The Fifth Column

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**The Fifth Column**

Your weekly rhetorical assault on the on the news cycle, the people who make it, and occasionally ourselves. Kmele Foster (Freethink), Michael Moynihan (Vice), and Matt Welch (Reason) talk and laugh and drink their way to at least quasi-sanity in a world gone mad, often with the aid of clean and articulate guests. Weekly Members Only subscription edition often comes with listener mail and professional-quality (if inappropriate) singing. Analysis. Commentary. Sedition.

www.wethefifth.com

Latest Episodes:

#515 - Big Trouble in Little MAGA Jul 17, 2025

Show notes

* Crazy from the heat

* AMA

* Who is Jim Walden??

* The dumbest civil war

* So we have to discuss the Epstein “issue” again, eh?

* I think we solved the case…

* Leaving breadcrumbs in the archives

* Jimmy Carter and the aliens

* That’s a lotta airstrikes

* The plastic surgery exception

* Kurt Russell, American

* The next, hottest Nobelist

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

#514 - Big Boats! Big Patriotism! Big Pedophile Rings?? Jul 10, 2025

Show notes

* Matt discovers Mass

* Because Matt is cruisin’

* Boats and hoes

* An ultra exclusive event! The Fifth…on the high seas??

* The Epstein hoax

* Very dumb people holding empty Trapper Keepers

* Fake numbers transform into facts!

* Does anyone know how this stuff works?

* The client list ███████ █████

* Why do people want this stuff to be true?

* A few notes on the forthcoming film Eddington

* The BLM victory failure

* The forever revolt against the elites

* Two overlooked terror attacks in Texas

* Put them on ICE

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

Members Only #267 - Everything's Our Fault: The U.S. and the Iranian Coup (w/ Abbas Milani) Jul 10, 2025

Show notes

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com

A few weeks ago, we mentioned that newly minted Iran expert Joy Reid went on CNN and provided her damning verdict on America’s relationship with Iran: acktchully, she gravely intoned,the United States brought the ire of the Iranian dictatorship upon itself by engineering the 1953 coup against the “democratically elected” Iranian leader Mohammed Mossade…

#513 - Birthright Jamaican Babies and Russian Trashmen (w/ Damon Root) Jun 30, 2025

Show notes

As the Supreme Court wraps up its term, the boys again summon Damon Root, author of Overruled: The Long War for Control of the U.S. Supreme Court, to break down the various rulings (for those of us who don’t pay attention but still want to convince Scott Bakula to time travel and deport baby Kmele). Post-Damon, another hour…during which Matt tells the story of his car being smashed up by Russian trash men (which, surprisingly, is not a euphemism), Zohran code switches, the Big Ugly Bill lurches through the Senate, and stupid “revolutionaries” think it’s their moment. Yet again.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

#512 - Escape from New York Jun 27, 2025

Show notes

* Fleeeeeeeee

* Don’t mess with the Zohran

* Andrew Cuomo, Shah of NYC

* Eric Adams to the rescue? (Oof)

* Post-colonial Disney movies

* Scarcity Democrats

* Pull the fire alarm on this drunk idiot

* This means nothing for national Democratic politics

* And isn’t about Israel

* Were the bunkers busted?

* Hot Ukrainians save lives

* NATO not so bad after all

* Joy Reid, smug master of Wikipedia

* OKC saluted

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

Members Only #264 - Domino's, Hand Jobs, and WWIII Jun 22, 2025

Show notes

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com

No listener mail this time. We’ll double up on the next Members Only. Just an hour-long conversation about Iran…

(Moynihan note upon relisten: Qasem Soleimani was the commander of the Quds Force within the IRGC, not the IRGC itself)

#511 - Iran on the Brink, NYC on the Brink (w/ Harry Siegel) Jun 20, 2025

Show notes

Two episodes in one! First, the lads discuss Iran, the legacy of the Iraq War, and MAGA’s internecine battles over foreign policy. And then Harry Siegel, the great chronicler of New York City politics, stops by to answer that hugely important question: will the financial capital of the world, the city with the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, soon be governed by an anti-capitalist weirdo who thinks that “globalize the intifada” is just another way of saying “give peace a chance”?

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

#510 - BONUS EPISODE - The View from Israel (w/ Nadav Eyal) Jun 14, 2025

Show notes

Moynihan and Welch talk to Nadav Eyal, senior columnist for Yedioth Ahronoth and one of Israel’s most prominent (and best-sourced) journalists. Typically, we would keep a bonus episode like this one behind the paywall. We were feeling generous today. But never rely on our continued generosity. So subscribe, cheapskate!

* Meetings cancelled, meetings kept

* How the attack on Iran unfolded

* James Bond is a Jew

* Taking out the IRGC leadership and partially neutering Iran’s missile capabilities

* Was Iran actually readying a nuclear weapon?

* Was Trump part of an elaborate ruse?

* Western Europe reacts…

* Does Israel actually drive American foreign policy?

* The Mossad stuff is impressive. But…

* Nadav’s Twitter thread

* The first 48 hours are the easy part

* Netanyahu’s political prospects

* And lots, lots more

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

#509 - The Rise of the Knuckleheads (w/ Sen. Rand Paul) Jun 12, 2025

Show notes

Senator Rand Paul joins the lads to lament the big, beautiful bill; the big beautiful Soviet military parade; the Twitter halfwits waging war on him; his party’s descent into populist voodoo economics; whether or not he’s an advocate of “open borders”; and what he makes of Marines on the streets of Los Angeles. After the senator leaves, Foster, Moynihan, and Welch stick around to discuss…all those same issues.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

#508 - The Breakup Episode Jun 06, 2025

Show notes

* A grim anniversary

* Elon’s brilliant troll

* The big, ugly bill

* Bannon tells the truth. But is still a liar

* How dare they attack their attacker??

* They have cards

* Asymmetric and immoral

* Changing minds…by human sacrifice

* The blackest propaganda