How to Stay Ahead of Trump on Epstein
The Catturd Deficit
Read more: Trump Keeps Demanding that You Stop Talking about His Jeffrey Epstein Problem If Dems Successfully Message on News Outlets Lefty Pundits No Longer Read, Did It Ever Happen?
info_outline
How Trump Wants to Solve His Ghislaine Maxwell Problem
The Catturd Deficit
Marcy Wheeler looks deeper into news that Trump's former defense attorney, now the deputy attorney general, will reach out to Ghislaine Maxwell. She lays out how Trump is orchestrating a cover-up scheme to protect himself from damaging Epstein revelations by getting Ghislaine Maxwell out of prison through a cooperation deal that will target his political opponents instead.
info_outline
Another Squirrel to Chase
The Catturd Deficit
Donald Trump was desperately trying to regain his superpower, attempting to grab attention and refocus it. He ended up on an Obama conspiracy theory that's already been re-litigated five times. Read more at emptywheel: https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/07/18/tulsi-gabbard-accuses-kash-patel-of-covering-up-for-the-obama-deep-state/
info_outline
The Failing Superpower of Epstein's Buddy
The Catturd Deficit
emptywheel's Marcy Wheeler explains that the bubbling Jeffrey Epstein scandal is about two things: the underlying scandal and any ties Trump has to it, and the way it has disrupted Trump’s normal super power ability to command and direct attention. Read more: Jeffrey Epstein Is about Trump’s Failing Ability to Command Attention https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/07/13/jeffrey-epstein-is-about-command-of-attention/
info_outline
How the Right Abuses Language
The Catturd Deficit
Marcy Wheeler explains the crucial distinctions in how liberals and the right-wing use language, the role of journalism, and the impact of amplifying polarizing messages. See how journalists act as data mules for Trump's truth social posts and the broader. And find out how FEMA's failures present an opportunity to build solidarity in everyone victimized by the regime's malicious ineptitude.
info_outline
MAGA Demands the "Real" Epstein Files
The Catturd Deficit
Find out more: https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/07/07/pam-bondi-admits-she-must-fire-kash-patel-and-dan-bongino/
info_outline
Trump's Trolls' Turn
The Catturd Deficit
Marcy Wheeler digs deeper into the Catturd Deficit that allows white supremacists to use Xitter to rig the news. Then she looks at how Trump's illegal war on Iran has created unprecedented fractures in his base, from Russian useful idiots like Marjorie Taylor Greene to anti-Semitic voices like Candace Owens, and even convicted January 6th participants like Joe Biggs. She explores how to exploit these cracks using the same tactics that got Trump elected, turning his own troll army's playbook against them.
info_outline
Should the left take on Elon’s Twitter?
The Catturd Deficit
X in 2025 is a , an undeniable Nazi bar filled with people who don't know the rule about what to do when a Nazi comes into a bar. Yet its influence has never been greater. It's Elon Musk's megaphone and MAGA's primary digital outreach vector, especially when it comes to spinning lies in real time, such as they are trying to do in attempting to brand the Donald Trump-loving murderer in Minnesota as a Marxist. emptywheel's Marcy Wheeler explains how the site became the machine for fascism, why she still uses it, and some promising angles of attack. Follow Marcy emptywheel...
info_outline
Next Comes What?
The Catturd Deficit
This podcast has ended for now. But the work continues uses history to tell us about what comes next. And what to do about it. It's hosted by Andrea Pitzer and produced by me. If you want to know how we got into this mess, check out . Thanks for listening.
info_outline
“What Most Americans Want” with Andrea Pitzer
The Catturd Deficit
The woman who wrote the definitive global history of concentration camps explains how this could be our moment to escape authoritarianism Andrea Pitzer’s book became essential reading during Donald Trump’s presidency. This unforgettable global history of concentration camps provided clarity and context to the crimes the Trump administration was committing at the border in our names. Now, Pitzer is back with a gripping new newsletter, , and a warning about what could come next. “In terms of what I've looked at in my own work from history, what I have found is that often,...
info_outlineIt is almost impossible to comprehend Donald Trump's political rise and fall and rise without the work of Kevin M. Kruse.
Kevin is a historian who specializes in segregation and the civil rights movement, the rise of religious nationalism, and the making of modern conservatism. He co-edited the book Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Legends and Lies of Our Past and is the author of White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism and One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America.
His scholarship makes him the perfect person to discuss the RNC, the DNC, and the whitewashing of January 6th. He also has exceptional insights into the wild significance of the first Black woman presidential candidate taking on an insurrectionist casino owner from Queens who has become the braying avatar of Christian Nationalism and the Southern Strategy.
And Kevin’s passion for myth-busting makes him the perfect person to pierce the BS histories reactionaries invent to justify their victimhood and their support for the ultimate victim, Donald Trump.
You’re probably already following him on Bluesky and Threads where he makes both apps worth joining.
I also have to personally thank Kevin for boosting Downballot for Democracy, our effort to ensure people know the smartest places to put their money so freedom wins in November. We’re nearing $50,000 raised, and we couldn’t have done a tenth of that without him.
Catch up on all the episodes of “How are you feeling about democracy?” here.