The Gist

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Mike Pesca on "Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em" Nov 01, 2025

Show notes

Mike joins Nancy Rommelmann and Sarah Hepola for a rowdy, caffeine-fueled dive into the NBA betting scandal—where marked decks, mobsters, and million-dollar contracts collide. They unpack how legalized sports gambling reopened old mafia doors, what drives athletes to risk it all, and why men chase competition even from the couch. Also: Karine Jean-Pierre's disastrous book tour, testosterone talk, Louis C.K.'s "program," and the curious economics of peeing at stadiums.

Produced by Corey Wara

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Art Cullen on Iowa's Corn Gospel, Cancer, and Capture Oct 31, 2025

Show notes

Iowa's rivers run brown, its cancer rates climb, and its politics tilt redder. Pulitzer Prize-winning editor Art Cullen joins to discuss his new book Dear Marty: We Crapped in Our Nest — Notes from the Edge of the World, Iowa, which serves as both lament and call to arms for a farm state choking on its own abundance. Cullen traces how corn and hogs became economic lifelines and environmental nooses, and explains why Democrats keep losing ground by talking culture instead of livelihood. Plus: the American Dialect Society's newly crowned Word of the Year, "6–7," and how linguistic weirdness keeps getting more political. The Spiel: Seattle's mayoral race, where Bruce Harrell's incumbency fatigue meets Katie Wilson's thrift-store populism and the post-Trump urge to loathe whoever's in charge.

Produced by Corey Wara

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Beth Macy: "When the Local Paper Dies, the Community Follows" Oct 30, 2025

Show notes

Journalist Beth Macy, author of Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America, returns to her Ohio roots to chart what's been lost in the hollowing-out of middle America. Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America follows Macy's hometown of Urbana through addiction, poverty, and political drift, and her effort to reconnect with a onetime boyfriend turned conspiracy devotee. She also tells the story of Silas, a trans drum major fighting impossible odds in a collapsing public school system. Plus: New Jersey's governor's race, Mikie Sherrill vs. Jack Ciattarelli, where the air war is fought over college cheating scandals, helicopter piloting, and saying "um" too many times in one answer.

Produced by Corey Wara

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Karine Jean-Pierre: "Independent," Evasion, and the Party She Says Left Her Oct 29, 2025

Show notes

Former Biden Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre joins to promote her memoir Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House Outside the Party Lines—and faces pointed questions about contradictions between her praise for Biden, her criticism of Democrats, and her claim of newfound political independence. Asked what makes her truly "independent," she pivots to abstractions about democracy and compassion, refusing to name concrete policy differences or lessons from 2024. Plus: scarcity and abundance—how prosperity breeds complacency, and why measles could again become endemic in America while poorer nations still fight to get vaccines at all.

Produced by Corey Wara

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Steve Hayes & Damon Linker: The Hole Truth Oct 28, 2025

Show notes

Steve Hayes and Damon Linker debate whether Trump's demolition of the White House East Wing is another norm-busting outrage or just a gaudy renovation. They argue over visuals versus substance in anti-Trump outrage, Trump's manipulation of public opinion, and whether Congress's abdication of power is the true engine of American authoritarian drift. Then: could "Trump 2028" be both a joke and a trial balloon? And in Goat Grinders: the "harm-reduction community," the literal misuse of a certain word, and liberal tolerance of urban squalor.

Produced by Corey Wara

Production Coordinator Ashley Khan

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Barista Michelle Eisen on Face Tattoos, Short Staffs, and Union Shots Fired Oct 27, 2025

Show notes

Michelle Eisen, barista-turned-organizer from Buffalo's first unionized Starbucks, breaks down how Workers United grew from one store to hundreds—and why the real fight now is over pay, scheduling, and the right to keep your piercings. She pushes back on what she calls "the most aggressive union-busting in modern labor history." Plus, examples of great journalism from The Daily on the Hole in The White House and The Atlantic on The Death Train. Also: a Spiel on tariffs, psyops, and Meet the Press mind games.

Produced by Corey Wara

Production Coordinator Ashley Khan

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Jeremy Workman — "Walking Every Block, Hiding in a Mall" Oct 25, 2025

Show notes

Two conversations with documentarian Jeremy Workman: first on The World Before Your Feet (a quest to walk every NYC block), then on Secret Mall Apartment (artists who built a hidden flat inside Providence Place Mall). Curiosity, urban change, and the quiet stunts that reveal a city.

Produced by Corey Wara

Production Coordinator Ashley Khan

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Funny You Should Mention: Ariel Elias Oct 24, 2025

Show notes

Kentucky-raised, New York-forged, and newly "A Jewish Star," Ariel Elias breaks down how outsider status becomes comic superpower. We talk growing up Jewish in the Bluegrass, explaining Kentucky to New Yorkers, the "Earl" name bit, airline misery (farewell, Southwest), and writing cleaner for synagogue gigs without losing edge. She unpacks her viral beer-can moment and how it led to Kimmel, why "hack" is about angle not topic, the art of the long-simmer callback, and learning to say no (and yes) at the right times.

Produced by Corey Wara

Production Coordinator Ashley Khan

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No Capes, Real Peace: U Thant's UN and What We Lost Oct 23, 2025

Show notes

Historian and grandson of third secretary-general of the United Nations U Thant, Thant Myint-U, discusses Peacemaker: U Thant and the Forgotten Quest for a Just World—how the UN once brokered real ceasefires (Cuban Missile Crisis, India-Pakistan 1965), why its stature faded, what decolonization changed, and Myanmar's present. A reminder that boring, grown-up diplomacy can beat laser eyes every time. Plus: the case against franchise-ified superhero "universes."

Produced by Corey Wara

Production Coordinator Ashley Khan

Email us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠thegist@mikepesca.com⁠⁠⁠⁠

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Alicia Wanless — "The Ecology of Information" Oct 22, 2025

Show notes

Carnegie Endowment's Alicia Wanless argues that disinformation isn't new—it's just our latest pollutant. In The Information Animal, she maps centuries of "information ecosystems," from King Charles I's pamphlet floods to the social-media deluge, and shows why attempts to "detoxify" them often fail. We trace the analogies between DDT and digital outrage, ask whether suppression ever works, and weigh how democracies can regulate without strangling truth. Also: China's dirty edge in the rare-earths race.

Produced by Corey Wara

Production Coordinator Ashley Khan

Email us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠thegist@mikepesca.com⁠⁠⁠⁠

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