This week, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker delivered an extraordinary takedown of President Trump over his deployment of the military in U.S. cities. Trump then exploded about Pritzker’s impudence, calling the governor names and instructing him to bow down and beg for his “HELP” in fighting crime. Trump has threatened twice to occupy Chicago no matter what the city’s residents and their elected representatives think about it, another window into his seething anger. In this standoff, Pritzker did something unusual: He communicated with his constituents from the heart, vowing to use all his power to protect them from Trump’s authoritarian takeover. Rather than let Trump pretend he cares about crime, Pritzker cast Trump as the primary threat to his state’s people. We talked to Brian Beutler, who has a great new piece on his substack, Off Message, taking stock of Pritzker’s response. We discuss how Pritzker is shrewdly reading the moment in a way many Democrats are not, why Trump is vulnerable on crime, and what the punditry is getting so wrong about all of it.  Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thanks to President Trump’s big budget bill, funding has been canceled for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This is cutting funding to hundreds of radio stations in rural areas that rely on them for critical information. Speaking to The New York Times, GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski, who opposed the bill, sounded absolutely shocked that Trump and the GOP would harm their own voters so cavalierly. She said this is driven by a “blind allegiance to the president’s desires,” adding that fear of Trump’s anger overrode GOP lawmakers’ concerns for their own constituents. Yet this has been the story on many other fronts, too. Will Democrats ever be able to capitalize? We talked to Lynlee Thorne, a Democratic organizer in rural areas as the political director of RuralGroundGame.org. She explains why rural radio is a lifeline, how Trump’s agenda is shafting those areas particularly hard, what rural voters think about him right now, and how Democrats can repair the party’s deep problems with them.  Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In recent days, President Trump has reached new levels of emboldenment when it comes to his ongoing authoritarian takeover. He’s vowing retribution at news organizations that displease him with greater audacity. He’s responded to Democrats and others who criticized him by threatening to send troops to their cities or unleash state power against them in other ways. In recent days, something plainly has changed, and many observers are taking note. We talked to journalist and historian Garrett Graff, who has a great new piece on his Doomsday Scenario Substack arguing that we really are seeing the advent of “American fascism” right before our eyes. He explains that transformations like this are incremental and often hard to recognize, but that Trump’s escalating brazenness strongly suggests we’ve crossed over into something new. The pile-up of new offenses Trump is committing daily, Graff says, amounts to “insanity.” Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

California Governor Gavin Newsom is breaking through like no other Democrat. This is partly because he’s forging ahead with a state gerrymander to add five Democratic House seats, countering President Trump’s rigging of Texas. But we think there are deeper reasons Newsom is cutting through the noise. These were on display when Newsom recently issued a stark warning about Trump’s long term intentions. Newsom connected numerous dots to offer a takedown of Trump that laid bare the full scope of his ongoing authoritarian takeover in a way other Democrats rarely do. We talked to Will Stancil, a policy researcher and attorney who has developed an interesting analysis of the Democratic Party on social media. We discussed what makes Newsom’s approach different, how he’s attempting to solve the party’s struggles in the information wars, and why it offers the beginnings of an approach for the party to adopt amid Trump’s imposition of authoritarian rule.  Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Thursday, JD Vance delivered a speech designed to reset the political battle over President Trump’s abysmally unpopular budget bill. But Vance’s speech devolved into a series of rants that seemed to ape Trump’s style. Vance lied about the bill’s health care cuts and dissembled wildly about its expected impact on rural hospitals—both times smearing undocumented immigrants with vile Trumpian dishonesty. He also baselessly attacked a nonpartisan agency whose analysis displeased him. All this comes as news outlets in many states are showing that people deep in MAGA country know they’re set to get royally screwed. Vance’s scamming of Trump voters here was extraordinary. But Democrats have work to do. We talked to Michael Linden, an economist and Democratic strategist organizing against the bill. He dissects Vance’s lies about it, explains how badly it will shaft Trump voters and the working class, and discusses how Democrats can keep the focus on it through Election Day 2026. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stephen Miller exploded in a long, unhinged rant about demonstrators who are protesting President Trump’s military occupation of Washington, D.C. It was classic authoritarian agitprop, attacking demonstrators as “communists” who are secretly trying to make the city more dangerous to its salt-of-the-earth working class residents. Ominously flanked by the Defense Secretary and members of the military, he threatened to respond with more troops. But we think this is really an expression of weakness. Trump and Miller were certain that a latent majority is prepared to rally to authoritarian rule. But poll after poll shows voters rebelling. Miller’s hubris has become a major weakness. We talked to New Republic staff writer Monica Potts, author of a great new piece analyzing Trump’s long-term game plan. She explains how Trump is consolidating power right before eyes, why Democrats need to stop calling this a “distraction,” and how the opposition should proceed, secure in the knowledge that the public is not with Trump.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt seethed at the media for well over a minute for not acknowledging President Trump’s world historical peacemaking efforts or his smashing successes in the Russia-Ukraine talks, even though there haven’t been any such successes. And she offered a wildly absurd explanation for why European leaders rushed to Washington, D.C. (to prevent the U.S. from selling out Ukraine to Vladimir Putin). This comes as a new Reuters poll finds Trump’s approval rating down to a new low of 40 percent. That’s fueled partly by Russia-Ukraine: A striking 54 percent of Americans say Trump is too aligned with Putin. We talked to international relations expert Nicholas Grossman. He explains how Leavitt’s spin and European angst show that incredibly high stakes matters are now being dictated by an unnerving combination of Trumpian megalomania, his genuine desire for a future world marked by a weak western alliance and strong autocracies, and his utter indifference to the U.S. public’s apparent rejection of that vision.  Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Monday, President Trump unleashed a tortured Truth Social rant that lied relentlessly about vote-by-mail—and announced a forthcoming executive order that would end mail voting entirely. That’s not legal, of course. But nothing, no matter how absurd, can be ruled out these days. Trump’s eruption also revealed a bigger set of intentions: To abuse presidential power in every conceivable way he can to swing the midterm elections against Democrats. This comes as Trump’s scheme to get Texas to gerrymander five extra GOP seats is gaining steam. We talked to David Daley, the great analyst of right-wing election subversion, whose latest book is called “Antidemocratic: Inside the Far Right’s 50-Year Plot to Control American Elections.” He explains how Trump will try to help the GOP cheat its way through the midterms, why it might work, and what Democrats must do in response—in this election cycle and, importantly, beyond. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With President Trump’s crackdown intensifying in Washington, D.C., he lashed out angrily at the media for describing him as a “dictator.” In this same rant, he did not reassure D.C. residents and exaggerated wildly about crime there, suggesting people should thank him for his efforts. As observers noted, Trump clearly meant people should mute criticism of his militarization of cities simply because he claims they’re needed to reassert control. We talked to legal commentator Joyce Vance, who writes well about this on her Civil Discourse Substack and is author of the new book Giving Up Is Unforgiveable. She explains how Trump’s use of manufactured pretexts is worsening on many fronts, why this itself is an alarming threat to self rule, and how the opposition should respond, noting it’s imperative for disengaged voters to “wake up.” This episode was recorded before Trump and D.C. reached an agreement limiting his control over the D.C. police, but the specifics remain unresolved, his use of the National Guard continues, and his broader threat to other cities has darkened. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Original air date: July 25, 2025 A new Gallup poll finds that President Trump’s approval has dropped to 37 percent. But the White House has figured out how to get those numbers back up: by picking a huge fight with The View. This week, Joy Behar unleashed a striking takedown of Trump, mocking him mercilessly for being jealous of Barack Obama. This enraged the White House, which responded with name-calling and a veiled threat. Which got us thinking: Doesn’t the logic of the situation dictate that Trump’s authoritarian threats will of necessity escalate? We talked about all this with Salon’s Amanda Marcotte, a good decoder of MAGA’s cultural hatreds. We discuss why Behar’s broadside was so perfectly aimed at Trump’s soft underbelly, why Trump’s only way forward may be more arrests, and how this whole saga shows that Trump thought the culture was moving his way—but it’s not, driving him into a fury.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices