The Lincoln Project

Latest Episodes:

PROFILES IN COWARDICE: Jacob Weisberg on the Men Who Knew Better, But Folded Anyway. Sep 29, 2026

Show notes

Rick sits down with JACOB WEISBERG, author of PROFILES IN COWARDICE, the book that exposes the men whose lack of courage enabled Trump 2.0. Jacob and Rick go through the receipts: enfeebled Senator Mitch McConnell, who called out Trump on the Senate floor after January 6th and then folded right back into line. Blackstone CEO and billionaire Steve Schwarzman, who was SKEPTICAL of a second term and then caved anyway out of vanity. Chief Justice John Roberts, whose court just handed massive executive power to an authoritarian regime. And George W. Bush, who stayed silent while his family was attacked and his legacy was dismantled by DOGE and Elon Musk. This is a masterclass in how democracies actually die — not with a bang, but with a bunch of powerful men deciding it's easier to fall into line than to stand up for what is right.
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Jacob Weisberg is on X @jacobwe. His new book, Profiles in Cowardice: A Study of Collaboration in the Trump Era, is out NOW, wherever fine books are sold.

Rick Wilson is on X @TheRickWilson, Bluesky @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and Substack at therickwilson.substack.com.
More from LP at www.lincolnproject.us and on X @ProjectLincoln.

#JacobWeisberg #ProfilesInCowardice #MitchMcConnell #JohnRoberts #SteveSchwarzman #GeorgeWBush #RickWilson #LincolnProject #Politics2026

The GOP's Anchor Has a Name (Cough, Trump) Sep 25, 2026

Show notes

The Elephant in the Room: Trump's Numbers Just Cratered

The polls are in, and they're a bloodbath. Trump's approval just hit a historic low, and the GOP — the party that welded itself to him — is going down with the ship and calling it strategy. This week, Rick convenes the brain trust: Senior Advisor Matthew Dowd, Executive Director Tessa Gould, Political Director Andrew Wilson, and special guest pollster Cornell Belcher, who brings the receipts straight from the crosstabs. They dig into why Republicans can't distance themselves from a man dragging them underwater, why voters are finally, gloriously fed up, and why swing voters are breaking for Democrats and not looking back. The elephant in the room isn't hiding anymore — it's flatlining on live TV. Pull up a chair.

The Richest Men Alive Are Boiling Your Water to Build a God That Can't Spell "Strawberry" Sep 23, 2026

Show notes

The Data Center Grift (with WIRED's Molly Taft)
The richest companies in human history have a new hustle, and you're the mark. They're bulldozing warehouses the size of malls into towns too small to fight back, draining the reservoir dry, and torching the power grid — all to run an AI that still can't tell you how many R's are in "strawberry." The best part? They took the tax breaks, promised jobs that never showed, and mailed you the power bill. This week Rick sits down with WIRED senior reporter Molly Taft, who followed the water and the money and found the same thing at the end of both: a con. They get into who's cashing in, who's going dark, and why "the cloud" is the most expensive lie in America right now. Bring your own bottle of water — the robots are thirsty.

What Happens When the System Gets it Wrong? Rabia Chaudry on Justice in America. Sep 19, 2026

Show notes

Rick sits down with RABIA CHAUDRY, the attorney who helped make SERIAL a phenomenon and now runs UNDISCLOSED, the podcast that's helped get WRONGFULLY CONVICTED people OUT of prison. Rabia breaks down the patterns behind these convictions — junk forensics, coerced confessions, prosecutors with a "hero complex" who'd rather double down than admit they got it wrong — and lays out real fixes to fix a system stacked against defendants. Then it gets personal: as an American Muslim who entered law school around 9/11, Rabia connects the dots between the counterterrorism machine built after that day and TODAY'S aggressive ICE enforcement — people getting arrested at their OWN SCHEDULED immigration hearings, and TPS terminations blowing holes in Florida's economy. This is a masterclass in how broken systems actually work, from someone who's spent her career fixing them.
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You can find Rabia Chaudry on Instagram @rabiasquared2, and on her podcast, ‘Undisclosed: Towards Justice.’

Rick Wilson is on X @TheRickWilson, Bluesky @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and Substack at therickwilson.substack.com.

More from LP at www.lincolnproject.us and on X @ProjectLincoln.

#RabiaChaudry #Undisclosed #Serial #WrongfulConviction #CriminalJusticeReform #Immigration #TPS #RickWilson #LincolnProject #Politics2026

BILLIONAIRES BUILDING BUNKERS WHILE THEY DESTROY YOUR FUTURE: Gil Duran Goes Inside the Nerd Riech Sep 15, 2026

Show notes

Rick sits down with GIL DURAN, the #1 bestselling author of THE NERD REICH: SILICON VALLEY FASCISM AND THE WAR ON DEMOCRACY, and this one goes DEEP. Gil traces how the tech world's lurch to the right didn't start with Trump — it started with San Francisco recall elections that quietly road-tested billionaire-funded populism, then Elon Musk DROPPING $277 MILLION on the 2024 election. They unpack the strange ideological current running through Silicon Valley, including a fringe monarchist thinker's outsized grip on guys like Peter Thiel, who apparently want a "CEO KING" running America. Then it gets darker: a massive AI-driven wealth transfer aimed straight at your job, OpenAI's own Sam Altman admitting the risks are real, and billionaires quietly building escape compounds from HONDURAS to GREENLAND while the rest of us live with the consequences.
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You can find Gil Duran on Bluesky @gilduran.com. Gil Duran’s new book ‘THE NERD REICH: SILICON VALLEY FASCISM AND THE WAR ON DEMOCRACY’ is available now, wherever fine books are sold.

Rick Wilson is on X @TheRickWilson, Bluesky @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and Substack at therickwilson.substack.com.

More from LP at www.lincolnproject.us and on X @ProjectLincoln.

#GilDuran #TheNerdReich #SiliconValley #PeterThiel #CurtisYarvin #ElonMusk #SamAltman #RickWilson #LincolnProject #TechOligarchy

25 YEARS AFTER 9/11: What bin Laden Couldn't Destroy, and What Trump is Trying To. Sep 11, 2026

Show notes

On the 25th anniversary of September 11th, Rick shares his personal reflections on that day. Loved ones lost, survivors never the same again. This is a look at what America got right in the aftermath: real unity, real international solidarity, NATO invoking Article 5 for the only time in its history. Everything bin Laden failed to break through terror on that day — our cohesion, our alliances, our resilience — has been deliberately broken since, not by an enemy, but by the President of the United States. This isn't about outrage. It's about what we've lost, and whether we can still get it back. A tribute, and a warning.
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Rick Wilson is on X @TheRickWilson, Bluesky @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and Substack at therickwilson.substack.com.

More from LP at www.lincolnproject.us and on X @ProjectLincoln.

MAGGIE HABERMAN SPENT 1,000 INTERVIEWS FINDING OUT HOW BAD IT REALLY IS. NOW SHE'S TELLING RICK. 📕😳🔥 Sep 08, 2026

Show notes

Rick sits down with MAGGIE HABERMAN, the #1 NYT bestselling co-author (with Jonathan Swan) behind REGIME CHANGE: INSIDE THE IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY OF DONALD TRUMP, built on roughly 1,000 interviews inside this White House. Maggie breaks down the WILD delta between Trump's first and second terms — Elon Musk's chaotic run as would-be reformer, the DOGE flameout that cracked the EPSTEIN FILES fight wide open, and how Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche have handled a cover-up controversy that's splitting Trump's own base. She lays out how the DOJ has become a tool of personal retribution, how hard Trump's team is working to shield him from audits and legal exposure, and just how much money he's made off the presidency itself. Then it gets personal: his visible physical decline, and the early jockeying — JD Vance included — over who inherits it all.
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Maggie Haberman’s new book ‘Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump' is out now, wherever fine books are sold. You can find Maggie on X @maggieNYT.

Rick Wilson is on X @TheRickWilson, Bluesky @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and Substack at therickwilson.substack.com.

More from LP at www.lincolnproject.us and on X @ProjectLincoln.

THE MOB ROLL-UP: RICK WILSON'S PLAN TO TAKE DOWN TRUMP'S INNER CIRCLE ONE STAFFER AT A TIME Sep 04, 2026

Show notes

Rick Wilson has a plan, and it's straight out of a mob prosecutor's playbook. While Mike Johnson is out there insisting Republicans will EXPAND their majority, the White House is quietly doing something very different: lawyering up, tightening ethics disclosures, and bracing for a Democratic Congress. Rick says forget impeaching Trump directly — the Senate math doesn't work. Instead, Democrats should go after the STAFFERS first: the aides, the enablers, the people who don't have money for elite lawyers and who kept receipts as personal insurance. He names names — Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, Susie Wiles, Jared Kushner — and lays out why this "roll-up" strategy could crack Trump's inner circle wide open once people realize he has zero incentive to protect them.
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Rick Wilson is on X @TheRickWilson, Bluesky @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and Substack at therickwilson.substack.com.

More from LP at www.lincolnproject.us and on X @ProjectLincoln.

#EITR #RickWilson #LincolnProject #MikeJohnson #StephenMiller #KristiNoem #JaredKushner #Midterms2026 #Accountability #Oversight #EpsteinFiles

BENN JORDAN HACKED THE SURVEILLANCE STATE: INSIDE FLOCK'S CAMERA EMPIRE WATCHING EVERY CAR IN AMERICA 📸🚨🔍 Sep 01, 2026

Show notes

Rick sits down with BENN JORDAN, the musician-turned-security-researcher who did what Flock Safety said was impossible: he found their "unhackable" license-plate camera network wide open on the internet. Benn walks Rick through how he stumbled onto unmarked cameras near his home in ATLANTA — the most surveilled city in America — and ended up exposing passwordless feeds, a data-retention policy that's basically a LOOPHOLE, and a new tool called Flock Nova that cross-references your location with criminal records and open-source data. This isn't a left-vs-right issue — Benn breaks down why gun owners AND privacy advocates are equally furious, why local elections are turning on this exact fight, and why the whole business model might not survive a serious Fourth Amendment challenge. If you've driven past a camera you didn't notice, THIS episode is about you.
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You can find Benn Jordan on:
YouTube: @BennJordan
X: @bennjordan
Instagram: @bennjordan
Mastodon: @bennjordan@mastodon.social

Rick Wilson is on X @TheRickWilson, Bluesky @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and Substack at therickwilson.substack.com.

More from LP at www.lincolnproject.us and on X @ProjectLincoln.

TRUMP IS BURNING $300 MILLION ON HIMSELF WHILE HIS OWN PARTY DROWNS — AND THE GOP IS TERRIFIED💸🔥🚨 Aug 28, 2026

Show notes

This week's EITR is not surprising. It’s that Trump is going to make the 2026 elections all about him, and it’s not going to work. Rick breaks down Trump's plan to spend MAGA Inc.'s war chest on a national ad campaign centered on himself rather than the vulnerable Republicans who need the help most. Rick talks about how this strategy only worked when Trump's numbers were sky-high — now that strong support has collapsed, claims of a booming economy land flat against real pain at the pump and in farm country. He also tells the story of MAGA Inc. as less a normal PAC than a Trump family fund that's helped cover his own legal bills, leaving candidates like Ken Paxton and Jon Husted to fend for themselves. Rick calls for voters to see through what's coming next: a grievance narrative building toward a "stolen election" excuse, set against a backdrop of real failures in Iran, a drained strategic oil reserve, and instability abroad, in 2026 and beyond.
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Rick Wilson is on X @TheRickWilson, Bluesky @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and Substack at therickwilson.substack.com.

More from LP at www.lincolnproject.us and on X @ProjectLincoln.

#EITR #ETTD #RickWilson #LincolnProject #MAGAInc #TrumpApproval #Midterms2026 #SusanCollins #JonHusted #KenPaxton #StrategicPetroleumReserve #GOP #OperationEpicFailure

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