The Gist

Latest Episodes:

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

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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

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Michael Kirk — "RFK Jr.'s Latest Addiction: Attention" Oct 21, 2025

Show notes

Frontline's Michael Kirk discusses The Rise of RFK Jr., charting Kennedy's path from sex and drug addiction to what Kirk calls "an addiction to validation." He describes a man driven by grievance, and details how the alliance between Kennedy and Trump built the so-called "MAHA movement," and why it may collapse under its own contradictions. Plus: a breakdown of how Supreme Court shifts and redistricting could strip representation from Black voters in states like North Carolina and Louisiana.

Produced by Corey Wara

Production Coordinator Ashley Khan

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Michael Townsend & Jeremy Workman: "Secret Mall Apartment" Oct 20, 2025

Show notes

Michael Townsend and director Jeremy Workman tell the wild true story of an eight-artist collective that built a hidden home inside Providence Place Mall—part prank, part art project, and a pointed reply to gentrification. They revisit grainy 2003–07 footage, a tape-art 9/11 memorial, and the logistics (and ethics) of living behind a cinderblock wall in America's retail cathedral. Plus: a look at Christine Lagarde's plan to collateralize frozen Russian assets for a Ukraine loan—and why that's diplomacy by euphemism. Also: "No Kings" rallies, protest as pressure valve, and the politics of bounce houses versus Red Scare rhetoric.

Produced by Corey Wara

Production Coordinator Ashley Khan

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Chris Murphy: "Congress needs to take war powers back." Oct 18, 2025

Show notes

Mike revisits his 2019 conversation with Senator Chris Murphy on the AUMF — the two-decade-old law still used to justify U.S. military strikes from Yemen to the Caribbean. Plus, a new strike on a Venezuelan vessel raises questions about presidential authority and transparency. We trace how "temporary" wartime powers became permanent policy, and what it would take for Congress to reclaim its constitutional role.

Produced by Corey Wara

Production Coordinator Ashley Khan

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Lisa Graves: On The Roberts Court's Power Play Oct 17, 2025

Show notes

Lisa Graves joins to discuss Without Precedent: How Chief Justice Roberts and His Accomplices Rewrote the Constitution and Dismantled Our Rights—from court "capture" networks to why she sees the recent immunity ruling and emergency-docket moves as system-tilting, not umpiring. She and our host spar over what counts as a "constitutional crisis," contrasting TRO reversals and precedent-scrapping with the break-glass scenario of outright defiance. Also: the Young Republicans' Hitler-meme leak and J.D. Vance's defenses...in song! Plus: New York's mayoral debate—Zohran Mamdani vs. Andrew Cuomo, on prostitution, Jews, and parades.

Produced by Corey Wara

Production Coordinator Ashley Khan

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Not Even Mad: Jonah Goldberg & Zee Cohen-Sanchez Oct 16, 2025

Show notes

Hamas hostages, Trump and autocracy, and the strangely quiet shutdown — we tackle all three. Why Trump's blunt style played in the Middle East, whether "competitive authoritarianism" really fits his second-term instincts and enablers, and who's taking the fall for Obamacare-premium brinkmanship. Plus: goat-grinders (pointless rebrands at Max and Apple TV, Crowder's vest-and-glass cosplay, and the humbling age math of Roy Orbison, the Skipper, and the Golden Girls).

Produced by Corey Wara

Production Coordinator Ashley Khan

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Jonathan Mahler: The Tabloids That Made The City That Made the Country Oct 15, 2025

Show notes

Mahler walks us through The Gods of New York: Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists, and the Birth of the Modern City, 1986–1990—how a late-'80s crucible of crime, crack, and tabloids minted characters like Spike Lee ("the coolest guy in America"), Al Sharpton, Donald Trump, Ed Koch, and Rudy Giuliani. We revisit Howard Beach, Yusuf Hawkins, Do the Right Thing, and the media ecosystem that turned norm-breaking into power, alongside the policy tradeoffs (SROs, development, homelessness) that still echo today. It's a brisk tour of the years when New York became the prototype for how America lives now. Plus: how to read diplomatic reporting—and why Hamas yielded when its only real leverage was other people's bodies.

Produced by Corey Wara

Production Coordinator Ashley Khan

Email us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠thegist@mikepesca.com⁠⁠⁠⁠

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