Day: January 22, 2026

Republicans Try to Discredit Jack Smith’s Testimony While Trump Calls Him “A Deranged Animal” But Smith Made Clear He Will Not Be Intimidated

We begin with today’s public testimony from Jack Smith who House Republicans tried to discredit while Trump called him a “deranged animal” but Smith made it clear he will not be intimidated. Joining us is Lisa Graves, one of the nation’s foremost experts on the right-wing influence on the US Supreme Court and other levers of power. She leads True North Research and co-hosts Legal AF and has served as a senior advisor in all three branches of the federal government, as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department, as Chief Counsel for Nominations on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and as a Deputy Chief of the article 3 judges division for the U.S. Courts. She is the author of the new book, Without Precedent: How Chief Justice Roberts and His Accomplices Rewrote the Constitution and Dismantled Our Rights.

The Same Conditions That Dragged Down Biden To Defeat Are Now Weighing On Trump

Then we assess the latest polls from Times/Siena, CNN and The Economist/YouGov that find support for Trump from young Americans has done a U-turn and the same conditions that dragged down Biden to defeat are now weighing on Trump. We speak with Joseph Lowndes, a Professor of Political Science at Hunter College and Director of the Public Policy Program at the Roosevelt House at The City University of New York. An expert on conservatism, the Tea Party, social movements, the GOP, race and elections, he is the author of From the New Deal to the New Right: Race and the Southern Origins of Modern Conservatism, and co-author of Producers, Parasites, Patriots: Race and the New Right-Wing Politics of Precarity.

House and Senate Democratic Leaders Appear Unwilling to Go To the Mat to Reform ICE

Then finally, with the Democratic House and Senate leaders unwilling to got to mat to reform ICE, we speak with Will Bunch, national opinion columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer and author of several books, including The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, Paranoia Politics and High-Def Hucksters in the Age of Obama, and The Bern Identity: A Search for Bernie Sanders and the New American Dream. He has won numerous journalism awards and shared the Pulitzer Prize and we discuss his latest article at the Philadelphia Inquirer, “When Will Democrats Realize That You Can’t Reform Fascism?”