The murder of United HealthCare CEO Brian Thompson has set off shockwaves across America. This week we look at the story’s online impact, people mythologizing the alleged killer, its intersection with conspirituality, and the healthcare system in America writ large.

The fifth installment of Matthew's Five Big Questions Posed to an Extremely Thoughtful Person. Dr. Annie Kelly joined us in Episode 61 to lay out her research on the manosphere-to-conspirituality pipeline. Today she joins me to discuss the trouble and joy of balancing extremism research with stories of hope and solidarity.

Journalist Talia Lavin joins Derek to discuss her recent book, Wild Faith: How the Christian Right is Taking Over America. 

We look at three different modes of damage control currently ripping through American discourse.

Exvangelical author Tia Levings joins Matthew to discuss her harrowing memoir of indoctrination, abuse, recovery, and advocacy, The Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy.

Mallory DeMille returns to investigate one very vocal and very relieved cohort: the MAHA Mamas.

The Free Press founder, Bari Weiss, recently hosted Peter Thiel on her podcast. While The FP markets itself as as a return to independent and non-partisan real journalism, Julian and Derek point out that's not the case at all—especially when the organization's $15M in funding comes from rightwing and libertarian VCs. Will Weiss factcheck Thiel's misinformation in real-time, as a "non-partisan" outlet should?

We look at the Trump cabinet picks that intersect with our beat, as pseudoscience conspiracism now completes its journey from the social fringes to deciding White House policies—and all the consequences that entails.

Rob Schenck joined in Episode 199 to discuss his deradicalization from the Evangelical anti-abortion movement. He joins Matthew to discuss some things he’s learned about hope, faith, resilience and building community in hard times.

AG1’s founder, Chris Ashenden, recently resigned after a decades-old real estate scam in his native New Zealand came to light. Derek talks to the two journalists who broke this story.

Gareth Gore joins us to discuss his controversial new book on the past and present of the secretive Catholic organization, Opus.

A meditation on the difference between building a boat to sail in vs. a boat in a bottle, on considering the second arrow, and on when to log the fuck off. 

We listen in to the supposedly non-partisan The Free Press election night livestream, which giddily praised Trump for being the consummate bullshitter that will take an ax to Democratic institutions.

Derek discusses Tucker Carlson advocating for corporal punishment as a way to discipline children in his appearance at the Turning Points USA MAGA rally.

Matthew discusses the origins of A Course in Miracles with novelist Sheila Heti.

During “Pet Vaccines and Holistic Vet Care" “holistic veterinarian” Marcie Fallek spreads the same sort of vaccine misinformation and fear-mongering that RFK Jr's nonprofit, Children’s Health Defense, has become infamous for. All of which made Derek realize that yes, they're actually coming for our pets.

With days left before the most consequential US election in our lifetime, we reflect on the last 4.5 years of this podcast while expressing our hopes–and our own reporting goals—for the future.

Author and activist Michelle Cassandra Johnson joins Matthew to offer self-care and sanity tips for a frenetic time.

Billionaire legal activist Leonard Leo has had a role in placing all six conservative justices on the SCOTUS, and so therefore is in large part responsible for the overturning of Roe V Wade. But his right-wing activism isn’t even close to over, as he recently stated during a rare interview with The Daily Wire. Derek and Julian discuss Leo’s dark vision for the future.

“Pandemic Policy: Planning the Future, Assessing the Past” was recently held at Stanford. The anti-vax, anti-lockdown symposium was not all it claimed to be.