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Offline with Jon Favreau
Crooked Media · Politics · Left
Jon Favreau, the chronically online host of Pod Save America, puts down his phone for an hour each week to go deeper on the questions shaping this chaotic moment in history. From the future of democracy and AI to raising kids and staying sane, Offline makes room for honest conversations, arguments you haven't heard, and ideas that might change your mind. New episodes every Saturday. New episodes…
More from this show
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Erin Brockovich Is Taking On Data Centers
Erin Brockovich has spent three decades helping communities fight the biggest corporations and cruelest environmental injustices, inspiring an Oscar-winning movie along the way. Her latest cause is also her biggest: AI data centers and their insidious arrival to communities across the country. After scores of people…
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Bunkers Won't Save the Billionaires
From underground compounds to planet-fleeing rockets, tech oligarchs and the MAGA elite aren’t just anticipating an apocalypse—they’re hastening it. Author and climate activist Naomi Klein sits down with Jon to discuss End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World , her new book with Astra Taylor. She and Jon…
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Have You Tried Unplugging the AI?
Is AI sending us spiraling towards an apocalypse, or upwards towards utopia? How can such a new technology inspire such diametrically opposing viewpoints? To understand the dissonance, Jon sits down with Helen Toner, the Executive Director of Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology–and one of the…
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If AI Might Kill Us All, Why Are We Still Building It?
Max Fisher returns to Offline to face the robot apocalypse with Jon. The two discuss Jacob Coxon, the AI researcher who publicly resigned from Anthropic this week, the terrifying claims coming from those working in AI that the technology may kill us all, and what it'll take for politicians to actually attempt to…
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Why Government Makes Us Miserable
Americans don’t trust the government anymore. Annie Lowery, Atlantic staff writer and author of the new book The Time Tax , joins Offline to identify the culprit: a plodding, vindictive, racist bureaucracy that people must navigate to get government services and benefits. The paperwork, lines and emotional strain—just…
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Why College Was Too Woke For This Black Socialist Professor
Is the right wing’s depiction of academia NOT a complete caricature? Fromer Bates College professor—and current Atlantic staff writer—Tyler Austin Harper joins Offline to break down the legacy of Woke 1 in higher education. Tyler’s recent essay, "Confessions of a Token Black Professor" argues that academia’s social…
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Texas: "Is This The Year?"
Every election cycle the question inevitably comes up - will Texas flip? But the biggest story in Texas isn't whether the state will turn blue. It's how the people who live there are redefining what Texas politics looks like. Jen, Mitch, and Errin travel across the state to explore immigration, education, faith, and…
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1 Offline Host vs. 1 Jubilee Founder
Can the internet foster productive debate in the rage-bait era? Jubilee founder and CEO Jason Y. Lee joins Offline to talk about his company’s massive YouTube channel, known for its viral political debates in series like Surrounded and Middle Ground . He and Jon talk about the moral quandary of platforming people like…
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The Progressive Populists Make Their Case
Is economic populism the key to Democrats retaking power in 2026 and 2028? Faiz Shakir, political strategist and founder of the media organization More Perfect Union, joins Offline to make his case that progressive populists are just as—if not MORE—electable than center left candidates. He and Jon break down Abdul…
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The Journalist Who Let AI Run Her Life For a Year
What happens when you turn your entire life over to AI for a year? Could it take over your emails or learn to mow your lawn? Would it replace your doctor or even your partner? Tech journalist Joanna Stern joins Offline to talk about her new book , I Am Not a Robot , where she embarked on that experiment, integrating…
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Andrew Yang Still Wants To Give You $1,000
Was Andrew Yang ahead of his time? When he ran for president in 2020 on a platform of universal basic income and the threat of AI job displacement, people didn’t take him seriously. Now, Andrew's got even more ideas on AI and UBI, how our political system should deal with it all, and whether it can be done with only…
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Posting My L's On Maine
What lessons have Democrats learned from the Graham Platner debacle…and what are their chances of finally unseating Senator Susan Collins with a campaign timeline that’s evaporating faster than you can say Harris-Walz 2024? Alex Seitz-Wald, deputy editor of The Midcoast Villager in Maine, joins Offline to explain how…
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Billionaires vs. Journalists
What exactly is happening inside CBS News, and how much is Bari Weiss to blame? How are journalists at CNN feeling about becoming the Ellisons' next target? And what has corporate consolidation done to the media? Oliver Darcy, founder and writer of Status and former senior media reporter for CNN, joins Offline to…
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What Is A Human For?
AI is creating a crisis of agency where people are becoming paranoid that they’re being manipulated, suckered, and ultimately replaced. Charlie Warzel joins Offline to elaborate on his Atlantic essay, “The Feeling of Control Slipping Away,” which illustrates the myriad ways AI is driving people insane. He and Jon talk…
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Why You Should Love America
Progressives are highly critical of America, and for good reason. But we are losing more than problematic idols and ideals when we abandon patriotism. Jerusalem Demsas, founder and editor of “The Argument,” argues that if we’re going to save America, we’ll have to start loving it first. She joins Offline to explain…
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Has The Left Finally Figured Out the Internet?
Ever heard a popular TikToker wax poetic about who they’re voting for? They might be getting paid…and not disclosing by whom. Kyle Tharp, author of the Chaotic Era newsletter, joins Offline to discuss the emergence of pay-for-play political influencers and whether Democrats have made any progress in figuring out the…
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Is Masculinism Holding MAGA Together?
Who are the men who want women to be quiet? Author and Atlantic staff writer Helen Lewis argues it’s nearly everyone on the right. She joins Offline to make the case that “masculinism” and its mission to reestablish the primacy of men is what unites conservatives more than anything else…except maybe Donald Trump. In…
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Chatbots, MDMA, and Finding Love in the Digital Era
Sonja Lyubomirsky, happiness researcher and author of How to Feel Loved , joins Offline to explain the secret to living a contented life—and why the internet makes it so damn hard. If everyone we love and seek to impress is reachable at all times…why are Americans getting less happy, year after year? Sonja and Jon…
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Breaking the Cycle of Political Violence
Does political violence ever help a social cause? Zayd Ayers Dohrn, playwright and host of Crooked's "Mother Country Radicals," joins Offline to discuss the complicated legacy of radical activism in America. In his new book, Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young , Zayd dives even deeper into the morally ambiguous…
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This Candidacy Is a Test Case for AI Regulation
Why is Palantir, the former employer of congressional candidate Alex Bores, currently running attack ads against him...for working at Palantir? New York Assemblymember Alex Bores joins Offline to explain why his stance on AI has made him a target for the biggest dark money super PAC in the country. Then, he and Jon…
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Healing Our Broken Brains
Cal Newport, computer scientist and author of Deep Work, joins Offline to explain why we need a revolution in cognitive fitness, and how AI is going to get in the way. Cal and Jon explore how smartphones and AI are destroying our ability to concentrate, how our attention spans are a third of what they were just twenty…
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How Screens Have Warped Morality
Megan Garber, staff writer at The Atlantic and author of the new book Screen People , joins Offline to explain how we’re no longer just an audience for the media we consume; we’re also actors and producers in an endless show of our own creation. She and Jon discuss the corrosive nature of an internet filled with “main…
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God In The Machine
With Pope Leo XIV stepping up his criticisms of the Trump administration this month, the president is out for blood...and not the transubstantiated kind. Christopher Hale, author of the Letters from Leo newsletter, joins Offline to explain the real threat this woke offline pope poses to MAGA. He and Jon discuss why…
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The Revolt of the College Grads
New York Times journalist Noam Scheiber stops by the pod to talk to Jon about his new book Mutiny: The Rise and Revolt of the College-Educated Working Class , in which he argues that stagnant wages and rising student debt have changed the economic promise once offered by a college degree. The two discuss how…
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Sam Altman's Big Little Lies
New Yorker journalist Andrew Marantz joins Offline to break down his new investigation into Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT. Over the course of hundreds of interviews, including over a dozen with Altman himself, Andrew and his coauthor Ronan Farrow unveiled a leader who tells people exactly what…
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Big Tech's Big Tobacco Moment
Mark Zuckerberg is finally being held accountable–not by government regulators, board members or shareholders, but by two lawsuits. Tech journalist Casey Newtown, editor of Platformer , joins Offline to explain how a young woman in California beat Meta and Google on the grounds that Instagram and YouTube had destroyed…
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Optimism In Our Age of Anxiety
Why fight for a better future if we don't believe one is possible? Why organize, why vote? Dr. Deepika Chopra, the "Optimism Doctor," joins the show to talk about the dangers of cynicism, and to explain how optimism is a more rational and democracy-safeguarding response to this political moment. In her new book, The…
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What We Lose When We Bet on War
Life or death decisions are being gamified for profit on online prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket. But these platforms may also have the potential to create a modernized—if morally questionable—method of opinion polling. Politico Magazine contributing writer Nancy Scola joins Offline to explain the rise of…
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Trump's Memeification of War
Journalist and historian Anne Applebaum joins Offline to discuss America’s slide towards autocracy, as illustrated through Trump's war of choice in Iran. Anne is a staff writer at The Atlantic, an authoritarianism expert, and the host of the "Autocracy in America" podcast. She and Jon discuss how Trump and the White…
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Endless Slop, Cancer Cures, or Robot Apocalypse? Derek Thompson on Our AI Future
Derek Thompson, journalist and co-author of Abundance, joins Offline to hash out some hard truths about AI: who it will actually replace, why we haven’t seen more labor market disruption, and why the Department of War’s battle with Anthropic spells the end of private property rights in America. Then Derek lays out his…
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