Joe Vitale

This week, after Donald Trump won the election, Jeff Bezos issued an extraordinary tweet: He didn't just congratulate Trump; he also bent over backwards to hail his extraordinary political comeback. We think this is a bad sign of what's coming: People in key institutional positions going out of their way to curry favor with Trump in advance. How bad will this get? We talked to Philadelphia Inquirer national columnist Will Bunch, author of a good column about Bezos's bended knee to Trump. Bunch explains what all this portends about the surrender of key institutions in the face of Trump's coming strongman rule—and what we can do about it.

Marissa's guest is Marc Polymeropoulos, the highly decorated former intelligence service operative and host of the podcast “Above Average Intelligence.” Marc offers some frightening (and some reassuring) insights into what a Trump versus a Harris win could mean for the world, and the real dangers of Elon Musk and Republicans pandering to Putin. In an attempt to chill out, they also discuss the merits of Greek pastitsio, which you'd better not call Greek lasagna.

On Wednesday, Donald Trump unleashed a rambling announcement explaining his choice of Representative Matt Gaetz as attorney general, lying manically about Gaetz's supposed work revealing how the Justice Department had been weaponized against him. Translation: Trump wants Gaetz to use DOJ to carry out his personal vendettas. This comes as Trump has picked the Putin-friendly Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence. We talked to Ben Meiselas, co-founder of the Meidas Touch Network. He explains why these choices signal chaos ahead, and why the Gaetz pick in particular shows he's fully determined to subvert the rule of law to punish his enemies, just as he advertised in his rant.

Since winning the election, Donald Trump has been quick to cement his new administration and lay the groundwork for his frightening and ludicrous political agenda. As news of his appointees comes out, we are forced to ask ourselves – where do we go from here? Norm and Kavita are back to take stock of this unfortunate situation and analyze what our future holds… as well as talk about puppies and the humanity in dogs. Listen here.

As the United States is entering a new nuclear age and a new global arms race, what does a second Trump term mean for our national security? What do the plans of Project 2025 mean for the American nuclear weapons force? How will such modernization and weapon buildup affect America's relationships with both its allies and enemies? Joe Cirincione joins Jon to help navigate the lunacy of this new administration and the very real and very serious dangers we are now facing…. And how they might get worse. Listen here.

As Trump mulls recess appointments to ram through his disastrous personnel choices, an expert in congressional rules explains how this really could happen—and why it's so dangerous.

With Republicans informing Trump that Matt Gaetz's nomination is in deep peril, the author of a new piece on his "team of outlaws" explains why it's so unsettling that the GOP Senate is our last line of defense.

As a lone GOP Senator dares to question Trump's threat to use the military for potentially illegal aims, writer Tom Nichols explains how he sees these scenarios playing out when the going gets rough.

Corporate security consultant Jeremy Hurewitz (twitter: @Selllikeaspy) joins Marc Polymeropolous (@mpolymer) to discuss his new book “Sell Like a Spy: the Art of Persuasion from the World of Espionage.” Jeremy discusses the power of relationships, his journey in writing the book, how active listening is a key skill – plus some very important predictions on where Juan Soto ends up (his beloved Yankees or Marc's Red Sox?). A wonderful and positive chat that listeners will enjoy.

On today's episode of We're All Going to Die Radio, Jon is joined by National Security Correspondent and Pulitzer-Price finalist author Fred Kaplan. Fred discusses his foray into the fiction world with his debut novel Capital Calamity, an electric doomsday story about a Washington DC consultant who accidentally triggers a war with China. Fred and Jon also discuss US-China relations, the national security dangers of a second Trump term, and all things nuclear policy and deterrence. Tune in here: