The Gist

On The Gist, violent, vicious, and terrible. These are a few of Trump’s favorite words. In the interview: Verne Lundquist announced sports games for decades. But in retirement, he has more time for classical music than whatever game is on TV. “I’m not a passionate sports fan,” he says. “I’ve got X number of years to live in this life—let’s experience as much of it as we can.” Lundquist is the author of Play by Play: Calling the Wildest Games in Sports—From SEC Football to College Basketball, the Masters, and More. In the Spiel, there are four kinds of presidents. Trump’s the worst kind. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, President Donald Trump has finally made a nomination for ambassador to South Africa. And it is a terrible one. It’s hard to make comedy when your story, like Ben Stiller’s latest direction, is based on a state inspector general’s report. Escape at Dannemora is drama through and through, based on the prison break of two men, aided by a female employee (and lover), from New York’s Clinton Correctional Facility. Stiller talks filming bad sex, turning villains into heroes, and what makes Patricia Arquette a great actress. Escape at Dannemora premieres Sunday on Showtime. In the Spiel, get this: a podcast where the interviews never get past “hello!” and “can you hear me all right?” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, Nancy Pelosi and new House leadership. Then, the self-help organization known as NXIVM had thousands of paying customers, but only some were involved in the cultish operations that, once exposed, brought it crashing down. In Uncover: Escaping NXIVM, host Josh Bloch follows one of the company’s unknowing recruiters, who disavowed the group and became central to the ongoing FBI charges against its founder, Keith Raniere. We also hear from Susan Dones, another former member of NXIVM. In the Spiel, Brexit is back. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, who’s running in 2020? Should we even speculate yet?  Time for another segment of Mike debates Slate. Staff writer Henry Grabar is here to discuss Amazon’s choice of New York City, why people seem to keep misunderstanding what subsidies are, and how the benefits of Amazon moving to Long Island City outweigh the costs to the city.  In the Spiel, Jim Acosta’s White House press credentials and asking multipart questions at press conferences. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, when will everyone stop walking and chewing gum at the same time?  In the interview, it may have been a political stunt ahead of the midterms, but president Trump’s deployment of U.S. service members to the border continues. What are they even up to? Veteran and writer Jack Murphy fills in the details, including how the mission is being received in the military community at large. Murphy is the editor in chief of NEWSREP. In the Spiel, Amazon’s news and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, what kind of sped-up sports replays is Kellyanne Conway watching? The simplicity of basketball is also its genius, allowing players to exercise skill, heart, genius and passion in endlessly creative ways. Dan Klores embraces just that in his ESPN documentary Basketball: A Love Story and talks about specific players, the NBA’s leaders, and why short players deserve more credit. In the Spiel, the DCCC may smack of establishment power, but it was damn effective at flipping House seats for Democrats. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, by any previous standard, we’d be saying that President Donald Trump lost the midterms, plain and simple. In the interview, Tuesday’s midterms saw red states get redder and blue ones bluer. If results like those keep repeating themselves, Slate panelists—Dahlia Lithwick, Jamelle Bouie, and Jim Newell, hosted live in New York by Mike Pesca—say America could soon feel like two distinct legal worlds. In the Spiel, Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker was a tight end at the University of Iowa! And uh, that tells us nothing about his character. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, the Democrats’ big win. Bradley Tusk has been in the background everywhere. His hand guided the rise of big political and tech brands, from advising Rod Blagojevich not to extort Rahm Emanuel to facilitating Uber’s explosive growth. He joins us to discuss his political savvy saving campaigns and startups and why he’s so passionate about voting with your smartphone. Tusk’s new book is The Fixer: My Adventures Saving Startups From Death by Politics.  In the Spiel, misunderstanding democracy and trying to correct someone else’s tweet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, was last night a wave or not? If congresswoman Jackie Speier still kept a gratitude journal (“I don’t have time to do it!”), it would include an entry about the Democratic Party reclaiming the House in Tuesday’s midterms. Instead she’s out with a new memoir—Undaunted: Surviving Jonestown, Summoning Courage, and Fighting Back—and brings details on how her party’s majority will put the squeeze on President Donald Trump. In the Spiel, Donald Trump’s latest press conference. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, who gets to vote? Mimi Sheraton, the first female food critic at the New York Times, has had a prolific career sharing her opinion on everything like ladyfinger sellers, hope chests and china patterns, and why we’re all eating kale wrong. She joins us today to talk her career as a food critic, why smelt isn’t a crowd pleaser, and the importance of eating as a family. She’s a delight on the Ask Mimi episodes of the Sporkful, and her most recent book is 1,000 Food to Eat Before You Die.  In the Spiel, voting mistakes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, live, from Slate, it’s a post-apocalyptic skit that just might come to pass if you don’t vote on Tuesday. In the interview, for decades, there was no need to hope for (or fear) a blue wave; until 1994, the Democratic Party enjoyed a 40-year monopoly on the House of Representatives. Then came Newt Gingrich, who engineered the Republican sweep of the lower chamber, and who looms large in our guest Steve Kornacki’s latest book, The Red and the Blue: The 1990s and the Birth of Political Tribalism. In the Spiel, more about (what else) the midterms. Also: Go vote. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, the Republican tax bill and insurance premiums. In the interview: a third-century monk, Paul Revere’s horse, and Death himself … all are characters in humorist Simon Rich’s latest book, Hits and Misses: Stories—and none are in on the joke. “I always related to the characters like Homer Simpson that knew less than they should,” Rich says. “As a child those are the ones that I found more sympathetic and more rootable.”  In the Spiel, the unemployment numbers, and the lies we’ve told ourselves about the economy.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, Pew’s analysis of European opinion surveys is out. Let’s look at Greece! In the interview, the American electorate has come to sort itself not just on political issues, but by worldview. Life is either a gauntlet of hazards (say Republicans) or an array of sights to see (as the Dems think). In their latest book, Prius or Pickup?, political scientists Marc Hetherington and Jonathan Weiler warn that these philosophical differences are sharper than what separated the voting blocs of previous generations. In the Spiel, Trump is out with a racist political ad, surprising precisely no one. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, Trump’s xenophobic campaign, with a Spooktacular twist! In the interview, hate is hard to measure, but the Southern Poverty Law Center paints a picture of growing prejudice in America. Heidi Beirich and the organization’s Intelligence Project go beyond FBI and Department of Justice statistics to include press reports and even tips from the public. In the Spiel, swing, baby, swing (we’re talking about congressional districts). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, Mike’s bottom five causes.  In the interview, we rewind to the story of the mail bomber, which was quickly eclipsed by a massacre in Pittsburgh and one loud president. Steve Johnson, who directs Cranfield University’s Forensic Explosive and Explosion Investigation program in the U.K., provides details about Cesar Sayoc’s homemade devices.  In the Spiel, Trump’s desire to end birthright citizenship. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, surprise surprise, right-wing commentators aren’t apologizing for getting the mail bomber story totally wrong. In the interview, brands don’t make it big by mistake. Behind the success of Starbucks’ pumpkin spice latte and Jell-O are stories worth hearing. Dan Bobkoff’s podcast for Business Insider, Household Name, explores the odd origins of TGI Fridays, the reason there’s a Mattress Firm on every corner, and how a Donald Trump ad may have saved Pizza Hut (it’s all about the stuffed crust). In the Spiel, the Pittsburgh shooter was fueled by hate. But just as importantly, he was armed with an AR-15. It’s time to ban it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, the man in the van is a sad man indeed.  Harry Enten is a senior writer and analyst for CNN Politics and steeped in the polling data for the election. Will Beto O’Rourke beat Ted Cruz?  Is the blue wave cresting early? And why do Democrats care about Hamilton? Enten joins us to discuss, and his more detailed forecast can be found online here.   In the Spiel, time for another antentwig.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, Georgia’s exact match law is an extra hurdle for those with hyphenated last names, which, let us speculate, may be more common among black Americans. In the interview, CNBC contributor Ron Insana on Dow drops, market swings, and the uncertain rise of the job-stealing robots. In the Spiel, Megyn Kelly’s reportedly been fired for her latest faux pas. What did NBC expect when they hired her? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, Megyn Kelly’s take on blackface was obviously wrong … and wrong for NBC’s messaging. Sleep isn’t for the weak; it’s for those who want their brains flushed of misfolded proteins and fatigue-inducing adenosine. If that sounds like mumbo-jumbo, Maria Konnikova is here to explain it all and answer one question: Is the prescription for precisely eight hours of sleep bullshit? In the Spiel, President Trump riles up his base in all kinds of ways, but we can’t honestly blame the recent spate of mail bombs on him and him alone. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, first we’ve got misleading statistics.  In 2016, Art Cullen wrote a series of editorials for the Storm Lake Times, a small newspaper in Iowa, uncovering the murky depths of a fight between local and state governments about water pollution. They followed the money, and discovered a fight funded by agricultural corporations, and ended up winning the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Cullen’s new book is Storm Lake: A Chronicle of Change, Resilience, and Hope From a Heartland Newspaper.  In the Spiel, gubernatorial races. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices