The Chuck ToddCast

Chuck Todd opens on the Wedgewood Polls scandal — a firm that admitted this week it fabricated its data as an “experiment,” after Mallory McMorrow says the fake numbers killed her Michigan Senate campaign. Chuck argues it’s worthy of a real investigation and that McMorrow should consider civil litigation. Then the main event: a NYT/Siena poll putting Democrats +11 on both the generic House and Senate ballots, with a clean sweep on issue favorability. At D+11, Chuck says Democrats net 40-50 House seats and win Ohio, Texas, Maine, Iowa and Alaska. The generational numbers are the ones that should terrify the GOP — only 15% of voters under 30 and 20% of millennials identify as Republican, and this electorate would have given Kamala Harris a 3-point win. Plus: Vance defending Ramaswamy’s Ohio ad on the grounds that all tactics are fair if you win. Finally, he answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment and previews the weekend in college football. 18+ only. Restrictions and eligibility requirements…

Chuck Todd opens on the Wedgewood Polls scandal — a firm that admitted this week it fabricated its data as an “experiment,” after Mallory McMorrow says the fake numbers killed her Michigan Senate campaign. Chuck argues it’s worthy of a real investigation and that McMorrow should consider civil litigation. Then the main event: a NYT/Siena poll putting Democrats +11 on both the generic House and Senate ballots, with a clean sweep on issue favorability. At D+11, Chuck says Democrats net 40-50 House seats and win Ohio, Texas, Maine, Iowa and Alaska. The generational numbers are the ones that should terrify the GOP — only 15% of voters under 30 and 20% of millennials identify as Republican, and this electorate would have given Kamala Harris a 3-point win. Plus: Vance defending Ramaswamy’s Ohio ad on the grounds that all tactics are fair if you win. Wall Street journalist William D. Cohan — author of the New York Times bestseller Money to Burn, on Leon Black and the rise of Apollo — joins the Chuck ToddCast to…

Wall Street journalist William D. Cohan — author of the New York Times bestseller Money to Burn, on Leon Black and the rise of Apollo — joins the Chuck ToddCast to connect the dots between media consolidation, private equity, and the opaque corner of finance the ToddCast has been chasing since the Lakers special report. Cohan explains why Skydance needs CNN’s cash flow to service $80 billion in debt, why Trump may kill Nexstar’s bid for ABC out of spite toward Disney, and how a sports franchise purchase actually gets financed — including whether Mark Walter bought the Dodgers or insurance premiums did. On Black, Cohan had extensive access: Black maintains the hundreds of millions he paid Epstein were for tax and estate planning, and an investigation he commissioned found no nefarious activity, though Cohan is skeptical anyone pays that much for tax advice. His closing warning echoes Chuck’s: after 2008 regulators pushed risky assets outside the banks, and the new shadow banking system is barely regulated at…

Chuck Todd argues corruption may be the Democrats’ best closing argument, drawing the 2006 parallel: the Mark Foley scandal gave Republican voters permission to vote against their own party, and tying the cost of living to a kleptocracy could do the same thing now. He’s bullish on the Senate, puts a blue tsunami at 15-20%, and points to Péter Magyar’s Hungary campaign as proof the corruption argument works. The Musk-Starshield reporting sharpens it — the richest man in the world appears to be shaping American foreign policy while funding Ken Paxton after every other donor walked away. Then Ohio: a video featuring Amy Acton’s estranged mother calling her a liar, from a woman who stayed married to the man Acton says raped her at twelve. Acton’s brother called it a despicable low; Ramaswamy’s campaign didn’t deny it and kept attacking her credibility. Finally, he updates his ToddCast Top 10 list of senate seats most likely to flip parties and answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment. For free and…

Chuck Todd argues corruption may be the Democrats’ best closing argument, drawing the 2006 parallel: the Mark Foley scandal gave Republican voters permission to vote against their own party, and tying the cost of living to a kleptocracy could do the same thing now. He’s bullish on the Senate, puts a blue tsunami at 15-20%, and points to Péter Magyar’s Hungary campaign as proof the corruption argument works. The Musk-Starshield reporting sharpens it — the richest man in the world appears to be shaping American foreign policy while funding Ken Paxton after every other donor walked away. Then Ohio: a video featuring Amy Acton’s estranged mother calling her a liar, from a woman who stayed married to the man Acton says raped her at twelve. Acton’s brother called it a despicable low; Ramaswamy’s campaign didn’t deny it and kept attacking her credibility. Then, Stateline executive editor Scott Greenberger joins the Chuck ToddCast to argue for a founder most Americans have never heard of. In The Forsaken Founder,…

Stateline executive editor Scott Greenberger joins the Chuck ToddCast to argue for a founder most Americans have never heard of. In The Forsaken Founder, Greenberger makes the case that Gouverneur Morris has as strong a claim to writing the Constitution as Madison does — he was the best writer among the founders, the one who drafted the final text, and the one who stood up most forcefully against slavery, calling the three-fifths clause a fatal flaw and warning the country could not remain half slave and half free. So why is he forgotten? Partly because he never sought the presidency, partly because he rubbed people the wrong way, and partly because the Virginians who won the presidency wrote the history. Greenberger also wrote a biography of Chester A. Arthur, and he and Todd get into the forgotten eras of American politics, the Garfield counterfactual, and why you never know you’re living through a political era until it’s over. Timeline: 00:00 Scott Greenberger joins The Chuck ToddCast 01:30 Why resurface…

With 14 days left, Chuck Todd & Chris Cillizza make the argument that should scare Republicans most: corruption has climbed to the number two or three issue, and unlike any other message, it hands a lifelong conservative permission to punish his own party without admitting he was ever wrong. The evidence is already in the ad buys — Trump appeared in 47% of Republican broadcast airings in May and 1% in October — even as he opens a nine-stop closing tour in Wichita and calls the polls rigged. Chuck and Chris dig into why his Senate coattails are a myth Republicans keep believing, read the Kalshi market where an Abbott-plus-Talarico split is the likeliest Texas outcome, and unpack the five-day implosion of press secretary Katie Zacharia. Then the hardest question either of them gets: if Democrats actually sweep, what does December look like? Chuck’s answer is paralysis inside both parties, a Schumer who won’t walk away, and a president who’s less a partisan than a dealmaker. Plus Ann Hornaday, Miami at No. 1,…

Chuck Todd argues the environment hasn’t moved an inch and the only real question is whether this is a Category 1 blue wave or a Category 5 tsunami — with Trump already running the blame game, pre-blaming Cornyn and Karl Rove for a Paxton loss. Democratic small-dollar fundraising is enormous, early voting shows higher Black and Latino engagement, and Todd sets the benchmark: 245 House seats is a governing majority, 220-225 isn’t. But the story he keeps circling is Starshield. Reporting indicates Musk pitched throttling Ukraine’s satellite system directly to Trump, who “agreed” — though Trump denies it, Musk points at the government, and two senior officials told CNN the order didn’t come from the president. Todd’s question is the one nobody’s answering: how much control does Elon Musk have over American foreign policy? Finally, he hops into the ToddCast Time Machine to revisit the stock market meltdown on Black Monday, how automation made the problem worse, and what lessons we can draw as we enter the age of…

Chuck Todd argues the environment hasn’t moved an inch and the only real question is whether this is a Category 1 blue wave or a Category 5 tsunami — with Trump already running the blame game, pre-blaming Cornyn and Karl Rove for a Paxton loss. Democratic small-dollar fundraising is enormous, early voting shows higher Black and Latino engagement, and Todd sets the benchmark: 245 House seats is a governing majority, 220-225 isn’t. But the story he keeps circling is Starshield. Reporting indicates Musk pitched throttling Ukraine’s satellite system directly to Trump, who “agreed” — though Trump denies it, Musk points at the government, and two senior officials told CNN the order didn’t come from the president. Todd’s question is the one nobody’s answering: how much control does Elon Musk have over American foreign policy? Then, Andy Lack — the former NBC News and MSNBC chairman who founded Mississippi Today and Deep South Today, and has now committed $12 million to nonprofit journalism — joins the Chuck…

Andy Lack — the former NBC News and MSNBC chairman who founded Mississippi Today and Deep South Today, and has now committed $12 million to nonprofit journalism — joins the Chuck ToddCast to explain why he went from running the most-watched news division in the world to building newsrooms in the Deep South. He argues Democrats simply don’t know how to talk to rural voters, white or Black, and describes a Mississippi that has made real gains in early education while still fighting brain drain and a sense of being stuck. On the business, Lack is clear-eyed: trust is the whole formula, video is essential, and the concentration of media ownership among billionaires and tech executives is a genuine threat. Plus what happens to medium-sized markets when the affiliate structure collapses, and why state and local government desperately needs watchdogs again. For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (980) 734-3985 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to askchapter.org/chuck / *Paid Partnership Chapter…

Kevin Harlan joins Chuck Todd and J.A. Adande for the final chapter of Dynastic's Green Bay Packers series. Growing up in Green Bay as the son of longtime Packers president Bob Harlan, Kevin witnessed the franchise's transformation firsthand. From the fading glory of Vince Lombardi's dynasty to the resurgence under Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers, Harlan offers a behind-the-scenes perspective on one of the most remarkable organizations in professional sports. Kevin shares untold stories about the Packers' financial struggles, the signing of Reggie White, the transformation of Lambeau Field, and the decisions that helped secure the franchise's future. He also reflects on the legendary Ice Bowl, the origins of the Lambeau Leap, and what makes Green Bay unlike any other NFL city. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd opens with Saturday’s fourth No Kings rally and the question of whether protest energy converts to turnout — noting the movement may now be more credible with voters than the Democratic Party itself. Then the story out of Pensacola Beach: ICE confronted four roofers repairing Hurricane Isaias damage at the Grand Marlin, and the men refused to come down until agents left, sending their paperwork down instead. Todd calls targeting hurricane recovery workers egregious and terrible politics with Hispanic voters, especially with families afraid to use storm shelters. The back half turns philosophical — Bill Kristol’s four leaders who’ve emerged as defenders of the world order (Zelenskyy, Magyar, Carney, Pope Leo) and Todd’s argument that America is perfectly capable of producing someone similar, if Democrats don’t mistake a midterm win for a mandate. Finally, he answers listeners’ questions in the Ask Chuck segment and previews a huge upcoming weekend in college football. Timeline: 00:00 Chuck Todd’s…

Chuck Todd opens with Saturday’s fourth No Kings rally and the question of whether protest energy converts to turnout — noting the movement may now be more credible with voters than the Democratic Party itself. Then the story out of Pensacola Beach: ICE confronted four roofers repairing Hurricane Isaias damage at the Grand Marlin, and the men refused to come down until agents left, sending their paperwork down instead. Todd calls targeting hurricane recovery workers egregious and terrible politics with Hispanic voters, especially with families afraid to use storm shelters. The back half turns philosophical — Bill Kristol’s four leaders who’ve emerged as defenders of the world order (Zelenskyy, Magyar, Carney, Pope Leo) and Todd’s argument that America is perfectly capable of producing someone similar, if Democrats don’t mistake a midterm win for a mandate. Then, Dr. Ayanna Howard — the former NASA JPL roboticist who became Spelman College’s 12th president in August — joins the Chuck ToddCast to argue America…

Dr. Ayanna Howard — the former NASA JPL roboticist who became Spelman College’s 12th president in August — joins the Chuck ToddCast to argue America needs a dedicated federal agency to oversee AI, regulated by specialty rather than treated as one monolithic technology. Her warning is pragmatic: without guardrails, the backlash after an inevitable bad event will be enormous. She explains why there is no such thing as general AI, why the technology is simultaneously oversold and improving fast, and why models trained on history risk writing marginalized groups out of it. On education, Howard argues critical thinking and basic learning skills matter more than ever, that COVID lockdowns damaged study and social skills in ways schools still haven’t addressed, and that the demographic cliff will force some universities to close. Plus: why America still hasn’t built a moon base. Timeline: 00:00 Dr. Ayanna Howard joins The Chuck ToddCast 02:30 From NASA to academia 05:15 The case for a new federal AI agency 08:45…

Chuck Todd maps a map that keeps getting worse for Republicans: they’re not defending Trump, and they’re trying to convince voters they aren’t Trump Republicans. Ohio is the firewall and the money is pouring in, while the GOP plays triage in Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and South Carolina and pulls funding from House incumbents. Chuck sees no sign of a blue mirage — consumer confidence is lower than at any point under Biden, a majority say they’re cutting back on spending, and no amount of Trump talking changes lived experience. He also hits Kimberly Guilfoyle’s forced resignation as ambassador to Greece, Katie Zacharia’s debut as press secretary, the federal search of Ilhan Omar’s home, and Elon Musk’s additional $276 million in political spending since July. Finally, Chuck presents his ToddCast Top 5 list… expanded to ten with the expanding map, of Governorships most likely to flip parties and answers listeners’ questions in the Ask Chuck segment. Timeline: 00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction 06:45 Republicans…

Chuck Todd maps a map that keeps getting worse for Republicans: they’re not defending Trump, and they’re trying to convince voters they aren’t Trump Republicans. Ohio is the firewall and the money is pouring in, while the GOP plays triage in Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and South Carolina and pulls funding from House incumbents. Chuck sees no sign of a blue mirage — consumer confidence is lower than at any point under Biden, a majority say they’re cutting back on spending, and no amount of Trump talking changes lived experience. He also hits Kimberly Guilfoyle’s forced resignation as ambassador to Greece, Katie Zacharia’s debut as press secretary, the federal search of Ilhan Omar’s home, and Elon Musk’s additional $276 million in political spending since July. Then, Washington Monthly editor-in-chief Paul Glastris joins the Chuck ToddCast to make the case that the entire college rankings industry is measuring the wrong thing. U.S. News rewards wealth, prestige, and exclusivity — guaranteeing the same 20 or 30…

Washington Monthly editor-in-chief Paul Glastris joins the Chuck ToddCast to make the case that the entire college rankings industry is measuring the wrong thing. U.S. News rewards wealth, prestige, and exclusivity — guaranteeing the same 20 or 30 schools top the list every year, institutions 95% of students can’t get into anyway. The Monthly ranks on what colleges actually do for the country, and this year debuted the first-ever Best Colleges for Rural America list. Number one is the University of West Alabama in Livingston, population 3,436, where students earn a median $64,122 four years out — roughly $26,500 more than a typical college would have produced. Glastris warns that rural nonprofit closures are creating genuine education deserts, that restrictions on foreign students have gutted school finances, and that fixing higher ed would fix a great deal of what ails the country. Timeline: 00:00 Paul Glastris joins The Chuck ToddCast 02:00 Why the rankings always crown the same elite schools 05:30 What…

Three weeks out from the midterms, the richest man on earth spent a weekend laundering a fabricated story about a Senate candidate’s mental health into the mainstream — and Chuck Todd and Chris Cillizza argue the desperation of it is the tell. They open on the smear campaign against James Talarico in Texas (PolitiFact rated it Pants on Fire; the Ohio facility at the center of it publicly stated he was never a patient), then widen out to what it means that Elon Musk owns both the megaphone and the checkbook — $276 million into the midterms since July. From there: whether Republicans are underestimating the size of this wave, the four-to-seven-point scandal penalty and how it prices Kansas, and a Kalshi-driven walk down the Senate ladder — why 52 seats is the bull probability case, 54 the bull possibility case, and Annie Andrews the most mispriced bet on the board. Plus three stories of an administration behaving like it expects to lose: Kimberly Guilfoyle on the brink in Athens, Hegseth’s plan to livestream a…

Three weeks out, Chuck Todd reads a Pew survey that gives Republicans nothing: Trump at 30% approval — his lowest of the second term and on par with where he sat after January 6th — Democrats up 44-36 on the generic ballot, and 44% of voters describing their vote as a vote against Trump. The enthusiasm gap is the number Todd keeps returning to, and his argument is that we may still be underestimating the size of this wave. He walks through why the close Senate races map almost perfectly onto the states Trump lost in the 2016 primaries, why Roger Marshall’s campaign reportedly has no paid staff, and why bad environments expose bad candidates. Plus Hegseth’s execution livestream, Trump’s Truth Social meltdown over the Nobel, and what a genuine blue wave would mean for both. Finally, Chuck hops into the ToddCast Time Machine to revisit the creation of the Bull Moose Party and its impact on both major parties, answers questions in the Ask Chuck segment and recaps the weekend in college football. Protect your…

Three weeks out, Chuck Todd reads a Pew survey that gives Republicans nothing: Trump at 30% approval — his lowest of the second term and on par with where he sat after January 6th — Democrats up 44-36 on the generic ballot, and 44% of voters describing their vote as a vote against Trump. The enthusiasm gap is the number Todd keeps returning to, and his argument is that we may still be underestimating the size of this wave. He walks through why the close Senate races map almost perfectly onto the states Trump lost in the 2016 primaries, why Roger Marshall’s campaign reportedly has no paid staff, and why bad environments expose bad candidates. Plus Hegseth’s execution livestream, Trump’s Truth Social meltdown over the Nobel, and what a genuine blue wave would mean for both. Then, AEI senior fellow James Pethokoukis — author of the Faster, Please! newsletter — joins the Chuck ToddCast to argue that America’s AI anxiety is the predictable product of two decades of shocks landing on an economy that’s been weak by…

AEI senior fellow James Pethokoukis — author of the Faster, Please! newsletter — joins the Chuck ToddCast to argue that America’s AI anxiety is the predictable product of two decades of shocks landing on an economy that’s been weak by historical standards. His central political point cuts against his own side of the argument: telling voters their fear is irrational is the worst possible strategy, and Silicon Valley is terrible at communicating with the public. He’s no more comfortable with Trump’s self-regulation approach, noting Congress has failed to pass even a privacy bill of rights and won’t touch AI in the next two years. His cautionary tale is nuclear power, where public aversion cost the country clean energy at scale while far more people died from fossil fuel pollution — and his warning is that AI companies shouldn’t be treated as weapons against China. Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/chuck.…

Chuck Todd opens with the Wall Street Journal's brutal profile of Scott Bessent — built on 30-plus interviews describing outbursts, a thrown briefing book he denies, and seven Senate-confirmed officials out the door when previous administrations lost zero to two. The 3-3-3 plan never materialized, the debt cleared $40 trillion, and Trump keeps giving him more. Chuck's read: the whole Cabinet has become mini-Trumps. He then gets into whoever's drip-releasing the Paxton tapes, Pritzker's $1 million check to Gina Hinojosa, and Mike Rogers breaking with Trump on Canada far too late. Finally, Chuck runs the historical numbers on whether Democrats can actually win six-plus Senate seats — with Iowa and Kansas as the real test of the wave theory and whether we’re not seeing a political realignment occurring in real time that could result in Democrats winning 270+ house seats. Finally, he answers listeners’ questions in the Ask Chuck segment and previews the upcoming weekend in college football. 18+ only.…

Chuck Todd opens with the Wall Street Journal's brutal profile of Scott Bessent — built on 30-plus interviews describing outbursts, a thrown briefing book he denies, and seven Senate-confirmed officials out the door when previous administrations lost zero to two. The 3-3-3 plan never materialized, the debt cleared $40 trillion, and Trump keeps giving him more. Chuck's read: the whole Cabinet has become mini-Trumps. He then gets into whoever's drip-releasing the Paxton tapes, Pritzker's $1 million check to Gina Hinojosa, and Mike Rogers breaking with Trump on Canada far too late. Finally, Chuck runs the historical numbers on whether Democrats can actually win six-plus Senate seats — with Iowa and Kansas as the real test of the wave theory and whether we’re not seeing a political realignment occurring in real time that could result in Democrats winning 270+ house seats. Then, Dmitri Mehlhorn — Democratic strategist, Atoll Society co-founder, and author of the new novel Archipelago of Light — joins the Chuck…

Dmitri Mehlhorn — Democratic strategist, Atoll Society co-founder, and author of the new novel Archipelago of Light — joins the Chuck ToddCast to walk through the war games he runs simulating a contested 2028 election. Three teams: Institutionalists, Nationalists, and Capitalists. The Nationalists win a lot of them, and the mechanics are grimly instructive — they pump up progressives to generate backlash, offer carrots and sticks to capital, and find that every norm broken makes the next break easier. Mehlhorn argues the midterms are the rehearsal: get voters accustomed to challenging results now, delegitimize the process before 2028, and exploit a speaker's latitude not to seat delegations if things are close. His core warning is that our biggest failure has been a failure of imagination — and that taking power back has to be the singular issue in 2028. Timeline: 00:00 Dmitri Mehlhorn joins The Chuck ToddCast 01:00The simulation, the three factions, and how it works 04:00 Why the Nationalists keep winning…

Under four weeks out, Chuck Todd argues this has been the strangest campaign season he can remember — not because Democrats are overperforming, but because of how Republicans are behaving. Red-state Democrats have successfully separated themselves from the national brand and are no longer disqualified simply for being Democrats. Meanwhile almost no Republicans have sought distance from an unpopular president, and Chuck argues GOP candidates in red states have simply forgotten how to persuade anyone. Trump has never been good at defending a record — only at blaming someone else — and in Texas there's no Democrat to blame. Now Trump's running against lived experience at the pump. Chuck points to Thom Tillis calling his Hegseth confirmation vote the biggest regret of his career, estimates 30 Republican senators would dump Trump on a secret ballot, and compares the party to passengers in a car with a drunk driver that nobody will take the keys from. Every race has gotten worse for Republicans except Maine — and…

Under four weeks out, Chuck Todd argues this has been the strangest campaign season he can remember — not because Democrats are overperforming, but because of how Republicans are behaving. Red-state Democrats have successfully separated themselves from the national brand and are no longer disqualified simply for being Democrats. Meanwhile almost no Republicans have sought distance from an unpopular president, and Chuck argues GOP candidates in red states have simply forgotten how to persuade anyone. Trump has never been good at defending a record — only at blaming someone else — and in Texas there's no Democrat to blame. Now Trump's running against lived experience at the pump. Chuck points to Thom Tillis calling his Hegseth confirmation vote the biggest regret of his career, estimates 30 Republican senators would dump Trump on a secret ballot, and compares the party to passengers in a car with a drunk driver that nobody will take the keys from. Every race has gotten worse for Republicans except Maine — and…

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Marcia Chatelain joins the Chuck ToddCast to discuss How Bright the Path Grows, out October 13th, which tells the story of the Black women who built the 1963 March on Washington and were then written out of it. There's abundant footage of the men who spoke that day; there's no class photo of the women who organized it. Chatelain's central figure is Anna Hedgeman, the march coordinator who noticed no women were scheduled to speak — the original plan had the wives of civil rights leaders simply take a bow. She argues sexism functioned not just as oppression but as deliberate political strategy, and makes the point most Americans miss: King's final speeches challenged capitalism itself, and conservatives who now celebrate "I Have a Dream" took decades to get there. Plus Rosa Parks' financial ruin, why reparations never breaks through, and whether AI will sanitize history further. Timeline: 00:00 Marcia Chatelain joins The Chuck ToddCast 01:00 Writing women back into the March on…

Chuck Todd and J.A. Adande trace Green Bay from the Ice Bowl and first Super Bowls through the post-Lombardi struggles and the franchise’s eventual rebirth with Brett Favre, Reggie White and Aaron Rodgers. The Green Bay Packers became an NFL dynasty under Vince Lombardi. But what happened when the man who built it left? It’s the story of how the Packers built a dynasty that endured across generations. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Twenty-eight days out, Chuck Todd and Chris Cillizza stress-test their own assumptions: if everything points one direction, what could still be wrong? They work through all three counterfactuals — the Republican money advantage, a polling miss, and the fact that it's October 6th and not November 2nd — and find the money argument weakest, since the GOP has owned the airwaves for six weeks with no discernible movement. That sets up the episode's central frame, borrowed from Charlie Cook: this is a red undertow, not a blue wave, because the fight is happening in light-red and formerly purple states where Republicans own the status quo and there's no Democrat left to blame. The weekend's five New York Times/Siena polls back it up — Talarico at 51 in Texas, Kansas tied, and Ashley Hinson clinging to a one-point lead in the race Chuck calls the most predictive on the board. He also floats a tinfoil-hat theory about who benefits from leaked audio making Ken Paxton look ungrateful, a day before Politico published…

A month out from the midterms, Chuck Todd separates the garbage polls from the real ones and lands on the NYT/Siena swing-state data: Democrats are winning or tied in Alaska, Iowa, and Kansas, Talarico is over 50, and Rob Sand holds a double-digit lead. His key insight is that voters aren't embracing Democrats — they're firing Republicans, with affordability driving everything and millennials the most squeezed group in the country. He also hits a Ken Paxton ad that basically says "support the team" without ever mentioning Paxton, Trump doxxing Tom Cotton over daylight saving time, and Hegseth's new Pentagon Office of Religious Affairs, announced at Quantico with the line that "the real battle is spiritual." Chuck calls that last one what happens in theocracies, and says Hegseth deserves impeachment. Finally, Chuck hops into the ToddCast Time Machine to revisit Earl Warren’s appointment as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and why it’s important for justices to have experience in the political system as…

A month out from the midterms, Chuck Todd separates the garbage polls from the real ones and lands on the NYT/Siena swing-state data: Democrats are winning or tied in Alaska, Iowa, and Kansas, Talarico is over 50, and Rob Sand holds a double-digit lead. His key insight is that voters aren't embracing Democrats — they're firing Republicans, with affordability driving everything and millennials the most squeezed group in the country. He also hits a Ken Paxton ad that basically says "support the team" without ever mentioning Paxton, Trump doxxing Tom Cotton over daylight saving time, and Hegseth's new Pentagon Office of Religious Affairs, announced at Quantico with the line that "the real battle is spiritual." Chuck calls that last one what happens in theocracies, and says Hegseth deserves impeachment. Then, Jennifer Palmieri — former Obama and Clinton communications director and host of Crooked Media's Long Play, the documentary series traveling six Southern states — joins the Chuck ToddCast to argue the South…

Jennifer Palmieri — former Obama and Clinton communications director and host of Crooked Media's Long Play, the documentary series traveling six Southern states — joins the Chuck ToddCast to argue the South is now the epicenter of American politics and Democrats have spent years writing it off. One-party rule has bred civic disengagement, she says, and the region gets treated as a monolith when it's anything but. Her sharpest point: Democrats are overinvesting in Maine and underinvesting in Mississippi, where Scott Colom has a real path. She also makes the case that if Greg Abbott loses, it'll be over education, that Gina Hinojosa is running a smart campaign, and that religion remains the biggest obstacle Democrats face in a region where life is faith, family, and football. Timeline: 00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction 02:15 Why the South became the epicenter of American politics 06:45 The South isn't a monolith — and Democrats keep treating it like one 14:15 No opposition, no primaries: what one-party rule does…

Chuck Todd opens with the attempted hijacking of a Dubai-to-Tel Aviv flight and the reminder that history turns as much on what almost happened as what did. With 33 days to the midterms, Ken Paxton got caught on tape at a private event calling Trump's midterm convention a negative — and is now in full cleanup mode, nervous about having crossed the president. Chuck returns to the Eric Schmitt debacle as a window into the intellectual rot of the Trump-era GOP: nobody in the room double-checked the facts, because loyalty is now valued over competence and the conclusion arrives before the evidence. He also unpacks Trump's White House AI summit, where six tech CEOs signed a one-page "morally binding" accord and Trump formally renamed AI "superintelligence" by executive order — a self-policing pact that does nothing for Republicans whose own voters are frightened of this technology. Finally, he answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment and previews the upcoming weekend in college football. 18+ only.…

Chuck Todd opens with the attempted hijacking of a Dubai-to-Tel Aviv flight and the reminder that history turns as much on what almost happened as what did. With 33 days to the midterms, Ken Paxton got caught on tape at a private event calling Trump's midterm convention a negative — and is now in full cleanup mode, nervous about having crossed the president. Chuck returns to the Eric Schmitt debacle as a window into the intellectual rot of the Trump-era GOP: nobody in the room double-checked the facts, because loyalty is now valued over competence and the conclusion arrives before the evidence. He also unpacks Trump's White House AI summit, where six tech CEOs signed a one-page "morally binding" accord and Trump formally renamed AI "superintelligence" by executive order — a self-policing pact that does nothing for Republicans whose own voters are frightened of this technology. Then, Florida State Rep. Angie Nixon — the Jacksonville union organizer and DSA member who upset Alex Vindman in the Senate primary…

Florida State Rep. Angie Nixon — the Jacksonville union organizer and DSA member who upset Alex Vindman in the Senate primary despite being outraised roughly 16-to-1 — joins the Chuck ToddCast. She explains how she got into politics through community organizing, why she associates with the DSA while not agreeing with everything it wants, and argues Democrats lost Florida because they divested from the state after 2018 rather than because of ideology. She describes being assigned a basement office with rats as punishment in Tallahassee, calls the Florida legislature pay-to-play but still workable, and lays out what she'd do in the Senate: repeal the Big Beautiful Bill, extend ACA subsidies, get big money out of politics, and fund HBCUs. She won't commit to voting for Chuck Schumer. 18+ only. Restrictions and eligibility requirements apply. Event contract trading involves significant risk and is not appropriate for everyone. Please carefully consider if it is appropriate for you in light of your personal…

Chuck Todd opens by correcting Jon Stewart, who made him a punchline Monday — before turning to the circus at Tuesday's Jack Smith hearing. Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt, a potential 2028 VP pick, thought he'd caught Smith perjuring himself with text messages placing him at an Atlanta Hawks game the day after the Fani Willis affair broke. Smith was at an Iowa Hawkeyes women's game in Maryland. Klobuchar spotted the mix-up, Schmitt never backtracked, and Chuck's point is the deeper one: Schmitt decided the conclusion before the evidence and displayed exactly the confirmation bias he was accusing Smith of. If evidence can't change your worldview, what's the point of evidence? The second half is a substantive argument that the voucher experiment has hit a dead end — it never moved low-income kids into private schools, it mostly subsidized families already paying tuition, and school funding may be a real reason Republicans lose in November. He also explains why focusing on improving pre-k through 3rd grade…

Chuck Todd opens by correcting Jon Stewart, who made him a punchline Monday — before turning to the circus at Tuesday's Jack Smith hearing. Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt, a potential 2028 VP pick, thought he'd caught Smith perjuring himself with text messages placing him at an Atlanta Hawks game the day after the Fani Willis affair broke. Smith was at an Iowa Hawkeyes women's game in Maryland. Klobuchar spotted the mix-up, Schmitt never backtracked, and Chuck's point is the deeper one: Schmitt decided the conclusion before the evidence and displayed exactly the confirmation bias he was accusing Smith of. If evidence can't change your worldview, what's the point of evidence? The second half is a substantive argument that the voucher experiment has hit a dead end — it never moved low-income kids into private schools, it mostly subsidized families already paying tuition, and school funding may be a real reason Republicans lose in November. He also explains why focusing on improving pre-k through 3rd grade…

CNN chief political correspondent Dana Bash joins the Chuck ToddCast to discuss The Elections That Changed the World, out September 22nd, which she wrote with David Fisher. The fifteen elections she chose stretch from Julius Caesar — who ran partly because he was deeply indebted and didn't want to be prosecuted — to Nelson Mandela, and "election" is defined loosely enough to include Pope John XXIII's selection and Martin Luther King's informal elevation to lead the Montgomery bus boycott. The through-line is money: wealth shaped nearly every one of them, from the Magna Carta to Caesar effectively buying votes. Bash's larger point is that you rarely know in the moment how consequential a vote will be — Germany in 1932 was a revolution disguised as an election. Plus her five favorite 2026 races, why Michigan is fascinating, and what it's like covering a second-term Trump White House. Timeline: (Timestamps may vary based on advertisements) 00:00 Dana Bash joins The Chuck ToddCast 01:00 Why write "The Elections…

Thirty-five days out, Chuck Todd and Chris Cillizza open on a president playing the hits: Trump spent the weekend at a football game and a golf tournament, then announced his campaign tour kicks off in Durant, Oklahoma and Mobile, Alabama — the site of his first mega-rally in 2015 — rather than anywhere control of Congress is being decided. The more consequential move was rejecting Iran's seven-day truce offer to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, an exit ramp every Republican in a tough race is publicly begging for; Brent jumped above $107 on the news. That sets up the episode's best segment: a truth-serum run through every competitive Senate race asking which Republicans would actually stand next to Trump — and why the answer across Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska is no, because the damage there is his own tariff and diesel policy. Plus the Senate Leadership Fund's $118 million bet on Ken Paxton, a candidate who's spent under $1 million himself; Fetterman's "lifelong Republican" slip; why Murkowski's calculus runs…

Chuck Todd zeroes in on a president who has become the entire election: Trump spent the weekend at a football game and a golf tournament while Americans struggle, announced he'd rejected an Iran deal as though he holds all the cards, and now sits at 37% approval in a new WSJ poll — the lowest for any president heading into a midterm in their polling since 1990, with 11% of his own 2024 voters saying they regret the vote. Chuck is appalled by a cultish government-produced TV ad made with taxpayer dollars, notes Republicans don't want Trump campaigning for them (he's being routed to Oklahoma and Alabama), and points to Charlie Cook's framing that this isn't a blue wave so much as a red undertow. His race of the cycle: Gina Hinojosa in Texas, running as a populist rather than a socialist, airing an ad with a former January 6th defendant, and now leading Abbott in a Marist poll. Finally, Chuck hops into the ToddCast Time Machine to revisit Woodrow Wilson suffering a debilitating stroke, the efforts to cover it…

Chuck Todd zeroes in on a president who has become the entire election: Trump spent the weekend at a football game and a golf tournament while Americans struggle, announced he'd rejected an Iran deal as though he holds all the cards, and now sits at 37% approval in a new WSJ poll — the lowest for any president heading into a midterm in their polling since 1990, with 11% of his own 2024 voters saying they regret the vote. Chuck is appalled by a cultish government-produced TV ad made with taxpayer dollars, notes Republicans don't want Trump campaigning for them (he's being routed to Oklahoma and Alabama), and points to Charlie Cook's framing that this isn't a blue wave so much as a red undertow. His race of the cycle: Gina Hinojosa in Texas, running as a populist rather than a socialist, airing an ad with a former January 6th defendant, and now leading Abbott in a Marist poll. Then, former Agriculture Secretary and two-term Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack — the longest-serving USDA secretary of the modern era, joins…

Former Agriculture Secretary and two-term Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack — the longest-serving USDA secretary of the modern era, now CEO of the World Food Prize Foundation — joins the Chuck ToddCast to explain what's actually happening in farm country. The Iran war has driven up input costs while deportations gut the labor supply, farmers get blamed for high prices despite capturing the smallest share of every agricultural dollar, and importing beef only discourages domestic ranchers from staying in business. Vilsack notes America has lost a million farming operations since 1973, with most federal support flowing to the top 10%. He argues food security is national security, that SNAP cuts are income cuts for farmers, and that Iowans are tired enough of watching their kids leave the state to vote for change — with Rob Sand's authenticity, not his party label, the reason he's connecting. Timeline: (Timestamps may vary based on advertisements) 00:00 Tom Vilsack joins The Chuck ToddCast 02:00 Pirates baseball and why…

Chuck Todd and J.A. Adande go back to the unlikely beginnings of one of the NFL’s most iconic franchises. From Curly Lambeau and the team’s unusual origin story to the community ownership structure that helped keep the Packers in Green Bay, they explore how a small Wisconsin city survived while other early NFL towns disappeared. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chuck Todd argues you don't need a poll to read the midterms — Republican behavior tells you everything. JD Vance is conceding things aren't going well, nobody's buying that it's Biden's economy anymore, and Tim Scott told the NRSC they're in "the fight for their lives," though his 2022 comparison misses that Democrats had Dobbs and Republicans have no equivalent in 2026. Todd's larger argument runs through Trump's UN speech, where the president justified seizing Venezuelan oil with "to the victor go the spoils" — a permission slip Todd says the rest of the world will happily accept. Between unilaterally inviting Putin to the G20, rolling out the red carpet for Xi, and a military stretched thin by Iran, America is now seen as an unreliable partner: one Trump presidency was an aberration, two changes the equation, and it'll take multiple presidents from both parties to win that trust back. Finally, he answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment and previews the upcoming weekend in college…

Chuck Todd argues you don't need a poll to read the midterms — Republican behavior tells you everything. JD Vance is conceding things aren't going well, nobody's buying that it's Biden's economy anymore, and Tim Scott told the NRSC they're in "the fight for their lives," though his 2022 comparison misses that Democrats had Dobbs and Republicans have no equivalent in 2026. Todd's larger argument runs through Trump's UN speech, where the president justified seizing Venezuelan oil with "to the victor go the spoils" — a permission slip Todd says the rest of the world will happily accept. Between unilaterally inviting Putin to the G20, rolling out the red carpet for Xi, and a military stretched thin by Iran, America is now seen as an unreliable partner: one Trump presidency was an aberration, two changes the equation, and it'll take multiple presidents from both parties to win that trust back. Then, Adam Brandon — who ran FreedomWorks for over a decade and now co-founded the Independent Leadership Council…

Adam Brandon — who ran FreedomWorks for over a decade and now co-founded the Independent Leadership Council alongside Joe Manchin — joins the Chuck ToddCast to make the case that a handful of independents could break Washington's logjam. His argument: the parties have shrunk their tents, the blue dogs and moderate Republicans of the 1990s are gone, and in an era of slim majorities, ten independents in Congress could rewrite the rules when a new Congress is seated, install an apolitical speaker, and change every incentive overnight. He points to Montana — where the ILC-affiliated Independent PAC is now airing ads for Seth Bodnar, who needs roughly 210,000 votes to win — as proof the value of money in politics is starting to collapse. Plus: why Libertarians never break through, what younger voters actually want, and why burning the system down just leaves you living in ash. Timeline: (Timestamps may vary based on advertisements) 00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction 01:00 Debt, deficits, and why independents lost…

Chuck Todd digs into ProPublica's bombshell on Susan Collins, which details how her office steered millions in federal contracts to defense firm Navatek while her campaign operation pumped CEO Martin Kao's network for donations — sometimes cut within 24 hours of the defense spending bill clearing a Senate hurdle — and how the FBI's pay-to-play investigation died after Trump's purge of the bureau. Chuck’s argument is that the legality is precisely the point: Washington in 2026 is a legalized influence marketplace, Collins is no outlier, and what's needed is a post-Watergate-style transparency revolution — if money is speech, it shouldn't be allowed to hide. Finally, Chuck presents his ToddCast Top 5 list of the worst issues a candidate can campaign on for the midterms and answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment. Timeline: (Timestamps may vary based on advertisements) 00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction 02:30 The ProPublica story and what it says about Susan Collins 07:00 The FBI investigation…

Chuck Todd digs into ProPublica's bombshell on Susan Collins, which details how her office steered millions in federal contracts to defense firm Navatek while her campaign operation pumped CEO Martin Kao's network for donations — sometimes cut within 24 hours of the defense spending bill clearing a Senate hurdle — and how the FBI's pay-to-play investigation died after Trump's purge of the bureau. Chuck’s argument is that the legality is precisely the point: Washington in 2026 is a legalized influence marketplace, Collins is no outlier, and what's needed is a post-Watergate-style transparency revolution — if money is speech, it shouldn't be allowed to hide. Then, Anthony Scaramucci returns to the Chuck ToddCast with All the Wrong Moves, out September 22nd, which argues Trump is a symptom rather than the disease — the product of three decades of bipartisan mistakes: Clinton's China trade deal, Bush waging war while cutting taxes, and Obama's bailout that rescued Wall Street while leaving ordinary families…

Anthony Scaramucci returns to the Chuck ToddCast with All the Wrong Moves, out September 22nd, which argues Trump is a symptom rather than the disease — the product of three decades of bipartisan mistakes: Clinton's China trade deal, Bush waging war while cutting taxes, and Obama's bailout that rescued Wall Street while leaving ordinary families behind. He and Chuck also revisit the private credit questions raised in the ToddCast's Lakers special report, with Scaramucci arguing risky lending simply migrated from banks to private markets and that Mark Walter is likely not an outlier. His predictions are blunt: Trump is effectively conviction-proof, and in Scaramucci's view will try to make tens of billions before pardoning himself and his family — which is why, he warns, if the country doesn't take care of its people, the pitchforks will come out. Timeline: 00:00 "All the Wrong Moves" and the three decades that produced Trump 02:00 China, the wars, and a bailout that skipped the citizens 05:45 Is Mark Walter…

Six weeks out, Chuck Todd and Chris Cillizza open on Trump's ban of CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House — escalated Monday when the rest of the TV pool refused to cover him without CNN. Chuck, who fought the Obama White House's attempt to cut Fox out of a pool, explains why the real story is why now: a president lashing out as he loses control everywhere else. NBC has Trump at 41%, his second-term low; the Fed just raised rates for the first time since 2023; and the three most toxic positions in NBC's message testing are the three things Trump spent the last ten days amplifying. Chuck argues everyone is probably underestimating Democrats, then turns to the party's own problems: a DNC in debt, a brand that polls worse than the GOP's, and Axios reporting that most former Harris aides don't expect her to run in 2028. Plus JB Pritzker's 80-pound GLP-1 disclosure and Jayden Daniels' devastating elbow injury. Timeline: 00:00 Trump bans CNN, MS NOW & Politico — and how the TV pool works 06:00 Why now? A…