazy—and it Doesn’t Go Away” - A Conversation with Rick Perlstein, Author of Reaganland Dec 11, 2020

In 1977, Jimmy Carter entered the White House with as much public goodwill as any president in modern times (an 80% approval rating) on the promise of restoring decency through political restraint and shared sacrifice. Sound familiar? On this week’s episode of Inside the Hive, Joe Hagan talks to historian Rick Perlstein about the latest edition to his spectacular three-volume history of the modern right wing, Reaganland: America’s Right Turn 1976-1980, which documents the presidency of Carter and the emergence of Ronald Reagan in the wake of Watergate. When the bill came due for Carter's “ideological profligacy” of aiming to please everyone, Perlstein says, Carter crashed and Reagan rose to power on a strategy of “organized discontent,” building the reactionary coalitions that would haunt America for the next four decades. Perlstein’s history is a blueprint of the politics that brought us Trump—and a cautionary tale for President-elect Joe Biden. "We can’t change the past,” says Perlstein, "but we can live with our eyes open."

Prosecuting This President: Attorney General Maura Healey on Trump’s Legal Jeopardy Dec 04, 2020

The Massachusetts AG joined this week’s episode of Inside the Hive to talk about taking on the Trump administration, handling election interference, and how to transition to the next chapter.

Barack Obama's “A Promised Land”: Inside a Sit-Down With the 44th President Nov 27, 2020

On this week’s episode, we are lucky enough to share the conversation between President Obama and Jesmyn Ward, which is featured in the latest issue of Vanity Fair. They talk about his new memoir, the state of our country, and the process of writing truths about themselves. For this listen—and so many things—we have a lot to be grateful for.

After Trump, does truth matter?: A conversation with CNN’S Jake Tapper Nov 20, 2020

Jake Tapper, chief Washington correspondent for CNN, returns to “Inside the Hive” for an in-depth conversation on the state of the media in these bitter, waning days of the Trump era. While Trump and his legal team spin outlandish conspiracies to reverse the legitimate election of Joe Biden, Tapper separates fact from fiction, casts skepticism on a Trump “coup,” and considers the long-term damage Trump’s war on reality has done to American life. How much is the media—including CNN—culpable for his rise? Will his political influence stay alive or decline when he finally leaves office? And will the media, addicted to the ratings his chaos provides, continue to empower him with attention?

Are we on the sunny side of the street yet? Nov 13, 2020

On this week’s podcast, cohosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan game out the political future of the Trump machine in the aftermath of Joe Biden’s decisive electoral victory. While Trump drums up hysteria about a coup to fan the passions of his minions—prepping, no doubt, for a right-wing media company to challenge Fox News—the rest of the media faces a reckoning: Will we continue to breathe life into Trump’s reality show by indulging his 24/7 madness with cameras and microphones? Will Jared and Ivanka manage to sneak back into Upper East Side society or will they be pecked to death by angry socialites? As the nation teeters between the political chaos of Trumpism and a cooler, saner Bidenesque calm, we have a painful postmortem to conduct, but also, for the first time in a long time, hope.

The Waiting Is the Hardest Part Nov 06, 2020

The election came and went and we are here to talk it all through, break it all down, and feel our way through what may come next. Co-hosts Joe Hagan and Emily Jane Fox go over what the polls and pundits missed, the cooling effect of a President Biden, and the impacts of the Trump derangement syndrome we're all suffering from.

Series Finale of the Trump Show? Oct 30, 2020

On this week’s episode of Inside the Hive, co-hosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan ask the question: If this reality-TV presidency was scripted, how might it end? Expanding on a special project published in the Hive this week—in which Susan Orlean, Tom Perrotta, Anthony Scaramucci, Alexandra Petri and others imagine a Trump-era “finale”—the hosts bring in special guest Lee Eisenberg, former head writer of The Office (and Hive-famous financée to Fox), to discuss how a writer’s room in Hollywood might build a bookend to the series—or, as the case may be, a cliffhanger to another season of Trumpian hell. In the spirit of both hope and realism, the hosts offer advice for surviving the next week and begin (carefully) imagining post-election possibilities for a nation desperate to wean itself from Trump’s show-and-awe dopamine hits.

Can America Recover From The Trump Presidency? Oct 23, 2020

This week, Hive special correspondent Gabe Sherman, who has covered Donald Trump since 2015, joins cohost Joe Hagan for an in-depth discussion of the final days of the 2020 election and - possibly - the Trump era. Sherman and Hagan look past the polls to discern the narrative logic of Trump’s reality-TV presidency: As he runs out of storylines and ideas, the President of “scandal, chaos and conflict" has been bested by his biggest political competitor of the 2020 campaign: the coronavirus. Desperate to distract the public from the reality of mass death and joblessness, Trump has failed to live up to his own entertainment credo: “He’s become boring,” says Sherman. Carefully peeking past November 3rd, the two Hive reporters consider what comes next for Trump, for the media, and, more importantly, for an exhausted nation — is it possible to return to political normalcy, even under Joe Biden?

Get In the Fight: Jon Lovett's Home Stretch Playbook Oct 16, 2020

With less than three weeks to go before the election, Crooked Media’s Jon Lovett joins co-host Emily Jane Fox to talk about the closing arguments each candidate is making—or not making, as it may be. Plus, he weighs in on the bigger questions of how Washington could normalize in a post-Trump world and what we should be doing in this final countdown.

Just How Far Will This Super-Spreader Spread? Oct 09, 2020

With President Donald Trump as contagion in chief and the election right around the corner, co-hosts Joe Hagan and Emily Jane Fox break down the administration's trust deficit, the debate over the next presidential debate, and the personal bellwethers they've seen over the last few weeks.

“I Know Our Day Is Coming”: Valerie Jarrett on Women in 2020 Oct 02, 2020

On this week’s episode of Inside the Hive, co-host Emily Jane Fox sits down with former Obama White House advisor Valerie Jarrett to discuss what it’s like to work with Joe Biden, how debate prep usually works, what’s at stake in the coming weeks, and what a difference mentorship can make.

Will the Center Hold?: A Primer on Why What Matters Matters Sep 25, 2020

With a Supreme Court nomination fight, a debate slugfest, and a battle for the soul of our nation on the horizon, co-hosts Joe Hagan and Emily Jane Fox talk about what’s at stake for the winners and losers and how to make it through alive.

“Nationalism Will Run Roughshod Over Democracy”: What can Nazi Germany tell us about Trump’s GOP? Sep 18, 2020

This week, “Inside the Hive” welcomes historian Peter Fritzsche, author of "Hitler’s First Hundred Days: When Germans Embraced the Third Reich,” to help separate fact from exaggeration on the increasingly pressing question of how much Trump’s GOP resembles the Nazis of the early 1930s. As Donald Trump attacks democratic norms and undermines the electoral process, and AG William Barr stokes fear of "a socialist path” if Trump loses, historians are hearing distressing echoes of Adolph Hitler’s rise, from the fear-mongering demonization of the left to the threat of street violence and military force against enemies real and imagined. One difference: “A white ethnic America is much more important in Trumps’ campaign than the vision of a Aryan-ized Germany was in Hitler’s electoral campaigns,” says Fritzsche, who says the MAGA conception of America "means there are villains who have undone America but now there are the virtuous who can remake America and 'make it great again.’ I call it ‘muscular melodramatic populism'”—the same phenomenon that brought Hitler to power.

Lordy, There Are Books: But Will They Matter? Sep 11, 2020

On this week’s Inside the Hive, Joe Hagan and Emily Jane Fox go deep into Bob Woodward's new bombshell of a book, which is all the more rattling because it is backed up by tapes of President Donald Trump himself detailing failure of leadership in the face of a global pandemic. Along with two other missives, from Michael Cohen and Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, the president and his family have been caught in a tattered web of their own words at a time when they needed to be weaving their own narratives if they want to have a chance in November. The question is whether or not book sales will translate into votes, and if any of this will hold until then.

“I Really Think He is Against America”: Trump The Traitor? Sep 04, 2020

On this week’s “Inside the Hive,” Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan assess the state of the presidential race at the end of the long, hot 2020 summer and find themselves torn between glimmers of hope for Joe Biden in the polls and the ongoing apocalyptic tidings of Trumpism. In a feature interview, Hagan talks to longtime Republican strategist Stuart Stevens, whose best-selling book “It Was All a Lie” is a confession, a mea culpa and a searing analysis of the racism and xenophobia that has swallowed the GOP with the rise of Donald Trump, who he deems a “traitor” to his country. "I really think he is against America, what it means to be an American,” he says, blaming the Republican Party for "a complete collapse of responsibility that they had to defend democracy in America. And they failed." Stevens also offers advice on how to talk to your Trump-loving relatives about their vote in November.

RNC EDITION: How Much Can One Nation Take? Aug 28, 2020

On this week’s “Inside the Hive,” Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan parse Trump's ghastly RNC, discussing what the Trump children’s speeches tell us about the family’s inner workings and the psyche of their narcissistic paterfamilias. As the GOP tries to turn the social unrest in Wisconsin into a suburban fear factor and tie it to Joe Biden, our hosts wonder whether this week’s convention—or the DNC, for that matter—will have any lasting impact. Plus: Joe Hagan talks to author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates about his role guest editing the September issue of Vanity Fair, which focuses on the Black Lives Matter movement and the fallout from the police murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Arriving in print and online during the Repulican National Convention, the issue aims directly at the heart of what’s at stake in this year’s election.

DNC SPECIAL: Is It Safe To Feel Optimistic? Aug 21, 2020

On this week’s “Inside the Hive,” co-hosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan discuss the four-day extravaganza of Democratic hopes and dreams and the official coming out of Joe Biden as the nominee who will face off against Donald Trump for the future of the free world. From Joe and Jill Biden’s 70s sitcom-worthy biography to Barack Obama’s cold dismantling of Trump to Kamala Harris’s intersectional feminist vision, Fox and Hagan examine the spectacle and speeches (and the musical choices) for clues to the deeper storylines and the political battles ahead. With Republicans rolling out their own program next week, our co-hosts are poised somewhere between hope and nausea.

The 2020 Circus Hits Primetime Aug 14, 2020

On this episode of Inside the Hive, the co-hosts of Showtime’s The Circus, which premiers its fifth season this weekend, stop by to talk about how quote-on-quote traditional campaigns may be extinct; how Joe Biden will handle a more progressive Democratic party; and the intricacies of filming their show during a global pandemic.

The Crossroads: How the GOP broke America and what to do about it Aug 07, 2020

On this week’s “Inside the Hive," author and journalist Kurt Andersen discusses his new book, “Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America: A Recent History,” which is both the story of how the GOP spent the last 50 years reengineering the economy to favor big business at the expense of the working class, and also a crucial primer for the 2020 election. Andersen argues that we’re at a crossroads not unlike 1980, when Reagan ushered in the rightward tilt of our economic lives, selling the idea that unfettered greed would magically lift all boats. The plan was long in the making, a counterstrike against the 1960s, and it was all too successful. To understand what must be done in a post-Trump America — which is the only America with a future — you have to understand the crucial history that brought us here.

“Down the Road We Go”: On Loss and Leadership Jul 31, 2020

On this week’s episode of Inside the Hive, Nick Bilton comes back to talk with Emily Jane Fox about Congress’s tech mess, Trump’s tweeting, and the loss of our beloved editor, John Homans.

Inside the Michael Cohen Saga, Part Bazillion Jul 24, 2020

On this week’s Inside the Hive, Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan go deep into everything you need to know about the governments “retaliation” against Michael Cohen, Trump’s mental acuity test, and the major roadblocks standing in the way of his re-election.

Can Negative Ads Alone Beat Trump in November? Jul 17, 2020

GOP consultant and Never-Trumper John Weaver talks to “Inside the Hive” about the origins and aims of the Lincoln Project, the PAC that’s kicking out incendiary viral ads aimed at exploiting Trump’s self-regard and paranoia and keeping him on the defensive. Weaver analyzes the Biden campaign and argues that a relentless barrage of negative advertising will weaken Trump and help “clear the air” for Biden’s positive message. He also implores nervous Democrats to stop fretting and follow their lead: “They’re more worried about losing than winning,” Weaver says of Democrats. “Stop worrying about November and beat the shit out of him now.”

Also listen in for the exclusive premiere trailer to the new HBO movie, The Swamp.

The September Issue: Can School Really Go Back in Session? Jul 10, 2020

On this week's episode of *Inside the Hive*, Emily Jane Fox talks with Randi Weingarten of American Federation of Teachers about the biggest question on everyone's mind: will schools safely open in September? They discuss what needs to be done to protect teachers, whether it makes sense to pay for remote college this fall, and how the Trump administration dropped the ball.

How will CNN's Jake Tapper be remembered 30 years from now? Jul 03, 2020

This week on Inside the Hive, CNN’s Jake Tapper joins Joe Hagan for a wide-ranging conversation, from his role covering Trump to the gripping new war movie “The Outpost," based on Tapper’s 2012 nonfiction book about a harrowing battle between 53 U.S. forces and 400+ Taliban in which eight Americans were killed. Tapper talks of his emotional reaction to reports that Trump ignored intelligence about Russia paying Taliban insurgents to kill U.S. soldiers. Tapper also addresses the theory that CNN itself is partially culpable for Trump's rise and explains what motivates his reporting in a world where Watergate-sized revelations rarely move the needle of public opinion.

Is Facebook the New Fox News? Jun 26, 2020

On this week's Inside the Hive, Nick Bilton comes back to talk about social media during COVID19 and the Black Lives Matter movement, how Mark Zuckerberg will be remembered in the history books, and why we shouldn't trust the newest polls. Plus, Bilton reveals his matchmaking abilities.

"Nothing Ever Ends Well With Him": Will Trump Crash and Burn In November? Jun 19, 2020

As President Donald Trump stares down a global pandemic, an economic catastrophe, protests following George Floyd's murder, and John Bolton and Mary Trump's books, the general election hangs in the balance. Former Trump advisor Sam Nunberg joins this week's *Inside the Hive* to talk about what the campaign is getting wrong, the last time Trump called him, whether the president even wants to be reelected, and who's on his list of enemies.

Could Trump Steal the 2020 Election? Jun 12, 2020

On this week’s Inside the Hive, cohost Joe Hagan talks to two lawyers on the front lines of the battle over the integrity of November's election. It’s a worrisome picture. Marc Elias, a veteran lawyer for the DNC, and Dale Ho of the ACLU, discuss their respective court battles to establish and protect mail-in voting and expand the rights of voters in the face of well-funded GOP efforts to limit and even purge voters, especially African-American and younger voters. Will Republicans follow Trump’s lead and restrict mail-in voting in crucial swing states as COVID-19 surges and depresses turnout? And what about the suspicious new postmaster general appointed by Trump? Joe Biden’s fear that Trump will steal the election is the daily nightmare of lawyers Elias and Ho. If Trump should challenge the results by zeroing in on mail-in votes, says Ho, “we’re really in uncharted territory.”

The Protests are changing America -- But what about Facebook? Jun 05, 2020

This week, cohosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan bring you important voices from two fronts of the ongoing struggle for justice after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. First, Fox interviews Maya Wiley, the Brooklyn-based civil rights activist and MSNBC legal analyst, who dissects and interprets the murder charges against four policemen involved in the killing, and explains how to reform policing in this country. Next, Joe Hagan interviews Brandi Collins-Dexter, the senior campaign director for Color of Change, the largest online civil rights group in America, to discuss the group’s years-long battle with Facebook over hate speech and disinformation, including the company’s attempts to discredit their work and last week’s contentious talks with Mark Zuckerberg about removing the President’s incendiary lies from the site.

The Fresh Prince of Kalorama: A Jared Kushner Roundtable May 29, 2020

Kushner, the President's son-in-law, is one of the Trump West Wing's only survivors, having outwitted, outplayed, and outlasted his rivals as he stayed in his father-in-law's good graces while keeping an eye on his comically large portfolio. But before he was finding peace in the Middle East, defining the Republican agenda, and handling a global pandemic, he was a lowly newspaper publisher. On this week's *Inside the Hive*, co-host Emily Jane Fox sits down with Tom McGeveran, Elizabeth Spiers, and *Vanity Fair's* own Michael Calderone, all former *New York Observer*-ites, to talk about Kushner's attitude towards the press, his favorite band and books, his arguing style and value system, and what he'll do next.

"We made this movie to be on the big screen": Director Jon Chu Bets On a Post-Pandemic Hollywood May 22, 2020

On this week’s episode, Joe Hagan talks to Crazy Rich Asians director Jon Chu and film editor Myron Kerstein to discuss the wrenching decision to push their new tent-pole film, the Lin Manuel Miranda musical In the Heights, to summer 2021 instead of opening on a streaming service. With movie production in Hollywood halted, studios and the producers, directors, actors and film crews they employ are groping for answers as to how films get made again, where their next paychecks will come from, and whether audiences will ever return to theaters in the numbers they once did. Jon Chu is betting that theater-goers will come back once the crisis has passed: "I have to believe in that. I can't give up. I can't give up on that dream. And so our job is to give reasons for it to exist."

Can the Subway Survive Corona, and Can the Public Survive the Subway? May 15, 2020

On this week's episode of Inside the Hive, co-host Emily Jane Fox sits down with Sarah Feinberg, the Interim President of the New York City Transit Authority, to talk all things transit in the midst of coronavirus: how to keep 51,000 workers and millions of riders safe in the midst of a highly contagious virus, how the agency can make money if people stay working from home forever, and how the Trump administration has failed to protect the American public.

Can Progressive Feminists Vote for Joe Biden? May 08, 2020

On this week's episode of Inside the Hive, co-host Joe Hagan talks to Rebecca Traister, author of "Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger," about the Joe Biden/Tara Reade imbroglio, analyzing the thorny implications for the former VP's female allies, the problem with the #believewomen movement, and how Joe Biden might have better handled the allegation that he sexually assaulted Reade 27 years ago. Whatever Biden's shortcomings, the feminist columnist for The Cut vows she'll "crawl over broken glass" to vote for him in November.

Danny Meyer: Why Taking PPP Loans Is Irresponsible May 01, 2020

This week, Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan are back for an interview with Danny Meyer, founder of Union Square Hospitality Group and Shake Shack. Meyer and Fox discuss the controversy around Shake Shack applying for—and returning—a $10 million Paycheck Protection Program loan and the wreckage restaurants are wading through to survive through COVID-19. Meyer elucidates the government’s many failures, his suggestions for helpfullegislation, and what restaurants will look like once diners can return to full rooms and menus: which establishments will survive and what people will want to eat.

Chris Matthews: To Win, Joe Biden Must Prove Himself Apr 24, 2020

The first episode under new co-hosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan features an exclusive interview with Chris Matthews, former host of HARDBALL on MSNBC, who discusses with Hagan his controversial exit after 20 years and analyzes a presidential election thrown into chaos by the pandemic. Can Joe Biden break through? Was Bernie Sanders right? Why does Matthews prefer Amy Klobuchar over Stacey Abrams for Biden’s VP? An in-depth conversation on the “highly unpredictable” politics of 2020.

Trump, Masks, and Sourdough: The Coronavirus Round Table Apr 17, 2020

After 150 episodes, Nick Bilton is handing over the reigns of Inside the Hive to Vanity Fair’s Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan. In today’s episode, all three join together for a round-table discussion on Trump’s attempt to blame everyone—from Barack Obama to the World Health Organization—for his floundering response to COVID-19; how Joe Biden and the Democrats should respond; and if Americans have too much freedom (and an aversion to wearing masks) to truly stop the spread until there’s a cure. Stick around for a little heart-to-heart at the end, and—of course—a brief discussion about making sourdough bread in the middle of the apocalypse.

On the Frontlines of COVID-19: A Nurse, A Governor and A Journalist Apr 10, 2020

On this week's Inside the Hive we talk to Sydney Gressel, a nurse at UCSF's Benioff Hospital in San Francisco who has started a new nonprofit to help feed doctors and nurses around the country as they fight on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic. Then, Vanity Fair contributor Joe Hagan sits down with Illinois governor J. B. Pritzker to parse the Trump White House’s missteps in fighting the virus and how the state is trying to combat the disease. Finally, Nick sits down with Sarah Frier, a reporter for Bloomberg, to discuss her new book, "No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram," which gets into the details of how Instagram went from a scrappy startup to the most important social network in the world, and what tech companies are doing to help stop misinformation around COVID-19.

Will Coronavirus End Like Contagion? Apr 03, 2020

Is coronavirus on track to play out like the movie Contagion? Scott Z. Burns, the writer of the film, and Ian Lipkin, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University, join Nick to explain how much of the research that went into the film is playing out in real time; how the states and countries that ignore social distancing will pay the ultimate price; why this particularly insidious virus is unlike anything we've seen in recent history; and how an FDA-approved vaccine could take a lot less time than we’ve been told.

Inside the White House’s Coronapocalypse Mar 27, 2020

Does Trump's response to COVID-19 hurt or help his reelection bid? Gabriel Sherman, Vanity Fair special correspondent, and Don Winslow, crime novelist, join Nick to talk about what's going on deep inside the White House, why Trump (thankfully!) can't fire Dr. Fauci, and how the media is responding to the Trump Coronapocalypse. Plus, a bonus discussion on Joe Biden, and if Andrew Cuomo could end up as the Democratic presidential pick in a draft nomination.

Coronavirus Against the World Mar 20, 2020

Are we nearing another Great Depression? Kai Ryssdal, host of Marketplace, joins Nick to explain how COVID-19 is going to decimate the global economy, how rapidly job loss will occur, and why this is unlike anything we've seen in recent history. Nick also elucidates the latest numbers and projections around mortality rates and global impact.

The Impending American Housing Crisis Mar 13, 2020

First thing's first: Coronavirus! A request from listeners and a short PSA. Second: Are we at the beginning of a massive nationwide housing crisis in America that will force millions into homelessness? Conor Dougherty, an economics reporter at The New York Times, joins Nick to talk about his new book, “Golden Gates,” which tells stories of eviction, gentrification, an eroding middle class, a financial system that could be on the brink of driving families from their homes, and how to stop such a disastrous situation from happening.

Can Biden Really Beat Trump? Mar 06, 2020

Are Americans on the left and right simply destined to hate each other forever? Ezra Klein, cofounder of Vox and author of the new book, “Why We’re Polarized,” joins Nick to explain how we became a country so divided, if the current media landscape is causing more harm than social media does, and why Biden pulling ahead in the primary flipped everything upside down this week.

Can We UnTrump America? Feb 28, 2020

x`Over the past three years, Trump has become a pox on America, both at home and abroad, and changed politics forever. Daniel Pfeiffer, former Senior Advisor to President Obama, joins Nick to explain how we can "UnTrump America," how the Democrats have a slim, but possible, chance of winning in November, why beating Mitch McConnell might be more important than defeating Donald Trump, and how to roll back the disastrous judges that the Republicans have appointed over the past three years.

Is Parasite a Game-Changer for Hollywood? Feb 21, 2020

Let’s talk Trump, Tinseltown, and Parasite! Franklin Leonard, creator of “The Black List,” joins Nick to discuss what effect (if any) Parasite will have on the movies and TV shows that will be created in Hollywood in the coming years, if the tech industry can truly disrupt the most broken creative business model in the world, and which Democratic candidate Tinseltown is backing to go up against Trump in the coming election.

Is the Democratic Party Dumber than Trump? Feb 14, 2020

What brought Hope Hicks back into the fold? Why have Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg succeeded, while Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren have failed (so far)? And what on earth is happening with the Michael Avenatti trial and the sentencing of Roger Stone? Emily Jane Fox joins Nick to decode what happened this week in politics, crime and punishment, and why—as Nick puts it—the Democratic Party needs to get its s**t together.

Impeachment, Iowa, and the Week from Hell Feb 07, 2020

Trump didn't get impeached! Iowa was a disaster! A virus is getting ready to destroy humanity! What's next? Bess Levin, a columnist for Vanity Fair, joins Nick to discuss why this week sucked so much, why the economy still hasn't gone into a Trump-induced recession, whether this is all part of Mike Bloomberg's master plan, and why Donald Trump Jr. not being hugged enough as a child means he’ll probably be president one day. Oh, and stick around until the end when Nick surprises Levin with the most difficult question ever asked on Inside the Hive.

The Economic Armageddon Ravaging America Jan 31, 2020

Is American retail about to go through its most apocalyptic change since the invention of Main Street, U.S.A.? Larry Ingrassia, a former editor at The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times, joins Nick to talk about his new book, "Billion Dollar Brand Club," to discuss how the country’s corporate giants are finally getting what they deserve, how the Razor Wars, Mattress Wars, and Eyeglass Wars are a sign of what's to come for businesses everywhere, and why Trump's economic upswing will inevitably eventually fall.

Knives Out: The Democratic Primary Is About to Get Messy Jan 24, 2020

It’s finally here! No, the impeachment—we’re talking about the Iowa Caucus. After what feels like 30 years of speculation (but has really been three), Jordan Brown, a political consultant and fundraiser who has spent time on the ground with almost all of the Democratic nominees, joins Nick to explain how the Democratic primary could play out from Iowa to New Hampshire to Super Tuesday, why the country is at its biggest crossroads in history, and whether impeachment, which likely won’t end in Trump’s removal, will help or hinder his prospects of winning a second term.

How to Survive America's Job Apocalypse Jan 17, 2020

Are you about to lose your job to a robot? Adam Davidson, creator of NPR's "Planet Money," joins Nick to talk about his new book, "The Passion Economy: The New Rules for Thriving in the Twenty-First Century," where he argues that capitalism isn't dead, a (coming) recession won't destroy America, and the world isn't in as terrible shape as we've all been led to believe—although, in order to survive the coming job apocalypse, you might need to become Amish. Stick around when Adam and Nick get meta-meta-meta as they talk about the future of media and the business of podcasting.

You Won't Believe What Trump Said About His Middle Name Jan 10, 2020

Is the Iran skirmish over? Or is this the beginning of something bigger? Gabriel Sherman, special correspondent for Vanity Fair, joins Nick to explain how this all went down inside the Trump White House, why anti-immigration scribe Steven Miller still has a job, why Don Jr. will go on to run for office, but Ivanka won't, and—perhaps most importantly—what Donald J. Trump told a Republican pollster last week when asked what the "J" in his middle name stood for.

Will 2020 Kick Off the Gene-Editing Revolution? Jan 03, 2020

Thanks to the rise of the smartphone, the last decade saw the most dramatic technological change in centuries. Over the next ten years, the same thing will happen to science, healthcare, and space travel. D.A. Wallach, a former rockstar turned biotech investor, joins Nick to kick off the year by debating the scientific predictions for the next decade, including whether we will soon be able to print human organs, if healthcare will become so advanced that living past 100 will become routine, or if only the rich will be afforded such advancements, and whether humans will live on Mars by 2030.

How Jared Kushner and Kim Kardashian’s Pet Issue Could Shape 2020 Dec 27, 2019

Is the American prison system the most broken part of this country? Believe it or not, prison reform might be the one issue Republicans and Democrats can agree on. Scott Budnick, the producer behind The Hangover and Just Mercy, joins Nick to elucidate the many pitfalls of the U.S. incarceration system, why over 6 million Americans are under correctional supervision, why America is the only country that jails kids for life, and why we need to start giving people a second chance.

Ronan Farrow Tells All: Weinstein, NBC, and Why Cancel Culture Is Bunk Dec 20, 2019

As the #MeToo movement continues to roil corporate boardrooms and Hollywood studios, the New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow has been at its forefront. The author of Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators, joins Nick to take listeners behind the scenes of his years-long reporting on Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, and Les Moonves, among others. The two also discuss Jeffrey Epstein’s death, why Donald Trump and Bill Clinton still haven’t gone down, and why cancel culture sometimes misses the point.

Why the $120,000 Banana Is the New Mona Lisa Dec 13, 2019

Does the $120,000 sale of a banana duct-taped to a wall at Art Basel signify the decline of capitalism, or is just really clever P.R.? Stefan Simchowitz, the notorious art dealer, joins Nick to not only defend the banana, but to (genuinely) argue that it may be the greatest work of art since the Mona Lisa. Stick around to hear Nick and Stefan discuss an egg, consumerism, and the collective banality of social media.

Is It Possible to Get Trump Out of Your Head? Dec 06, 2019

Should we shut down the media complex in order to save democracy? Dylan Byers, senior media reporter at NBC News and MSNBC, joins Nick to talk about why news has become so divisive, why Bloomberg isn’t just another annoying billionaire, how to get Trump out of our heads, and why he thinks Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg aren’t as bad as the rest of America does.

Three Mayors and a Turkey Nov 29, 2019

Will 2020 be “The Battle of the Mayors,” in which former Mayor Mike Bloomberg takes on Mayor Pete Buttigieg to be the 2020 Democratic nominee? Senior Hive correspondent Emily Jane Fox joins Nick to talk about why the Democrats hate each other, if impeachment will hurt or hinder Trump’s reelection bid, and if the other former Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, really has an insurance policy on Trump. Stick around until the end of the show to talk turkeys and what we’re all grateful for this year.

Can a Whistleblower Really Bring Down Trump? Nov 22, 2019

The chaos inside the White House, from immigration to Ukraine, would still be a big secret if not for whistleblowers in the Trump administration. John Tye, a former government official turned whistleblower himself, joins Nick to talk about the rise of people leaking information from all corners of America, from the MeToo movement to Trump’s misdeeds to employees at Google decrying projects they see as uniquely evil.

Are Evil Capitalist Overlords Ruining Our Lives? Nov 15, 2019

Is Bernie right—has capitalism broken America beyond repair? Yancey Strickler, former CEO of Kickstarter and author of the book, “This Could Be Our Future,” joins Nick to explain how Wall Street, game theory, and the disgusting modern day-business habit of maximizing shareholder value, has destroyed our democracy, and how we can fix it.

Director Errol Morris on Bannon, Holmes, and the Scam of the Century Nov 08, 2019

Is Steve Bannon a white nationalist, a patriot, or something way more sinister? Academy Award-winning filmmaker Errol Morris joins Nick to discuss his new film about the Trump White House, the rise of the alt-right, and why Bannon might be the biggest hypocrite in the history of politics. Plus: the latest juicy gossip about disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes.

Kanye, Kim, Trump and the Battle for the White House Nov 01, 2019

Should we boo and yell “Lock Him Up!” at Donald Trump? Or should we go high when they go low? DeRay Mckesson, the inimitable, Patagonia vest-wearing civil rights activist who helped start the Black Lives Matter movement, joins Nick to discuss how to effectively protest the Trump administration, who might be able to beat Trump in 2020, and why Kanye West and Kim Kardashian just need to go.

Sam Harris Explains Why There’s No Free Will Oct 25, 2019

Take a deep breath and forget about Donald Trump. On this week’s show, Nick sits down with renowned neuroscientist and author Sam Harris to discuss the science of meditation, why free will is an illusion, and how to get through 2020 without losing your mind.

The 2020 Terror That Keeps Democrats Up at Night Oct 18, 2019

Joel Stein, a writer for The Los Angeles Times and author of a new book, “In Defense of Elitism,” joins Nick to explain how impeachment could backfire on Democrats, why the best chance to win in 2020 is a bipartisan ticket, and why “ozone chambers” are the hottest new health fad.

Why Can’t #MeToo Bring Down Trump? Oct 11, 2019

And why wasn’t the movement been able to touch Brett Kavanaugh? Nick talks to New York Times reporters Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly about their new book, “The Education of Brett Kavanaugh,” which includes new allegations against the Supreme Court justice and shines a light on whether he could be impeached if Trump loses reelection in 2020.

Will Impeachment Cost Democrats the White House? Oct 04, 2019

Or will it cause Trump to unravel? David Plouffe, former campaign manager for Barack Obama, joins Nick to discuss the chances of Trump winning a second terrifying term, whether Dems can retake the Senate, and why 2020 will be the most important election in a hundred years.

Inside the 9/11 Coverup Worse Than Ukraine Sep 27, 2019

Forget impeachment, let’s talk hidden government torture programs and shell corporations stealing money from the poor!

Filmmakers Steven Soderbergh and Scott Z. Burns join Nick to talk about writing and directing “The Laundromat” and “The Report,” two films that explore the dark world of the Panama Papers, and how the Bush and Obama administrations hid post-9/11 CIA torture programs from the public.

Did Adnan Syed Do It? Sep 20, 2019

And was Meek Mill targeted by a rogue judge? Tyler Maroney, a former journalist-turned private investigator with QRI, talks about some of the most bizarre and infuriating cases he’s covered as a P.I., as well as his upcoming book, “Corporate Dick.”

Was Uber's CEO a Sociopath? Sep 13, 2019

Travis Kalanick did unspeakable things to grow his company. But is the rest of Silicon Valley any better? Mike Isaac, a tech reporter at The New York Times, joins Nick to discuss all the insider drama, boardroom knife-fighting, and other juicy details in his new book, “Super Pumped.”

Trump and “1984”: Inside the Plot to Break the Media Sep 06, 2019

As the election nears, Republicans are going full Mao Zedong on the media. Can journalism as we know it survive? Joe Pompeo, Media Correspondent for Vanity Fair, joins Nick talk about the new right-wing plot to expose reporters’ old tweets, how fake news can be a weapon of war, and why Americans are giving up on the truth.

Could Gene Editing Turn You Into Captain America? Aug 30, 2019

Scientists are on the brink of creating super humans that are stronger than Chris Evans and faster than Usain Bolt. But should we? Jamie Metzl, author of the book “Hacking Darwin,” joins Nick to discuss the future of gene editing, why eradicating disease could ruin our ability to create art, and how China could be using CRISPR to breed a terrifying new type of super soldier.

Marianne Williamson on God, Guns, and Transcendental Meditation Aug 23, 2019

Do Democrats need to find God before they can defeat Trump? Marianne Williamson, the controversial spiritual guru turned presidential candidate, joins Nick to explain how the left lost religion, why America needs a Department of Peace, and her plan to defeat the “dark psychic force” of the Trump administration.

Was Jeffrey Epstein Murdered? Aug 16, 2019

Everything about Epstein’s alleged suicide seems fishy, from the the sleeping guard to his broken neck. Vanity Fair correspondent Emily Jane Fox and writer-director Lee Eisenberg join Nick to talk conspiracy theories, comedy in the age of Trump, and why a TV show about immigration might help us make it through the 2020 election with our sanity intact.

Is Your Phone Trying to Kill You? Aug 09, 2019

Breaking news. Push notifications. Email alerts. We live in a world where technology has become inescapable—and where tech CEOs profit from our addictions. Ryan Holiday, author of a new book on “Stillness,” joins Nick to explain how to turn off your phone, tune out Trump, and drop off the grid.

#MoscowMitch and the Republican Plan to Steal 2020 Aug 02, 2019

Is Mitch McConnell a secret Russian agent, or just an unpatriotic hack? Political reporter Abigail Tracy joins Nick to discuss how Republicans plan to win in 2020 and whether Warren, Biden, Buttigieg, or Harris can stop them.

Epstein, Mueller, and the Secret of Human Life Jul 26, 2019

In this jam-packed episode, Emily Jane Fox joins Nick to reveal her most startling reporting about Jeffrey Epstein, Mueller, and Michael Cohen. Afterward, musician-turned-tech investor D.A. Wallach stops by to debate Nick about consumerism, dining furniture, and why we exist in the universe.

Wall Street Braces for Trump’s Economic Colonic Jul 19, 2019

Recession! Inflation! Economic collapse! We’ve heard the doomsday predictions for Donald Trump’s economy, but will any become a reality? William D. Cohan, the Hive’s resident Wall Street expert, joins Nick to explain how and when the stock market might tank. Stick around to hear about Cohan’s new book, “Four Friends,” which explores the lives of four young men, including JFK Jr., who died too young.

QAnon, UFOs, and America’s Craziest Conspiracy Theories Jul 12, 2019

When the hell did American politics get so weird?

Investigative journalist Anna Merlan joins Nick to talk about her new book, “Republic of Lies,” which details all of the conspiracy theories currently floating around the U.S., including Pizzagate, the Pee Pee Tape, secret CIA programs, and “Q.”

Bill Nye the Science Guy on Aliens, the Universe, and Trump Jul 05, 2019

Is there intelligent life elsewhere in the universe? What about in the White House? Bill Nye the Science Guy joins Nick to answer all of the questions that keep you up at night, including why we’re here, the odds that climate change will destroy civilization, whether humanity will ever fully explore the cosmos, and most important, why Trump is such a pathological liar.

Why Kumail Nanjiani Is Sick of Big Tech Jun 28, 2019

The star of Silicon Valley (the HBO show) joins Nick to explain why he hates Silicon Valley (the industry), why so many CEOs appear to be sociopaths, and the reason he all but stopped using Twitter. Plus: the importance of comedy in the Age of Trump.

Can Fox News Keep Trump in the White House? Jun 21, 2019

Is Fox News the most insidious organization in the history of journalism? Gabriel Sherman, author of “The Loudest Voice in the Room,” the definitive book about Roger Ailes—now coming to Showtime as a limited-series TV show—joins Nick to explain how Ailes changed the landscape of American politics and how Rupert Murdoch could help get Trump reelected in 2020.

Wait, Elizabeth Holmes Got Married?! Jun 14, 2019

Emily Jane Fox joins Nick to talk about the Theranos founder’s secret wedding, and who did and didn’t make the guest list. Plus: Fox takes us inside the clink with former Trump fixer Michael Cohen, followed by a discussion about the presidential race and why Joe Biden is to 2020 what Jeb Bush was to 2016.

Is YouTube Secretly the Worst Company in America? Jun 07, 2019

This week, Vanity Fair’s Abigail Tracy flips the script to interview Nick about Chinese spies in Silicon Valley, whether President Warren will annihilate Amazon, and why YouTube might be the worst company in America. Stay tuned until the end, when Tracy explains why Nancy Pelosi doesn’t want to impeach Donald Trump—and how Congress will make his life hell, anyway.

Scott Galloway on the Algebra of Happiness May 31, 2019

The grumpiest man on earth (or one of them) joins Nick to explain how decades of research have finally uncovered the key to happiness. (That answer is not what you think.) After uncovering the world’s best kept secret, Scott and Nick delve into Facebook, and why he thinks Mark Zuckerberg or Sheryl Sandberg will be arrested in Europe before the end of the year.

Will a New Cold War Break the Internet? May 24, 2019

With Trump blacklisting Chinese technology companies, will a new Iron Curtain split the digital world in two? Oz Woloshyn and Karah Preiss, technology journalists and podcast hosts, join Nick to explain why this is such an integral crossroads for Silicon Valley, in which technology could trap us in a terrifying surveillance state, or allow us to upload our thoughts and live forever.

Did Texas Execute an Innocent Man? May 17, 2019

In 2004, Texas executed Cameron Todd Willingham, a poor, uneducated heavy metal devotee, for killing his three daughters in an arson fire. As numerous investigations and news articles have uncovered, he likely didn’t commit the crime. Academy Award-winning director Ed Zwick joins Nick to talk about his new film, Trial by Fire, and explain how broken death row is, after over a hundred people have been exonerated post-death for crimes they didn’t commit.

Why is America So Violent? May 10, 2019

Gun laws in America have barely changed despite hundreds of mass shootings in America over the past decade. Yet when a gunman opened fire in a mosque in New Zealand, the country’s leaders banned assault rifles less than a week later. Shannon Watts, founder of Mom’s Demand Action, joins Nick to explain why America is so obsessed with guns and violence, why the NRA is so vulnerable right now, and how a grassroots movement is trying to change how easy it is to get an assault rifle in the United States.

Is America Too Bigoted for Pete Buttigieg? May 03, 2019

Mayor Pete speaks seven languages, is deeply religious, fought in Afghanistan, and is smarter than Donald Trump in every way imaginable, but is America evolved enough to elect a gay president? Tina Nguyen, The Hive’s resident 2020 expert, joins Nick to explain why Elizabeth Warren is amazing, but might be too boring, how Beto O’Rourke ruined his bid with the worst announcement video in history, and why Joe Biden could be the Jeb Bush of the 2020 Democratic field.

The “Homeless Billionaire” Predicts Humanity Is Toast Apr 26, 2019

Is America broken beyond repair? Nicolas Berggruen, the “homeless billionaire” who now runs his own think tank, joins Nick to discuss why we’re losing to China, how gene-editing could create a new species that destroys humanity, and why that may not be such a bad thing.

The Mueller Bombshell Hiding in Plain Sight Apr 19, 2019

It appears Attorney General William Barr wasn’t being truthful about the Mueller report. Abby Tracy, Vanity Fair’s resident expert on everything Russia-related, joins Nick to discuss all the bombshells, why Trump isn’t as innocent as Barr claimed, and what it all means for 2020. Plus: Nick’s salacious theory about the famed pee-pee tape.

Will Silicon Valley Wipe Out Hollywood? Apr 12, 2019

Some say Hollywood is the weirdest, most-wasteful industry in earth. So what happens when Silicon Valley disrupts it? Will actors be replaced by CGI versions of themselves? Rob Fishman, a techie turned studio head, joins Nick to try to explain why Hollywood is so broken, and if it can ever be fixed. Plus: Vanity Fair’s special Wall Street correspondent, Bess Levin, explains why Jack Dorsey has truly lost his mind, what the arrest of Julian Assange means for Trump, and why no one can sit in a 220-degree sauna for 45 minutes without burning to death.

How Fox News and Trump Are Melting Our Brains Apr 05, 2019

Has Donald Trump broken our minds, and is it possible to tune him out? Longtime White House correspondent Jessica Yellin joins Nick to discuss the 2020 horse race, why so much of the media sucks (on both sides), and how our collective obsession with Trump has destroyed our ability to make sense of what matters.

Was Boeing the Start of the A.I. Apocalypse? Mar 29, 2019

The airline industry is one of the most regulated in the world, yet a potential software bug on Boeing’s 737 Max may have killed hundreds of people. Should we be worried the same thing could happen with driverless cars, drones, and delivery robots in the not-too-distant future? Clive Thompson, author of the new book, “Coders,” joins Nick to explain what we can do to stop cyberterrorists or a rogue nation from using code instead of bombs to kill us all.

How the Mueller Debacle Could Save Dems from Total Annihilation Mar 26, 2019

For two years, Americans have assumed Trump colluded with Russia. Did the media lead us astray? Or did the Democrats? Or perhaps we’re just asking the wrong question.

Emily Jane Fox joins Nick to explain why it’s actually a good thing that Trump isn’t a secret Russian spy, and how this actually might be the best thing to happen to the Democrats since the election of Donald Trump. And, finally, will the Mueller Report leak? And if so, when and by whom?

Look Out, Beto: How Trump Could Nuke the Dems for a 2020 Landslide Mar 22, 2019

Will the countless Democratic presidential nominees destroy each other before Trump destroys himself? Will a Republican take on Donald in the primaries? And will we finally see our first female POTUS?

Jennifer Palmieri, the former White House Director of Communications for Barack Obama, joins Nick to talk about what’s going on in the race for the next President of the United States, and why she thinks the entire election will come down to one issue: abortion.

What AOC Really Thinks Mar 15, 2019

The Hive’s Abby Tracy visited AOC in her New York district and then spent some time with the freshman congresswoman in her apartment where she opens up about fame, Trump, and what’s next.

Can Facebook Save Itself From Ruin? Mar 08, 2019

Facebook has gone from being a viral sensation to a virus people want nothing to do with anymore. This week, amid more bad news for the social network, Casey Newton of the Verge joins Nick to take him inside Facebook’s troubled moderator division, and later in the show, the venture capitalist Roger McNamee, who made his fortunes investing in Facebook, explains why he’s soured on the company that made him so rich. Nevertheless, he still believes its leaders, Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, can save themselves, and in turn, the company.

The Secret Story of the Cohen Deposition Mar 01, 2019

Emily Jane Fox, the Truman Capote of the Michael Cohen saga, swings by the studio to discuss the backstory behind Cohen’s remarks; the checks; and what lies ahead for Trump’s former lawyer during his remaining months of freedom.

Breaking: Inside Theranos' Final Days Feb 20, 2019

In September 2017, Elizabeth Holmes was watching her company go up in smoke. There were government investigations, nightmarish legal bills, a dwindling bank account, and the evaporation of her credibility. Then she came up with an unorthodox plan to turn it all around....a wolf?

Jared Kushner’s Clintonian Nightmare Feb 15, 2019

There is likely only one single issue the Democrats and Republicans agree on: the desperate need for prison reform. Jason Flom, the founding board member of the Innocence Project, joins Nick to explain what's currently happening with incarceration rates in America, and why so much of it is Bill Clinton's fault.

Inside Trump’s Inauguration Nightmare Feb 08, 2019

“I am disgusted.”: Taped conversations reveal how money was being spent on Donald Trump’s inaugural events (a whopping $107 million), the general chaos of the process, the involvement of the Trump family, and how money was being funneled back to Trump’s own hotels.

Emily Jane Fox, a reporter for The Hive covering politics and the .001 percent, joins Nick to explain why Trump’s inauguration could be his downfall, and which of the Trump kids (and in-laws) could go down in this latest scandal.

Was Cheney More Evil Than Trump? Feb 01, 2019

Adam McKay, the Oscar-nominated director of Vice, offers his unfettered opinions on Cheney, Bush, Trump, when the American train fell off the tracks and why his next movie might be the most important thing he ever works on.

Why @AOC Scares the S**t Out of Republicans Jan 25, 2019

This week Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stirred up the Republican Party when she warned that that if we don’t solve the climate crisis in 12 years, the Earth could be doomed. Peter Brannen, author of “The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth's Past Mass Extinctions,” joins Nick to explain why Cortez is correct, and how the past 400 million years on Earth can explain how we might be heading towards an overheated world that we can’t cool down.

Is Impeachment a Done Deal? Jan 18, 2019

On the latest episode of Inside the Hive, Nick talks to West Wing supersleuth Gabe Sherman about Giuliani’s latest meltdown, if the painful shutdown will ever end, whether Trump will even make it to 2020, and what it will take for the Republicans to finally turn on their leader.

Source: Human Civilization Won’t Be Around Much Longer Jan 11, 2019

Are We Nearing the End of Human Civilization? Description: What if there was a simple calculation that could foretell when a company will go bankrupt, when artificial intelligence will become smarter than humans, and when human civilization will meet its eventual demise. William Poundstone, author of the upcoming book, The Doomsday Calculation, joins Nick to explain how such an algorithm does exits, can predict all of this and more, and why humans likely only have 760 years left in the universe.

Inside Apple’s iPhone Problem Jan 04, 2019

In this week’s episode of Inside the Hive, Nick games out Apple’s startling revenue news. (Is it China? Trump? Or flat-lining iPhone growth. Then The Hive’s Claire Landsbaum swings by to discuss The Reign of Pelosi 2.0, and what it means for the border wall, presidential indictments, and the president’s forthcoming annus horribilis.

“Financial Colonoscopy”: Trump, Snap, Dara, Sheryl and Other 2019 Predictions Dec 28, 2018

What will the Democrats do with their newfound power in the House in 2019? Will Snap sell to Verizon, Disney or Apple? Will Facebook be broken up by government regulators? What will Uber's valuation be when it goes public? When Robert Mueller finally releases his report, will Jared or Donny Jr. go to jail? And, will Donald J. Trump resign under pressure, or forge ahead into 2020 and possibly — gulp!— even beyond? Nick and Jon Kelly discuss all of this, and more, in the Vanity Fair yearly predictions episode of Inside the Hive. 2019 here we come!

Is Facebook Becoming Marlboro? Dec 21, 2018

Being a tech company in Silicon Valley could be bad for your health, and the health of your company. Jason Fried, author of the book, "It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work," joins Nick to explain why, as the CEO of a successful startup, he stays as far away from the tech epicenter as possible. He explains why technology has become more of a hindrance than a solution at the office, and home, when A,I. will really start taking jobs, and how evil Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, and other social networks have become. Fried likens them to cigarette companies two decades ago, where the CEOs were fully aware that they were making something bad for our health and society, but did it anyway.

Will MAGA Turn on Trump? Dec 14, 2018

Michael Cohen is now going to jail as more federal investigations into Donald Trump open up. Will the people who voted Trump into the White House finally see him for who he is? Joel Stein, a journalist, author and comedy writer, recently spent a week with those voters in the most pro-Trump town in America, and he joins Nick to explain what’s really going on inside the mind’s of conservative Trump-lovin’ Americans.

90 Percent Unemployment in 2030? Dec 07, 2018

Are we all going to be killed by rogue robots? Will war drones replace suicide bombers? Could artificial intelligence replace 90 percent of the workforce in the next decade? Martin Ford, a futurist and author focusing on the impact of artificial intelligence and robotics on society and the economy, joins Nick to explain why Trump might not lead to the end of civilization, but rather, a bunch of programmers in Silicon Valley could write code the destroys us all, and how quickly that could happen.

Did Mueller Create a Perjury Trap? Nov 30, 2018

While Donald Trump tweets like a two-year-old at investigators, it appears Robert Mueller has been a dozen steps ahead all along, ready to catch Paul Manafort lying to investigators, turning Michael Cohen against Trump, and even catching cunning Roger Stone in one of his many little lies. Abby Tracy, reporter for the Hive, joins Nick to explain what happened this week, what will happen when the Democrats take the house next year, and if Donald J. Trump will find himself in the center crosshairs of Mueller‘s investigation.

The Crisis that Dwarfs Facebook Nov 23, 2018

While we’re all full on Thanksgiving turkey, a global food crisis, worse than anything we could imagine, looms in the distance. Sara Menker, founder and CEO of Gro Intelligence, joins Nick to explain how climate change, geopolitical chaos, and Donald Trump’s pointless trade war, could lead to starvation for billions in the next ten years if we don’t change the way we grow and distribute food.

The End of the Sheryl Sandberg Myth? Nov 16, 2018

Is the appointment of Matthew Whitaker the beginning of Donald Trump’s first constitutional crisis? Katie Benner, who covers the Justice Department for The New York Times, joins Nick to take us inside the Department of Justice, explain what is going on inside the White House, why Facebook is helping destroy democracy, and why Google got away with hiding workplace sexual harassment. Stick around to hear Nick and Jon Kelly discuss the latest scandal inside Facebook, and if Sheryl Sandberg is going to suffer any consequences for trying to hide the Russia scandal.

The Silicon Valley Atomic Bomb Nov 09, 2018

While the Democrats celebrate the blue wave, we all seem to be ignoring the larger problem in America: inequality. Anand Giridharadas joins Nick to explain how elites are destroying the world, how philanthropy is a fallacy designed to keep the poor poor, on the rich richer, and how inequality in the U.S. is likely going to lead to a revolution, if it hasn’t already, and why Giridharadas believes the poor have been duped into voting for social issues (like abortion and gay rights) but in doing so, are voting against themselves economically.

“No question: He Gives a S**t About the Country”: The Mooch Explains Trump Nov 02, 2018

Anthony Scaramucci candidly discusses it all: his eleven days in the White House, the Lizza call, Bannon’s self-fellating, Trump’s political instincts, the midterms, border separations, what the media gets wrong and his own alter ego, The Mooch.

Should Zuck be Fired? Oct 26, 2018

As Facebook’s scandals mount, and its mea culpas fall flat, some are wondering how society can rein in the company—regulation, intervention, God knows what. On this week’s episode, Sally Hubbard, who served in the New York State A.G.’s Antitrust Bureau, and now works at Capitol Forum, the influential and erudite beltway financial journal, explains why the government should break up Facebook, and why Mark Zuckerberg might be the most dangerous C.E.O. in the world. After the show, Ted Sarandos of Netflix discusses the future of Hollywood, and how Netflix will dominate the future of storytelling

Michael Avenatti Says He is Trump’s Kryptonite Oct 19, 2018

The TV lawyer-turned-political aspirant talks to Vanity Fair’s Emily Jane Fox about his political dreams, the Stormy Daniels of it all, and how he found himself in front of the audience of one.

Monica Lewinsky and Hannah Gadsby Talk Trauma Oct 17, 2018

In this special episode, the award-winning stand-up comedian and creator of “Nanette” talks to Monica Lewinsky, social activist and Vanity Fair contributing editor, on how to deal with trauma in the public eye

Inside the Westeros Wing Oct 15, 2018

On a special episode of Inside the Hive, taped during the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit, new WarnerMedia C.E.O. John Stankey tells Andrew Ross Sorkin about his plans for HBO—and the rest of his new portfolio.

Exclusive: Dara on Uber’s Path to World Domination Oct 12, 2018

This week, Nick interviews Uber C.E.O. Dara Khosrowshahi on his plan to pivot the conpany’s culture, his relationship with Travis Kalanick, and the horrors posed by autonomous vehicles. Plus: Nick and Jon Kelly discuss the highlight’s of Vanity Fair’s fifth annual New Establishment Summit.

The Tech Mess Trump Won't Clean Up Oct 05, 2018

As America tears itself apart over social issues, like Roe vs Wade and whether to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, technology could soon make things even worse in this country. Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO of Box, joins Nick to discuss potential massive job loss, gross inequality and A.I. being used against America with the power of digital nuclear bombs. As Levie and Nick discuss, Silicon Valley has shown that it is incapable of seeing how the future can be used against us, and yet Donald Trump and his administration are oblivious (or don't care) about what's coming next. Stick around after the show, when Jon Kelly joins Nick to voice their dismay over the GOP, and discuss the Vanity Fair New Establishment list.

The Kavanaugh Monstrosity Sep 28, 2018

It's been decades since there has been a Supreme Court hearing like Brett Kavanaugh's, and yet, the outcome could end up being exactly the same as Anita Hill's testimony. Vanity Fair's Emily Jane Fox joins Nick to discuss why Kavanaugh will likely still be a Supreme Court Justice, and why Christine Blasey Ford's testimony was so important to the #MeToo movement. After the show, Nick and Jon Kelly talk about the abrupt exodus of Instagram co-founders, Kevin Systrom and Mikey Krieger, and what Facebook will do with its photo platform when Mark Zuckerberg gains complete control.

Is Kavanaugh Going Down in Flames? Sep 21, 2018

As Americans await the news of whether Dr. Christine Blasey Ford will appear before the Judiciary Committee, the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh could go down in flames, bringing Republicans and evangelicals along for the ride. Tina Nguyen, who covers the right wing for The Hive, joins Nick to explain how the G.O.P. and alt-right media is dealing the accusations that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted Ford three decades ago.

Is the Housing Market About to Implode? Sep 14, 2018

A decade ago this week, America officially entered the worst financial collapse since The Great Depression. Now, as Donald Trump rolls back regulations meant to protect consumers, some fear that we are about to see another housing collapse? Spencer Rascoff, the CEO of Zillow, joins Nick to discuss this and everything housing-related, from the future of the industry to how most poor and middle class Americans have been priced out of buying a home. Then Nick and Jon Kelly discuss this week in Trumpland, and how the White House is in a feverish state of tumult after the release of the Bob Woodward book, "Fear."

Trump's Deep Throat Sep 07, 2018

Who was it? Who wrote the New York Times OpEd from deep inside the White House? Nick and Jon discuss this, who will be fired next as a result, Bob Woodward’s new bombshell book, “Fear,” and if Congress is finally going to regulate social media after the hearings this week. Also on the show, Nancy Jo Sales, director of, “Swiped: Hooking Up in the Digital Age,” a new documentary for HBO, explains how the swipe and hook-up culture around Tinder and other dating apps is harming society in unimaginable ways, and how video streaming is going to make things so much worse.

Which Trump(s) Will Go to the Clink? Aug 31, 2018

Will Donny Jr. be indicted for lying to Congress? Does Michael Cohen sleep with one eye open? Will Paul Manafort spend the rest of his life in jail, or be pardoned by his old buddy, POTUS? Will Trump's downfall come from his infidelities? And speaking of, how does Melania feel about all of this? Emily Jane Fox, a senior reporter for Vanity Fair, and author of the book Born Trump, joins Nick to explain what is going to happen to The Trump inner circle over the next 18 months, and also why Mr. Magoo, also known as Jeff Sessions, has finally started to fight back against the President of the United States.

The Coming Trump Recession Aug 24, 2018

Could a Trump impeachment destroy the economy, or save it? Is Trump's trade war with China going to usher in a new recession? Will Trump's deregulation end up screwing over consumers, who could lose their jobs, homes, and retirement? Mary Childs, a senior reporter for Barron's magazine, joins Nick to answer all the questions about the economy that keep us up at night. Childs also discusses how Elon Musk's erratic behavior is perceived on Wall Street, and that if he was a woman, he would have been fired long ago.

You Won’t Believe Trump’s Biggest Regret Aug 17, 2018

It’s been a few weeks since Donald Trump signed an executive order reversing his diabolical decision to separate children and parents at the border, but the story is far from over. Jacob Soboroff, correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC, who helped break the child separation story open, joins Nick to explain what will happen to the hundred of children who have still not been reunited with their parents, why Trump officials regret giving in to pressures from the left and the right to stop their policy, and what the administration is planning next that could be much, much worse.

Inside the Alex Jones Debacle Aug 10, 2018

Do this week’s voter numbers in Ohio, and elsewhere, foreshadow a blue wave? Is Donald Trump actually the Republican party’s most powerful weapon, or its Achilles’ heel? Could Trump finally be impeached? Jefrey Pollock, a Democratic pollster and political consultant, joins Nick to answer all those questions, and how it could all go drastically wrong. Stay tuned after the show for Nick and Jon Kelly, who discuss Elon Musk’s bid to take Tesla private, if Snap will be bought, and why Jack Dorsey wants to protect Alex Jones more than the parent’s of slain kids.

How Trump Became a Kardashian Aug 03, 2018

The rise of celebrity culture, and now influencer culture, has it's good sides, and it's bad. But does one outweigh the other? Nick Adler, who manages investments and social media for The King of Rap, Snoop Dogg, joins Nick (Bilton) to offer his insight about the rise of the celebrity culture and what it means for the world, from Kim Kardashian to Logan Paul, all the way up to that guy currently in the White House. Adler also discusses why the tech platforms that disrupted the taxi industry and hotels, have become as bad as the things they once tried to change. Finally, there's a story about Snoop Dogg and Elon Musk that you won't want to miss.

Facebook After Zuck? Jul 27, 2018

Its been the craziest week in recent Silicon Valley memory--Facebook's stock fell of a cliff; Elon Musk went after one of his critics; and Robert Mueller started looking into Trump's Twitter feed. Nick explains what all of this means in the here and now, and answers a very serious question down the line: what would it take for Zuck to move on from Facebook?

How Silicon Valley Turned Evil Jul 20, 2018

Technology has a history of starting out with good intentions, and eventually being leveraged for quite the opposite. On this week’s episode, Adam Fisher, author of Valley of Genius, joins Nick to explain how Silicon Valley--an industry created to advance war research and governmental capacities--was co-opted for commercial, and often sinister, purposes, from election-meddling operatives to racist trolls. Fisher also explains what Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and Elon Musk can learn from their predecessors, before they destroy the world.

Did RFK’s Assasination Pave the Way for Trump? Jul 13, 2018

On the face of it, it seems like America is currently more divided than anytime since the Civil War. But back in 1968, America was embroiled in chaos, torn over the war in Vietnam, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and later, the murder of Robert Kennedy, the brother of JFK. Marc Smerling and Zac Stuart-Pontier, the team behind Crimetown and The Jinx, join Nick to explain how the murder of RFK, in 1968, might have been a government conspiracy, and why it changed the shape of America forever. Also: Vanity Fair’s Abby Tracy explains what’s going to happen with Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s Supreme Court pick, and what the Democrats can do to stop the court from overturn Roe vs Wade.

Tom Arnold Lets Loose Jul 06, 2018

Are Tom Arnold and Michael Cohen, as one recent tweet could have been construed to suggest, teaming up to take down Donald Trump? The famous comedian and Trumpworld scold joins Nick to explain how he plans to take down the president, what it was like being married to Rosanne, and how he recently tried to fight Cohen outside the Regency hotel.

Has Putin Fixed the World Cup? Jun 29, 2018

A few years ago, a chance encounter between Christopher Steele, of the now-famous Steele Dossier, and an FBI agent who was working on a gambling case at Trump Tower, opened the door to a multi-year investigation into the massive corruption taking place at FIFA, the soccer federation. Ken Bensinger, author of the new book, “Red Card: How the U.S. Blew the Whistle on the World's Biggest Sports Scandal,” joins us to tell a wild and crazy story that involves the mob, British spies, a 450-pound informant who gets around on a mobility scooter with a parrot on his shoulder, Vladimir Putin, Robert Mueller, a soccer-obsessed IRS agent in Orange County, and tangentially, none other than Donald Trump. We also discuss if Putin might have already fixed who will win this year’s World Cup. Hint: Russia.

Is Ivanka a Bigger Liar Than Her Daddy? Jun 22, 2018

While Americans watched in horror as innocent children, as young as 9-months-old, were torn from their parents arms, Ivanka Trump was posting photos of her and her children, as happy as could be. Is she oblivious? A mean girl? Or is she unable to speak publicly about how she really feels out of fear of her father? Emily Jane Fox, author of the new book, Born Trump: Inside America’s First Family, joins Nick to talk about what Ivanka and her brothers, Donny Jr. and Eric, are really like in person. She offers salacious and wild stories about how these children grew up, about whether they liked each other, and if they really care about how their dad is ruining the country. Also: Nick and Jon Kelly talk about how Russia is planning to disrupt the 2018 and 2020 elections, and why Bob Iger is happy spending tens of billions of dollars on Fox.

Hillary’s campaign Manager Bares All Jun 15, 2018

Robby Mook, former campaign manager for Hillary Clinton, joins Nick this week to discuss how Russian is planning to drive more discourse in our democracy, and the 2018 election. Mook also discusses how the Republican party is simply a rubber stamp for Trump, afraid of what he might do or say to them; and who the Democratics will elect in 2020. Finally, Mook talks about the best and worst times during the 2016 campaign, and what he and his old boss, Hillary, still text each about.

‘’Sociopathic Tendencies”: Inside Elizabeth Holmes’ Colossal Disgrace Jun 08, 2018

Silicon Valley is notoriously full of founders who exaggerate, intentionally lie to the media, and dupe investors, and even Congress. But there are few stories that rival the fraud behind Theranos, the blood-testing company once worth $10 billion, and now worth nothing. John Carreyrou, author of a new book, "Bad Blood," joins us to explain how the company's CEO, Elizabeth Holmes, defrauded everyone who came into her orbit, how she might still end up behind bars, and he answers the question on everyone's mind: Is Holmes a sociopath?

Selling Guns, Drugs, and Murder on the Dark Web Jun 01, 2018

Should it be legal to sell mild drugs, like weed and magic mushrooms, on the Internet? What about heroin? Handguns? AR-15s? Even murder-for-hire? Nick Bilton sits down with Tom Conrad, former product director of Snap and co-founder of Pandora, to discuss Nick's book, “American Kingpin;” if Silicon Valley CEOs are moral at heart, or more concerned with their profits and their legacy; and if Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the Silk Road website, is any different from other CEOs in tech.

Is There Another Donald Trump in The Cosmos? May 25, 2018

Why are we here? Is there a God? A reason to it all? How, and why, did the universe begin, and how, and why, will it end? Sean M. Carroll, a cosmologist and physicist specializing in dark energy and general relativity, joins Nick to answer the questions that plague us all, including, if there's a chance that somewhere out there in the cosmos, there is another extraterrestrial Donald Trump ruling over a planet of little green aliens.

The Conservative Case Against Trump May 18, 2018

Donald Trump has always been a blatant liar, making up stories about his worth to how many people were at his inauguration, but do people actually like it when Trump lies to them? Amanda Carpenter, author of a new book, "Gaslighting America: Why We Love It When Trump Lies To Us," joins Nick to talk about why Republicans, and evangelicals, still love Trump, even after all these lies, how Trump actually pulls off these outright deceptions, and why they are only going to get worse in 2020 as Trump does everything possible to try and maintain control of the White House.

Who is Worse: Trump, Pence, Kanye, or Zuckerberg? May 11, 2018

Comedian and commentator, formally of The Onion and The Daily Show, Baratunde Thurston, joins this week to talk about whether Kanye West poses a bigger threat to civilization than Trump, how white men in Silicon Valley could destroy the future for everyone, especially African Americans, and why the future probably isn't as bad as Nick thinks it is.

How Evil is Silicon Valley? May 04, 2018

As of late, tech giants like Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and Google, are being perceived as evil for taking advantage of our deepest, darkest secrets and fears with one goal: to make us click on more invasive ads. Tristan Harris, who has been described as "the closest thing Silicon Valley has to a conscience," is trying to change that. But can an industry worth trillions of dollars, with some of the biggest egos in business, ever change to do the right thing?

The Magic Tricks to Beat Trump in 2020 Apr 27, 2018

The only reason that magic tricks actually work, according to the world famous magician and puzzle-maker David Kwong, is that “people want to believe.” The same theory applies to politics, fake news, and the entire tricks that Trump used to win the White House. Kwong joins us this week to share fascinating stories about magicians playing an integral role in war efforts, clandestine government operations, and yes, politics. In part two of this week’s show, Nick talks about his latest feature in Vanity Fair, about Russian, Chinese and domestic spies working in Silicon Valley.

Is The Trump Administration Full of Racists? Apr 20, 2018

Is Trump making it more difficult to be African American in the U.S.? Does Ben Carson secretly dislike people of color? Is Donald Trump a true racist? Jamil Smith, a writer for The New Republic, Time, and now, Rolling Stone, joins us to explain why, 155 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, black men are arrested for just sitting in Starbucks coffee shop, why President Obama could have done more to speak out against these issues, and why we’re all so sick and tired of hearing about James Comey.

Will Facebook Be Broken Up? Apr 13, 2018

Since the Cambridge Analyitca scandal broke just a few weeks ago, Facebook has seen its stock fall by $100 billion, and Mark Zuckerberg was forced to go before Congress. But what happens next to the 2.25-billion user social network? Will it be regulated? Or will it be broken up? Kevin Roose, NYT Tech columnist, joins us to explain what happened on the hill this week, and what will happen next in Silicon Valley.

Why a Woman Will Win in 2020 Apr 06, 2018

Will America finally vote a women into the White House in 2020? Will she be a Democrat or a Republican? Does it even matter? Could Stormy Daniels be the scandal that topples Trump? Jennifer Palmieri, former Director of Communications for the Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign, and author of the new book, “Dear Madam President,” joins us this week to talk about all these topics, and what life in the Obama White House was like, how it felt to lose to Trump in the 2016 election (“surreal”), and the fear of knowing that Russia was trying to break our democracy, and change the outcome of the 2016 election.

Will Stormy Nuke Trump into Oblivion? Mar 30, 2018

Stormy's in, Hope is out. Bolton's hired as Shulkin is fired. How does FLOTUS feel POTUS? Emily Jane Fox joins us to explain what's going on inside the Trump's chaotic White House. Then, Nick Bilton and Jon Kelly talk about all the problems at Facebook, and if a company that just lost $100 billion in value because of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, can survive in the longterm.

The Most Hated Man in Silicon Valley Mar 23, 2018

Ryan Holiday, author of the new book "Conspiracy," tells the inside story of how Peter Thiel took down Gawker Media and Nick Denton, how the tech billionaire's relationship with Donald Trump isn't what it used to be, and why we should kind of — just a little bit — feel sorry for Thiel, even though he is one of the most disliked people in Silicon Valley.

What Will Kill Us First: Trump or Technology? Mar 16, 2018

Will robots kill us all? Will a rogue A.I. shut off the power grids? Could we lose track of what is real, and what is not, in a permanently augmented reality? My guest today, Kevin Kelly, has spent his entire career (accurately) predicting what tomorrow will look like, and quelling the fears that come with each new technology. He offers a prediction of what culture, society and politics will look like over the next thirty years, and if humanity will survive a technological apocalypse.

Would You Turn Down $125 Million From Zuck? Mar 09, 2018

One minute, Dennis Crowley, the co-founder of Foursquare, was building a little app in a New York City coffee shop, and the next he was being wined and dined by every VC in Silicon Valley, being offered hundreds of millions of dollars for his young startup, and seeing the valuation of his company head towards a billion dollars. Crowley takes us through the tumultuous, breakneck, insane ride of running a startup.

Can Trump Survive Without Hope? Mar 02, 2018

Gabe Sherman, who has known Hope, Lewandowski and Trump since the nascent days of the campaign trail, joins us to explain what the latest round of chaos inside the White House means, how Jared Kushner might be the next to get booted, and why Hope Hicks has left the building.

Has the NRA Met its Maker? Feb 23, 2018

The students behind the #neverAgain movement are more eloquent than any politician, and are totally unphased by Trump and his online trolls. Abigail Tracy, who covers Washington for The Hive, joins us to explain how a group of high schoolers could take down Trump, how they could turn Florida blue, and why the NRA might have finally met it’s match.

Trump is Proof There is no God Feb 16, 2018

Sam Harris, a world renowned author, neuroscientist and atheist, joins us to explain why there is no such thing as God, how consciousness is the most incredible invention in the universe, why politicians like Mike Pence and Donald Trump pretend they're religious because it helps gets votes, and how artificial intelligence could end up destroying humanity and replacing us with sentient robots that are nicer and smarter than us -- if we're lucky.

The Great Trump Recession? Feb 09, 2018

Description: For the last year, Trump has bragged about the rise of the stock market, taking credit for every upswing since Obama left office. Yet this week, when the bottom fell out of the market, Trump blamed — yep — the media. Bess Levin, The Hive’s Wall Street corespondent, explains why this could be the beginning of the recession we’ve all been expecting, how Trump will try to blame everyone else for the declines, and she helps rank the Trump administration’s finance appointees in order of worst, dumb, and the devil himself.

How Trump F**cked Democracy Feb 02, 2018

It really is even worse than you thought, notes David Cay Johnston, author of a new book with a slightly more elegant title. Johnston explains how Trump is systematically, and intentionally, dismantling the way the U.S. government works to help boost his own ego. From Scott Pruitt rolling back regulations that will destory the environment, to Betsy DeVos disemboweling the country's education system, the actions of the Trump administration are going to have devastating impacts on the next generation. But Johnston does have one glimmer of hope...

The Threat Worse Than Trump Jan 26, 2018

Donald Trump has turned back more climate-related safety measures in the past year than any president in history. Jeff Orlowski, the Oscar short-listed filmmaker behind "Chasing Coral" and "Chasing Ice," joins us to lay out the implications of our warming planet, how most of the coral reefs on earth are dying, and why that is even more terrifying than you think. Orlowski explains that we could be at the beginning of the sixth mass extinction.

How Donald Trump Could Crush Facebook Jan 19, 2018

The Hive’s tech reporter and millennial expert, Maya Kosoff, joins us to explain why the government may soon start regulating social media companies, why you should delete Facebook from your phone ASAP, whether Snap will survive the assault of Mark Zuckerberg, and why the White House should build a “fake” alternate Twitter that only Trump sees, replete with fake likes and fake retweets, and maybe even a fake Oval Office.

Let's Meet Some Robots! Jan 12, 2018

At this year's CES in Las Vegas, robots of all shapes and sizes were on display. There were robots that can fold your clothes, others that can clean your windows, walk your dog or make you an omelet. There were social robots and butler robots. Big robots and little bitty robots. On this week's show, we went to Vegas and talked to two experts about the world of tomorrow, hearing how robotics, driverless cars, and artificial intelligence are going to change everything we touch and do in the not-too-distant future.

Are We Approaching the End of Days? Jan 05, 2018

Terrified by Trump's latest nuclear tweet? Worried that Kim Jung-Un might fall asleep on his little button and blow us all up? This podcast will probably terrify you even more. Kal Raustiala, Director of the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations, and an expert on foreign affairs and international law, joins me this week to explain how close we are to global annihilation, why artificial intelligence could prove to be more dangerous than a global thermonuclear war, and why California should just call it quits and secede from the union.

Will We Finally Stop Talking About Trump in 2018? Dec 29, 2017

If you think 2017 was tough to get through, just wait until next year. In the year’s final podcast, Nick Bilton and Jon Kelly offer predictions for 2018. Among them: Will the Dems actually win back the House? Will Bitcoin still be around 12 months from now? Could the #meToo movement finally reach the shores of Silicon Valley? And will Trump finally begin his inevitable passage into oblivion?

This Podcast Could Make You Filthy Rich! Dec 22, 2017

Here's a fact for you: If you bought $1 — yes, one single dollar — of Bitcoin in March, 2013, it would be worth $6 million today. Joyce Kim, who has been in the cryptocurrency game since the very beginning, joins us this week to explain what is really going on with all these digital currencies, why they are rising so rapidly, if you should own them (or if you already do, if you should sell them), if there's a Bitcoin Bubble, and why all the nerds in Silicon Valley can't stop talking about this digital gold.

How to Beat Donald Trump at Twitter Dec 15, 2017

Tim Wu might be the most prescient person in tech: he invented the term “net neutrality,” and predicted the global dominance the Internet would have on society. He joins us this week to explain why Facebook is the most likely tech company to be regulated by the government, how Donald Trump used technology to hijack our attention (and how we’ll all reclaim it back), what happens now that net neutrality has been rolled back, and why everyone should spend at least one week alone in the desert.

Forget the Dow, Trump Is About to Trigger Financial Armageddon Dec 08, 2017

Each week, the stock market reaches all-time highs, and Donald Trump takes all the credit. But is his insanity and destruction going to lead to a crash of biblical proportions, or possibly to a recession akin to 2008? My guest this week, William D. Cohan, a former banker-turned journalist, seems to think so. Hear him explain why Wall Street should be worried by the actions of the man they hate, and how everyday Americans are going to be affected.

Even America's Top Expert on God Can't Explain Donald Trump Dec 01, 2017

For the past two decades, Reza Aslan has been studying religions from all over the globe, and talking to people who believe in one God, many Gods, or no God at all. He joins us this week to explain the origins of belief, why faith is ultimately a good thing for society, and how he got fired from CNN for calling Donald Trump a “piece of s**t.” (A spokesperson for CNN declined to comment on Aslan’s depiction of his dismissal.)

This Podcast Will Scare You To Death (Seriously) Nov 24, 2017

Do Donald Trump's provocations of Kim Jong-Un have you scared? You might not be scared enough. Right now, U.S. generals are performing war games exploring how to retaliate in the event of a nuclear attack on American soil. Other government employees are evaluating what would happen if Russian hackers knocked out our power grids; others still are trying to stop ISIS from recruiting a new generation of suicide fighters on Twitter; meanwhile, the Navy Seals are slowly becoming obsolete in a virtual world of ubiquitous and disruptive terror. Haroon Ullah, who spent nearly a decade at The State Department, and recently authored the book Digital World War, joins us to explain how close we really are to World War III, how modern day warfare is unlike anything we've seen before, and why America is losing its standing on the world stage.

The Gwyneth Paltrow Industry Nov 17, 2017

Gwyneth Paltrow joins us to explain what acting has in common with running a company; why she doesn’t miss the movie business and won’t ever go back; how Goop (if all goes well) could go public one day; and how relieving (and shocking) it’s been to finally see some of the worst men in Hollywood finally fall.

Can We Turn Texas Blue? Nov 10, 2017

After the Democratic wins in New Jersey and Virginia, this week, could Texas become increasingly blue in 2018? Jay Hulings, who is running to repressent the state’s 23rd congressional district, joins us to explain how The Lone Star state could become a blue state (or at least purple) next year, how people along the Rio Grande really feel about “The Wall,” and why, as a gun-loving Democrat, people like him could re-write the future of the left.

Imagine Jared Kushner is Your Boss… Nov 04, 2017

Kyle Pope spent 18 months running the New York Observer under Jared Kusher. In that time, he was forced to contend with more problems than he had ever anticipated when he took the job. Jared's father (who Jared calls "daddy") allegedly wanted his son to order "hit pieces" on bankers he didn't like; Jared's mother complained about the decor in people's offices and tried to have a rug removed; and on one occasion, Kyle was forced to have a sit down with The Donald himself. Pope joins us today to tell these stories and more, and explain what the future might look like for Jared and Ivanka when this all comes crashing down.

And Then There Were Four Oct 27, 2017

The past decade has seen the biggest disruption in American business in a hundred years — and its only just the beginning. Scott Galloway, author of the new book “The Four,” joins me to explain how Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon, grew into such massive companies. He lays out which of them is the least likely to survive (ahem, Facebook), and why those that do (ahem, Amazon) may end up in a war with the U.S. governments over regulation.

The End of Harveywood Oct 20, 2017

For 30 years, Harvey Weinstein bullied his way through Hollywood, sexually assaulting and harassing countless women. But how did he get away with it for so long? Krista Smith, who is been with Vanity Fair for two decades covering Hollywood, explains why the worst man in the industry took so long to fall, and how this may be the moment that finally changes the industry’s misogyny.

Decoding Trump's Lies Oct 13, 2017

When Tim O’Brien wrote the book, "Trump Nation: The Art of Being the Donald," he noted that Trump wasn't actually a real billionaire. In response, Trump sued O’Brien, and after a salacious legal battle, lost. O'Brien joins us this week to share some of the craziest lies Trump has told people over the years, and to predict how the Trump administration will be remembered several decades from now.

Columbine to Vegas Oct 06, 2017

Columbine, Fort Hood, Sandy Hook, and now Las Vegas. America once again this week broke a record for the most number of people killed in a mass shooting. Dave Cullen, author of the book "Columbine," joins us to explain why these mass shootings keep happening and what can be done to stop them.

Jared’s Daddy Issues Sep 29, 2017

Emily Jane Fox discusses Jared Kushner’s recent spate of bad press, whether he’ll learn from it, and how much trouble the president’s son-in-law, and adviser, is really in. Also: we discuss Don Jr.’s moose!

Category 5! Sep 22, 2017

You’ve heard of Irma and Harvey, Jose and Maria, but you might not have heard of Phil Klotzbach, an expert on hurricanes in the Atlantic. He joins us today to tell us what’s really going on with all these storms, and what it says about climate change and global warming.

Curb His Enthusiasm Sep 15, 2017

Want to know how Curb Your Enthusiasm, SNL, ESPN and CAA all began? Want to know how they all became so insanely successful? Well, this week's guest, James Andrew Miller, is here to tell us, and offer a glimpse into his new podcast, Origins, where he interviews Larry David and the cast of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, to learn how a hilarious show about nothing actually began

Leave it or Lovett Sep 08, 2017

You've heard him on Pod Save America, you've heard him on Lovett or Leave It, you've heard him through the speeches of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Now you get to hear Jon Lovett as our guest this week, discussing the mess we find ourselves in today, what the DNC can do to win in 2018 and 2020, and what it feels like to be the guy who could have provoked Trump into running for office.

FAKE NEWS! #MAGA Sep 01, 2017

Today's guest, Sarah Ellison, was hate-tweeted by Donald Trump this week. Find out why, and hear us discuss what people in Washington really think of Jared and Ivanka (hint: it ain't pretty), why Fox News will eventually fall, and the long term effects of Trump's attacks on the media.

Donald Trump of the Art World Aug 25, 2017

Stefan Simchowitz is easily one of the most controversial figures in today's art world. Partially because he's breaking the norms of the establishment, and making tons of money in the process. He talks to us about what art is today, why people in Silicon Valley don't buy any of it, and what it's like to be called the Donald Trump of the art world.

The End is Nigh! Aug 18, 2017

We might manipulate the genes of the next generation to make them kinder, or create seeds that you plant in the ground that grow into a house. This week, we talk to D.A. Wallach, a rockstar-turned-biotech investor, who tells us about all the scary technological and biological advancements coming our way, that could end the world as we know it.

Valley Talk: Uber's Headache, Zuck's Political Ambitions, and the Future of Twitter Aug 11, 2017

This week we go deep into Silicon Valley to see if the ousted C.E.O. of Uber, Travis Kalanick, will return to the company to rule again, if there will be a President Zuckerberg in the White House one day, and if Twitter will eventually sell to Verizon or Disney, or just die in the Trump Apocalypse.

The Winklevoss Twins are Back! Aug 04, 2017

What's 6’5" and 220 pounds, and there's two of them? Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss! This week, Bilton talks to the world's most famous twins about their obsession with Bitcoin, their Hollywood portrayal in The Social Network, and their circuitous route to Silicon Valley.

Joe Trippi Diagnoses Washington's Illness Jul 28, 2017

Joe Trippi, the legendary political consultant and campaign insider, who has worked with everyone from Ted Kennedy to Howard Dean (with a little Gary Hart in between), explains what the hell is currently going on in our nation¹s capital. Are the Republicans are scared about their future? Who can the left lineup in 2020? And how in the world did we get here in the first place?

A Podcast of Ice and Fire Jul 21, 2017

Joanna Robinson, the world (and Vanity Fair's) renowned expert on all things Game of Thrones, joins us to explain what's going on in Westeros this season, which of our favorite (and least favorite) characters will be killed, and who will survive, and what HBO is going to do when it's tentpole show comes to an end.

Malcom Gladwell's Sad Country Songs Jul 14, 2017

Who do you know who could weave together stories about McDonalds french fries, the civil rights movement and a Los Angeles golf course? Yes, you guessed it: Malcom Gladwell. He's our guest this week on Inside the Hive, where we discuss all those topics, plus why people in Silicon Valley make up stories about how their company was founded, why country songs are sad and rock and roll songs are not, and his latest podcast, Revisionist History.

Kara Swisher on Uber, Zuck, and the Legend of the Red Chair Jun 30, 2017

Kara Swisher sits down with The Hive to talk about covering, and interviewing, the biggest names in tech and politics, from Steve Jobs and Bill Gates to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. We talk about what really happened inside Uber, and how she once saved Mark Zuckerberg for self-destruction on stage.

The Secret of the Handmaid's Tale Jun 23, 2017

There are few shows on television today that are more prescient than The Handmaid's Tale. This week, we sit down with Bruce Miller, the show's creator, to talk about life inside the dystopian world of Gilead, what it's like to work with the brilliant author, Margaret Atwood, why the show is so intense and the stakes are so high, and what to expect in season 2. Blessed be the fruit!

You Are Wonder Woman! Jun 16, 2017

Patty Jenkins, the director of Wonder Woman, discusses how you direct a $150 million movie, why women make up most of the audience in theaters and yet so few of the directors and leading roles, and how she deals with male executives "mansplaining" things to her.

Snoop, Trump and Jesse Jun 10, 2017

YouTube star Jesse Wellens tells us how he went from being a used car salesman to becoming one of the most followed people on the Internet. He also talks about directing the latest Snoop Dogg video, which led to not-very-happy Trump tweet and a Secret Service visit, and finally, how vlogging made him famous at the cost of his relationship.

Dick Costolo on Twitter, trolls and Trump Jun 02, 2017

Dick Costolo started his career as an improv comedian, sharing the stage with Steve Carell, and ended up in Silicon Valley running Twitter. He discusses what it's like to bomb on stage in front of 2,000 people, how stressful it is being the CEO of a public company, and if he could have stopped Donald Trump rise to power on a social media rocket ship.

Famous for Being Conan May 26, 2017

The iconic talk show host talks about how celebrity culture is ruining society, why he has a piñata of Donald Trump in his office, and why The Conan O'Brien Show probably won't be on TBS in 10 years — but rather, the Internet.

Iger 2020? May 19, 2017

The Disney C.E.O. Discusses the next Star Wars installment, his strategy for conquering the ever-shifting media landscape, why he buys certain companies (but not others), and—yes—those lingering 2020 rumors.

Inside the Hive with Nick Bilton - TEASER May 02, 2017

Every week, Nick Bilton interviews the leading minds in tech, politics, and the culture to find out what motivates them, how they make decisions, what keeps them up at night, where their ideas come from, who they look to for advice, and where they think their industry is going. Bilton brings you into the room where the world's most interesting, and important, decisions are made.

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