The Gist
Mike Pesca
The Gist with Mike Pesca. A daily evening show about news, culture, and whatever else you'll be discussing with friends and family tonight.
- 40 minutes 22 secondsFinding the Next Terry Gross with Daniel Oppenheimer
In this special Saturday edition, Mike sits down with Daniel Oppenheimer of Eminent Americans to tackle a high-stakes question: Who is worthy of the Fresh Air throne? They dissect the craft of interviewing, critique the "unprepared celebrity" podcast trend, and evaluate potential successors ranging from Colin McEnroe to Jon Ronson.
Produced by Corey Wara
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13 December 2025, 5:00 pm - 42 minutes 52 secondsShadi Hamid: The Left Should Learn to Love American Power
Shadi Hamid joins to discuss his new book, The Case for American Power, arguing that progressives' retreat from global engagement is a mistake. He contends that while the Left often views U.S. hegemony as intrinsically immoral—citing the legacy of Iraq and the tragedy in Gaza—the alternative of withdrawal often leads to greater atrocities, such as the unchecked devastation in Syria. Hamid makes the case that moral righteousness without power is toothless, and that ceding the global stage to bad actors or rival superpowers creates a more dangerous world. Plus, Mike critiques the Sunday show trend of grilling Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on the price of bananas and Tonka trucks, arguing that "gotcha" questions about specific items ignore the reality of inflation as a composite number.
Produced by Corey Wara
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12 December 2025, 11:00 pm - 1 hour 3 minutesNot Even Mad: Anthony Weiner & John Ketcham
Anthony Weiner and John Ketcham break down a Congress being flayed by its own fringes, where the "crazies" sometimes deliver the sharpest institutional critiques. They then assess Pete Hegseth and the possible release video of a lethal Caribbean boat strike, the challenges reshaping New York politics, and what it really means to govern a city you once nearly ran. Goat Grinders takes on Waymo running over a dog , taxing pet food and fare-evasion crackdowns.
Produced by Corey Wara
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11 December 2025, 11:00 pm - 27 minutes 42 secondsHoliday Suicides: Is That BS? with Sadie Dingfelder
Holiday dread is real enough—fraught family gatherings, forced merriment, and the persistent myth that December is the peak month for suicide. In truth, it's the lowest month for suicides, even as the season brings elevated risks of car crashes, cardiac emergencies, and alcohol-related ER visits. Sadie Dingfelder joins for an Is That Bulls**t? to explain why winter depression rises even as suicide rates fall, and how the "holiday spike" myth keeps circulating. Plus: Trump's tariff rhetoric collides with economic reality, and Texas politics gets reshaped by counter-mobilization.
Produced by Corey Wara
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10 December 2025, 11:19 pm - 26 minutes 16 secondsMark Rowlands on Memory and the Stories We Tell Ourselves
The philosopher discusses The Book of Memory: How We Become Who We Are, exploring how recollection constructs identity, coherence, and the personas we inhabit. He explains why memory is less an archive than an act of ongoing authorship, shaped by emotion, imagination, and the stories we rehearse. The conversation traces the boundary between what we remember and what we invent. Also: art-heist incompetence from Brazil to France and in The Spiel a reckoning with how visual framing distorts our understanding of the Venezuelan airstrike scandal.
Produced by Corey Wara
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9 December 2025, 10:57 pm - 34 minutes 27 secondsDaniel Zoughbie: The Mightiest Turns an Enemy into a Friend
Daniel Zoughbie discusses Kicking the Hornet's Nest: U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East from Truman to Trump, arguing that Truman's one-sided recognition of Israel and decades of U.S. overreliance on defense distorted the region's trajectory. He traces missed off-ramps from Oslo to the Olmert–Abbas talks, explaining why partition remains the only durable framework for satisfying both nationalisms. Zoughbie recounts how polarization, trauma, and mistrust—along with U.S. missteps—undermine peace efforts even when viable plans emerge. Plus: Biden's rejected immigration tools, the inflation legacy of the American Rescue Plan, and a Spiel on Zohran Mamdani as the mispronounced word of the year.
Produced by Corey Wara
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8 December 2025, 11:08 pm - 33 minutes 43 secondsMike Pesca on the Vig, the Fix, and the John Goodman Thumb
On this Saturday edition, Mike Pesca joins the cast of Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone to explain the dopamine minefield of modern sports betting. He walks Paula and Adam Felber through the mechanics of the "vig," the absurdity of Cleveland pitchers throwing balls into the dirt to cover prop bets, and the time NBA legend Chauncey Billups unwittingly became a "face card" for a mob-run poker game involving marked contact lenses. They also workshop a betting ad campaign starring John Goodman as a sentient thumb and discuss why catching the mechanical rabbit leads to existential dread for greyhounds and podcasters alike.
Produced by Corey Wara
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6 December 2025, 5:00 pm - 1 hour 3 minutesFunny You Should Mention: Mohanad Elshieky
Mohanad Elshieky joins Funny You Should Mention with stories that make Benghazi feel less like a political Rorschach test and more like the small town where he learned comedy by roasting his siblings and dodging unlicensed militias. He walks us through the dictatorship-era silence around politics, the sudden rise of ISIS-adjacent checkpoints, and the knife-wielding "helper" who hijacked his car only to request a future hangout. We also dig into the Greyhound incident that vaulted him into national headlines, why clapter makes his skin crawl, and how Portland's well-meaning curiosity can feel like its own border crossing.
Produced by Corey Wara
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5 December 2025, 11:22 pm - 37 minutes 17 secondsTJ Raphael on the Liberty Godparent Trap and the Cost of Coercion
TJ Raphael, host of the series Liberty Lost, joins Mike to investigate the "Liberty Godparent Home"—a facility on Liberty University's campus where pregnant teens were allegedly pressured into adoption under the guise of spiritual redemption—and discuss why the financial incentives of the "adoption industrial complex" often cause the promise of open adoption to fall apart. Plus, Mike breaks down President Trump's "pardoning fiesta" and does the "Cocaine Math" on whether federal prosecutors are getting high on their own sentencing statistics.
Produced by Corey Wara
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4 December 2025, 11:09 pm - 37 minutes 25 secondsRachel McCarthy James on Axe Murder, Salad Spinners, and the Hat-Brim Line
True crime historian Rachel McCarthy James joins to talk about Whack Job: A History of Axe Murder, tracing humanity's relationship between axe and skull, where questions about Axe-related word play are axed and answered. Then the show pivots to how algorithms elevate the most loathed spokespeople on every hot-button issue, from Riley Gaines to Jasmine Crockett and Greta Thunberg, and why our brains can't easily separate "the person" from "the cause." Finally in the Spiel Mike discusses Marjorie Taylor Greene, Zohran Mamdani, and whether renouncing past rhetoric—be it "Jewish space lasers" or NYPD boots laced by the IDF—should earn politicians anything more than a provisional, closely watched second chance.
Produced by Corey Wara
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3 December 2025, 11:05 pm - 32 minutes 11 secondsDaniel Brook & Brandy Schillace: The Sex Expert Who Scared Hitler
Daniel Brook and Brandy Schillace trace the life and legacy of Magnus Hirschfeld, the so-called "Einstein of Sex," from his pioneering Institute for Sexual Science to the Nazis parading his severed likeness at the 1933 book burning. They dig into the longer prehistory of Weimar queer politics and antisemitism, discussing how obsessions with masculinity and "degeneracy" turned sexuality into a political weapon. Plus: Donald Trump's astonishing pardon of convicted Honduran ex-president Juan Orlando Hernández, and a spiel on what Marjorie Taylor Greene's resignation actually says about her district.
Produced by Corey Wara
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2 December 2025, 11:18 pm - More Episodes? Get the App