The Audit

This week we’re sharing an excerpt of the first episode of our new investigative series Master Plan, which was recently named a must-listen by The Guardian and Apple Podcasts.

In each episode of Master Plan, The Lever’s David Sirota and his team of journalists expose the secret scheme that legalized corruption for the wealthy. With the help of never-before-reported documents, we’ll look back at where this plot began, how it is accelerating in the 2024 election - and how it can be stopped.

In this epic tale, you’ll learn things you never knew about icons like President Richard Nixon, Senator Mitch McConnell, Fox News founder Roger Ailes, and Supreme Court justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito. You’ll learn how their master plan to legalize corruption affects you and your family - and undermines American democracy today.

Listen now to the full first episodes of Master Plan and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe to our Premium feed to hear episodes early and exclusive bonus content.

On this week’s episode of The Audit, Dave and Josh cover Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign announcement and observe that GOP politics are mostly a match-up between manly “right-wing lunatics” against “nerds and dorks.”

Despite their differences, all Republican campaigns seem to agree that homelessness in cities is the fault of Democrats, woke liberals, and the unhoused people themselves. PragerU videos are an excellent resource for observing exactly how conservative activists are reframing complex social issues like homelessness and addiction into black-and-white talking-points about “compassion brigades” and reductive policy that evades real solutions.

Special guest Josh Androsky — a Los Angeles-based comedian, organizer and leftist political advisor — joins the fray to scrutinize one (highly dramatic) short documentary produced by a conservative think-tank that aims to reveal the “reality” of LA’s homelessness problem.

PragerU videos we discussed this week:

• The documentary about how the right wants to fix homelessness

If you’d like to support this show, head over to www.levernews.com/audit/ and leave a tip for Dave and Josh. To get access to Lever Premium Podcasts, and all the other benefits of a paid subscription, click here.

A transcript of this episode is available here.

This week, journalist and activist Naomi Klein joins Dave and Josh as a special guest to look under the hood of several PragerU “educational” videos that offer a conservative spin on the topics of climate science and green technologies.

Klein, who has authored several influential books (including This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate), points out how the fossil fuel-funded groups behind videos like these have shifted tactics in the years since COVID, moving from a strategy of “hard denialism” to one that centers on the rhetoric of “personal freedoms.”

Here are the PragerU videos discussed with Naomi Klein this week:

• Climate Change: What Do Scientists Say? (2016)
• What's the Deal with the Green New Deal? (2019)

Dave and Josh also have a lengthy discussion about the recent Vanity Fair exposé detailing the culture of fear that surrounded the actors and TV writers on the landmark mystery series Lost. The article sheds light on many of the same toxic Hollywood workplace issues being raised in the current Writers Guild of America strike. (Here's TV writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach’s follow-up statement responding to the article.)

If you’d like to support this show, head over to www.levernews.com/audit/ and leave a tip for Dave and Josh. To get access to Lever Premium Podcasts, and all the other benefits of a paid subscription, click here.

A transcript of this episode is available here.

On this week’s episode of The Audit, Dave and Josh go back to school with Denis Prager’s enormous library of children’s educational content! The American right’s obsession with attacking teachers and public education in recent years has given us PragerU Kids, a streaming hub of “pro-America” kids programming intent on battling the evil woke agendas “infiltrating classrooms, culture, and social media.”

As a guest, the two brought in a real teacher: Betsy Long, a public school educator in Los Angeles who has written about education politics in Jacobin Magazine. As a union leader, Betsy led her school site in the recent teacher strike that won record-breaking wage increases.

The team discusses various “educational” PragerU Kids videos:

• Amy Coney Barrett Crafting Game Show
• Venezuela: Vivi’s Life under Socialism (Animated)
• Otto’s Tales: Remember the Ladies (Storytime)
• Otto’s Tales: The American Trinity with Dennis Prager (Storytime)
• The National Anthemwith Candace Owens (Storytime)

If you’d like to support this show, head over to www.levernews.com/audit/ and leave a tip for Dave and Josh. To listen to Lever Premium Podcasts, and all the other benefits of a paid subscription, click here.

A transcript of this episode is available here.

A brief breakdown on why Biden's pot reform might not be the greatest thing since sliced bread, and then the gang dives into the final classes of W's Master Class, including sitting through an 18 minute lesson on cold wax painting. On the plus side, we get some fun drinking stories, some fun Turd Blossom stories, and did you know they make a version of the Bible for stupid people? Also - remember the pretzel? We go out on a note of hope, however - warm and fuzzy memories of the deep friendship shared by Ruth Bader Ginsburg and cuddly fascist Antonin Scalia. We hope they're enjoying the afterlife together!

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For a rough transcript of this episode click here.