Kids who are anxious about the news might not need to hear less — they might need to know more. Tracy Kaplan, creator of The 10 News (a podcast for kids and families ages 8-12), has spent six years helping kids make sense of everything from the Russia-Ukraine war to gun violence to banned books. What she's learned about talking to kids about hard news is useful for parents too.
Topics discussed:
Why kids' anxiety about the news is often rooted in a knowledge gap, not the news itself
How The 10 News covers scary topics like school shootings — and why vagueness can be worse than directness
What kids actually want to know more about (spoiler: more politics, not less)
How to cover hard stories without being condescending
The shift toward more international coverage over six years
What it looks like to watch a generation of kids grow up through the news

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One of the hardest parts of paying attention to international news is wondering: what can I, one person, do about this? Today's guest, Gwyn Ridenhour, asked herself that question and answered in an extraordinary way. She moved to Lviv, Ukraine, to put books in the hands of children living through the war. Her project, Vinok Libraries, is small and specific and a quiet wonder. Today, she tells us about the work she's doing and how we can help.
Topics discussed:
What drew Gwyn to Ukraine — and why she moved there during the war
How Vinok Libraries works: sourcing books, shipping them to Ukraine, distributing to schools
The language politics of children's books in Ukraine (Ukrainian, English, and the gap)
Delivering books near the front line and what that looked like in person
What $500 means to a school that's been bombed
The bookmobile dream and how to support it

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While Sarah's on summer break, Beth talks with writer and urban planner Angie Schmitt about giving yourself permission to feel lighter about the news this summer, then digs into what's gone wrong with how American cities and neighborhoods are built for kids — from car-dependent suburbs to vanishing teen hangouts.

Topics discussed:

• Taking an emotional break from the news without checking out entirely
• ICE shootings, cabinet confirmation hearings, and the Iran war
• Why car-dependent neighborhoods limit kids' independence
• The nationwide school bus driver shortage
• Disappearing teen hangouts and rules around unsupervised kids
• How lawsuit-aversion backfires on children's wellbeing
• Rebuilding civic infrastructure — rec leagues, public pools, community schools
• Book recommendations: Shiloh and The Sheep Detectives

Join us in Minneapolis on August 29th for a live show and after party — details and tickets at pantsuitpoliticsshow.com

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Beth is joined by guest host Alex McCoy, a progressive organizer focused on holding Big Tech accountable, for a conversation about what breaks trust and how to rebuild it. They start with what the collapse of the Graham Platner campaign reveals about the progressive movement's relationship with imperfect candidates, then turn to the accountability vacuum around AI — who's making decisions about our jobs, our data, and our lives, and why almost nobody is calling their member of Congress about it.

Topics discussed:

• Graham Platner's Senate campaign collapse and what it means for progressive candidate recruitment
• Trust, accountability, and the "the groups are the problem" debate in Democratic politics
• What voters actually want from elected officials
• AI's growing role in hiring, firing, workplace surveillance, and government decisions
• The AI industry's political spending and lobbying power
• How to actually get your member of Congress to pay attention to AI
• Alex McCoy's immersive medieval battle reenactment hobby

Beth talked with Alex about the kind of in-person community his medieval weekends create — that's exactly what's waiting in Minneapolis on August 29. Grab tickets here.

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Beth sits down with Lauren Pinkston, an independent candidate for governor of Tennessee, on the same day Governor Beshear sent Senator Mitch McConnell a letter asking about his month-long hospitalization. They use that story, plus Graham Platner's exit from the Maine Senate race, to get at something bigger: what "honor" means in public life when authenticity and elitism both fall short. Then they turn to what that looks like in practice — data centers, classrooms, and a possible return of family dinners to the governor's residence.

Topics discussed:

• Transparency and elected officials' health, from Mitch McConnell to Tom Kean Jr.
• Graham Platner's exit from the Maine Senate race and what it says about party incentives
• Elitism, authenticity, and what "honor" means in public service
• Money in politics and running a campaign without party infrastructure
• A proposed moratorium on data centers in Tennessee
• Rebuilding public education: vouchers, Montessori models, screen time, and special education
• Parenting lessons Lauren brings to how she'd govern

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Sarah's on summer break this week, so Beth sits down with chef, culinary historian, and seventh-grade history teacher Mica Chavez to trace how food actually built the world we live in — from the Columbian Exchange and the science behind corn, to slavery, immigration, and the industrial food system we're stuck with today.

Topics discussed:

• The Columbian Exchange: how corn, chili, potatoes, and tomatoes reshaped diets on both sides of the Atlantic
• The science of nixtamalization — why New World corn didn't wreck teeth the way Old World wheat did
• How chili peppers spread across the globe via birds
• The Irish potato famine's surprising link to New Mexico settlement history
• Indigenous and Spanish foodways merging in the Southwest: acequias, sheep, and companion planting
• How mechanization and post-WWII food policy created the mass-produced, processed food system
• Precision farming, AI, and the tension between efficiency and sustainability
• What to cook this summer (hint: it's pie)

Speaking of good food and good company — the Minneapolis live show after party has both! Get your tickets here.

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For America's 250th, we asked Ezra Klein what freedom actually requires of us — and he took us somewhere we didn't expect: attention. We get into why the older idea of freedom was about self-mastery, not just endless choice, and what that means for how we live, parent, and govern right now. It's a Fourth of July conversation about virtue, institutions, and whether we can still build something new.
Topics discussed:
• The vision of abundance and why the future is so hard to imagine
• Attention as a collective resource — and why ours is deranged
• Freedom as choice vs. freedom as self-mastery
• Virtue, vice, and the illiberal moment
• Institutional trust, corruption, and the education debate
• Natalism, AI, and whether we're living through an aberration
• Outside of Politics: which founder would make the best podcast guest
Resources mentioned:
• Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson https://bookshop.org/a/124929/9781668023488
• Why We're Polarized by Ezra Klein
https://bookshop.org/a/124929/9781476700366
• The Lost History of Liberalism by Helena Rosenblatt
https://bookshop.org/a/124929/9780691203966
• The Pursuit of Happiness by Jeffrey Rosen https://bookshop.org/a/124929/9781668002483
• The British Are Coming by Rick Atkinson
https://bookshop.org/a/124929/9781250231321
• "Now Is a Time of Monsters" by Ezra Klein, The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/12/opinion/ai-climate-change-low-birth-rates.html?eafs_enabled=false

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We're celebrating America 250 with three-time Pulitzer winner Rick Atkinson, whose Revolution Trilogy strips the reverence off the founding to show what was actually there: the first American civil war, a continent of human loss, and a republic that has weathered worse than this. Outside of Politics, the most important question of the summer: what's your favorite fair food?
Topics discussed:
The Revolution as America's first civil war
Why Britain lost a war it was expected to win — and the role of allies
The human cost: Valley Forge and the letters of Sergeant Oliver Reed
The women of the Revolution and "remember the ladies"
Reliable and unreliable narrators in history
American exceptionalism, reconsidered
Outside of Politics: the glory of fair food
Want the full America 250 series, including our premium Good Morning and More to Say episodes? Join our community at pantsuitpoliticsshow.com.

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After a wave of June primaries, the question isn't just whether democratic socialism is winning — it's what it's actually offering. Beth and Sarah pull apart the electoral story (charisma, anti-establishment energy, and a generational shift on Israel) from the policy story: where collective approaches have something real to contribute, where capitalism still delivers, and the third thing Trump is quietly building that nobody's naming.
Topics discussed:
- The Mamdani effect and the June primary results across four states
- Why Mamdani spent political capital endorsing three House races
- The generational shift on Israel and the "Ossoff off-ramp"
- How the DSA and the IMF each define their economic vision
- Where markets fail (caregiving, healthcare) and where capitalism still works
- "State-guided capitalism" and what Trump is actually building
- Billionaires as a manifestation of the system, not the cause
- Outside Politics: Confessions of a know-it-all and getting "fired" by your doctor
Next week is the big one — our America 250 celebration, with Good Morning from 1776, Founding Father karaoke, and two special episodes. Don't miss it: join us at pantsuitpoliticsshow.com

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From a $14.5 million paint job peeling off the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to a sitting vice president's conversion memoir, this episode is about the distance between what leaders perform and what they actually deliver. Sarah and Beth dig into rushed, made-for-TV governance, Keir Starmer's resignation one day before Brexit's tenth anniversary, and the Washington Post's bombshell reporting on faith and power in American politics.
Topics discussed:
- The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool's makeover gone wrong
- Keir Starmer's resignation and Brexit at ten
- What the center-left can learn from Europe's leadership turnover
- The Washington Post investigation into Tulsi Gabbard and the Science of Identity Foundation
- JD Vance's conversion memoir, Communion
- Sincere faith vs. faith as a political tool — Hegseth, Talarico, and Beshear
- Where a faith advisor ends and a political advisor begins
- Pantsuit Politics featured in the Washington Post
Our America 250 celebrations — the murder mystery parties and the Film Club — are all happening over on Substack. Join us at pantsuitpoliticsshow.com.

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The President announced a "deal" with Iran on his birthday, between a UFC fight and a crypto promotion — except it isn't a deal, it's a memorandum of understanding, which is a fancy way of saying nobody agreed to much of anything yet. Sarah and Beth get into what's actually happening in Iran, then turn to a Pew Research framework that breaks the country into nine political types instead of two parties. Plus: the surprisingly useful rule about when it's worth staying up late.
Topics discussed:
- The Iran "deal" that's really a memorandum of understanding
- Why JD Vance looks set up to take the fall if it collapses
- What we actually know (and don't) about who's in charge in Tehran
- Pew Research's nine political "types" and the death of simple red vs. blue
- Taking the typology quiz live — and Sarah's and Beth's results
- The progressive litmus test and the voters Democrats leave on the table
- A rule for bedtime: don't stay up for anything you wouldn't wake at 5 a.m. to do
Took the Pew quiz and want to compare results with people who think about this as hard as you do? That conversation is happening in our premium community at pantsuitpoliticsshow.com.

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