The News Items Podcast

Charlie Cook, founder of the Cook Political Report, joins The News Items Podcast to discuss the upcoming midterm elections and the phenomenon he describes as the "red undertow,” why Democrats shouldn’t be too quick to celebrate on election night, and key races to watch.

Last May, John talked with Josh Tyrangiel about his book, 'AI for Good'. A lot has happened since then. The pace of AI's development has accelerated dramatically. The Hugging Face Hack and the PHP vulnerability revelations became major stories and reiterated for all of us just how treacherous AI can and will be. 
So we called him up and asked him to do another podcast about those two stories and the AI "story" more generally. Like all the good podcasts, it's really good when the guest is great. Josh is great. 
Profile: Josh Tyrangiel is a writer for The Atlantic. He was previously the editor of Bloomberg Businessweek and chief content officer for Bloomberg Media. A twelve-time Emmy and Peabody Award–winning producer, he created Vice News Tonight on HBO and has produced numerous feature-length documentaries for HBO, Netflix, and Apple TV. These days, when he's not writing for The Atlantic, he oversees the production of "Instadocs" on Netflix. The one on the Hugging Face Hack is terrific.

Hosted by John Ellis
News Items on Substack
Produced by Katerina Barton

Jim Messina, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff to President Obama and the manager of his re-election campaign in 2012, joins The News Items Podcast to discuss the midterm elections. From the the "macro" political environment to the rural vote in the critical Senate races, to the map that leans Republican to a referendum to outlaw "dark money" in Montana, it's a "wide-ranging"  conversation, well worth your time.
News-Items.com
Hosted by John Ellis

John Heilemann joins the News Items podcast to discuss the upcoming midterm elections. The conversation focuses on the challenges facing Republican candidates across the country. Heilemann notes that Republicans are actively "trimming" their electoral Congressional map, pulling resources from districts they once considered competitive. Meanwhile, Democrats are expanding their map of House, Senate and gubernatorial races. The big question is whether the GOP can hold the Senate in a very tough political environment. The conversation then moves on to discuss what the political environment might look like after the mid-terms.
News-Items.com
Hosted by John Ellis
Produced by Katerina Barton

Benn Steil, director of international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, joins John Ellis to examine why the postwar global economic order is under growing strain, and how China sits at the center of that story. Steil traces the evolution from Bretton Woods and GATT to the WTO, arguing that China’s integration into the global trading system created enormous benefits while also exposing deep tensions between different economic models. The conversation covers the first “China shock,” tariffs, cheap Chinese steel, and the difficulty of economically disentangling the United States and China. Steil also explains why the dollar remains dominant, how stablecoins could actually reinforce that dominance, and why Chinese subsidies in EVs and artificial intelligence present a new competitive challenge. Finally, Ellis and Steil discuss what it really means to “win” the AI race—and whether U.S. trade and economic policy has a coherent strategy for getting there.
News-Items.com
Hosted by John Ellis
Produced by Dale Eisinger