Share This Podcast

• Check out The Argument – www.theargumentmag.com/
• Call Congress – 202-224-3121
• Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/3kk4nyz8
• What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast

Follow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/

TRANSCRIPT

Jane Coaston: It’s Monday, August 25th, I’m Jane Coaston, and this is What a Day, the show that is excited for the end of August, the nadir of culture war nonsense. Cracker Barrel, Sydney Sweeney, look, let’s just get to September and move on. [music break] On today’s show, President Donald Trump says Chicago is probably the next city to receive some unwanted assistance from the National Guard. And part of the so-called Epstein files arrive on Capitol Hill, all while the Department of Justice releases Ghislaine Maxwell’s interview, clearing the president and a former president. Shocking. But, let’s start with liberalism. Yes, if you call yourself a liberal, I’m talking about you. On Friday, a center-left think tank called Third Way got some press because of a list it made. A list of words it thinks Democrats should stop using as part of an effort to appeal to everyday voters who do not know what an existential threat is. Here’s CNN. 

[clip of unamed CNN reporter] I want to give people some context on some other words and phrases that were in this memo. Body shaming, cisgender, holding space, incarcerated people, intersectionality, LGBTQIA+, pregnant people, systems of oppression, the unhoused. 

Jane Coaston: Okay, so that’s a lot of words I have heard from people who spend a lot of time on Blue Sky and I say that as a Blue Sky user. As you might imagine, this list got a lot of attention online and elsewhere. Some saw it as sensible, a way to get Democrats to stop using terms that might appeal to college graduates, but might not work for voters who aren’t. Others argued that the list was papering over the real issue for Democrats, policy. Personally, even if every elected Democrat on Earth stopped saying cisgender, which is just a descriptor, Fox News will still find some Democratic Socialists of America members in Brooklyn using it and argue that they alone represent the Democratic Party. But the entire debate got me thinking, what are Democrats and more broadly liberals for? What do we believe? A new publication is trying to figure that out. The argument, founded by former Atlantic staff writer Jerusalem Demsas, consists of a host of left-leaning writers and contributors all trying to answer the question, what is a liberal? I talked to Jerusalem about her work, liberalism, and what made her want to start a new media outlet in the year of our Lord 2025. Jerusalem, welcome to What a Day. 

Jerusalem Demsas: Thanks for having me. Excited to be here. 

Jane Coaston: You said recently in your video announcing the launch of the argument. Congratulations, by the way. 

Jerusalem Demsas: Thank you. 

Jane Coaston: That liberals used to stand for things, things like the New Deal, voting rights, helping the poor, which I think, you know, most liberals are all pretty into still. But it seems like now a lot of what liberals do is stand against things. 

Jerusalem Demsas: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: What did you mean by that when you were talking about that and how did we get here? 

Jerusalem Demsas: Yeah, I mean, I think that this is like a critique that people used to make of conservatives in the late 20th century all the time, that they were basically defined as being not liberals, right? When you read Buckley’s National Review, I think his opening like definition of what conservatism is is mostly like, I fucking hate liberals and like–

Jane Coaston: Right. Yeah.

Jerusalem Demsas: –that’s that’s literally the whole thing. And then you think about now.

Jane Coaston: Yeah, standing to thwart history yelling stop. 

Jerusalem Demsas: History yelling stop, and it’s funny, because now you think about like who’s yelling stop all the time, right? And like I’m yelling stop too, so like I get it. Like we’re like, well, if like there’s just too much going on that we feel like culture’s moving really quickly in ways we don’t like, technology is progressing in ways we don’t like, that our institutions are shifting in ways we don’t like, and like we go to protest and we say, we’re upset about this, we want it to stop. And like, of course, protest is always a part of the American fabric, but there’s a level to which too when you think about a lot of my reporting when it comes to NIMBY-ism in democratic cities and opposing housing and clean energy construction and opposing, you know, a transit stop being built in your neighborhoods. You’re in Los Angeles, Karen Bass has um come out against legislation that would make it easier to build housing near transit. So like this has become, I think, an increasing definition of what it means to be a liberal in the modern era is that you’re kind of opposed to stuff. And the biggest version of this, of course, is that liberalism largely means you’re anti-Trump now, right? And I’m anti-Trump, I think that he is the greatest threat to American democracy, but at the same time I’m more than that. Like we have an ideology that used to really animate people across the political spectrum and liberalism wasn’t just being left-wing, it was a belief in individualism and respect for human rights and all of these different um great principles. And to me like we’ve really lost our way for a few reasons. One is that liberalism became dominant in a way that was always going to inspire backlash from people. 

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Jerusalem Demsas: But I think also, in many respects, like liberals got soft at arguing for their point, things just felt so obvious. Like, of course there’s a consensus that immigration is good for the economy. Of course there is a consensus that we need to be defending individualism and free speech. We felt like there was an elite consensus around these ideas. And then yeah. 

Jane Coaston: And then like the arc of history bent in our direction that this would just–

Jerusalem Demsas: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: –all obviously happen and it’s interesting you talk about kind of liberalism being standing against things because right now you have a swath of the right that is basically whatever liberals do we hate it. Which is why that they’re now sounding like they want to you know wax rhapsodic about the magical year of like 2003 but I think it’s important to establish in this conversation, how are you defining liberalism? Like–

Jerusalem Demsas: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: We’re not necessarily talking about Democrats or–

Jerusalem Demsas: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: –progressives, or are we? Are we talking about both, neither? Who are we talking about? 

Jerusalem Demsas: Yeah, I mean, this is like the longest Twitter thread in history, like moderators are screaming–

Jane Coaston: Yeah I know I’m like the the–

Jerusalem Demsas: –at us to stop. Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: The Reddit thread, oh my God. 

Jerusalem Demsas: Yeah, exactly. Um. Yeah, I mean, to me, I wrote our intro essay on The Argument Mag’s website um about this, which is liberalism is a political philosophy that seeks to answer the question, how do we live with each other? And that’s like, how do we live with each other when we’re all really, really different? Like when my version of a good life could be having a million one night stands and someone else’s is that they shouldn’t have sex until they get married. Or my version of the good life is that I live in a city and I have public transit and I walk to work and someone else’s, is that, they live in a rural part of the country and like they’re very religious. I mean, these are, these are big differences that are not just like stylistic. They often have to do with our fundamental beliefs about what it is to be a good person. And we have to like exist together. And I think that the post-liberal right, and also honestly the post liberal left’s answer has often been to say, we can’t actually live together. You need to change your mind and be like me. And liberalism says, no, like we can live in a pluralistic society. And you know I think in many respects, the post-liberal right in particular, um they so thoroughly believe that you can’t live with people that are different than you. They’re trying to eradicate that difference as much as possible. And our rejoinder, I think, at the argument is that no matter how homogenous you think you can make a population, there will always be differences that humans are willing to kill each other over. Like–

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Jerusalem Demsas: Literally, it doesn’t matter [?]. Yeah.

Jane Coaston: –[?] the story of Europe. For like–

Jerusalem Demsas: Yes. 

Jane Coaston: 800 years was just like– 

Jerusalem Demsas: I mean, liberalism comes out of the–

Jane Coaston: Yeah exactly. 

Jerusalem Demsas: –European wars of religion. Yeah.

Jane Coaston: Yeah, exactly. You know, you have people who are like, you’re Protestants, but not the right kind of Protestant. 

Jerusalem Demsas: Exactly. 

Jane Coaston: It’s also interesting–

Jerusalem Demsas: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: Because I feel as if the the the belief that we can’t live together is one of those things where it’s like we have. 

Jerusalem Demsas: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: You know, nearly 250 years of evidence in the United States that actually we can live together and people can sort themselves in ways that work best for them. But you said something I thought was really interesting in a conversation with another writer who you’re working with at the Argument. Um. Kelsey Piper, basically that liberals are not temporarily embarrassed communists. Can you–

Jerusalem Demsas: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: –explain your thinking behind that? 

Jerusalem Demsas: There are so many reasons we can get into why it’s happened, but there is a sense within um liberalism and liberal thought, in particular, just like anyone who’s left of center, that you’re constantly afraid of someone to your left telling you that you are insufficiently left leaning. And as a result, you stop articulating anything you believe. Everyone just kind of starts defaulting to like, okay, whatever the most like radical left thing that’s being said, we’re all just gonna default towards that norm. And it’s created this weird thing where like, I mean, I’m in a lot of left spaces where like people will secretly say things that I think are just completely reasonable. They are also caring about egalitarianism and equality. They just are saying like, oh, like maybe I have a different way of going about this or I have questions about how this should go. But they would never say this in public because they’re afraid of actually saying these views and getting called out for them. 

Jane Coaston: Right, right, which is I think that that goes also to um kind of the siloing effect because some of these–

Jerusalem Demsas: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: –views are like, I think that maybe sometimes some people should go to prison. And so I think that, that’s a really interesting point that there is a difference between being a liberal and being a leftist. 

Jerusalem Demsas: I think honestly, like leftists get very upset about this all the time. And I get it why they’re so irritated because they’re like, you guys are lying about your actual ideological beliefs. And it’s creating this weird friction here where like you won’t admit the things you believe or stand for them. You’re just sort of like yelling it. We’re all just pretending like we’re all the same thing. And again, liberalism does not mean that you are a moderate, right? Like Mills, Rawls, these are like to me, essentially socialists, right, um even if they didn’t use those words. They’re extremely radical thinkers. You can also have someone who is a liberal who wants to find ways to to respect individual rights and who cares about the systems of democracy and governance that would actually make it possible for like different kinds of people to live together, and I think the really big thing that we’re trying to do with the argument is just say like the most important cleavage in American politics is not whether you’re right or left. It’s whether you hold these like actually like bigger beliefs about how people can live together despite the differences we have. 

Jane Coaston: I have to ask. Jerusalem, why create a new media company in 2025? Like, what do you think is missing from the discourse and what do think the argument can be doing that’s better than what we have? 

Jerusalem Demsas: Well, no one else had ever created a media company, so I thought that I–

Jane Coaston: Nope, nope.

Jerusalem Demsas: –would be the first. 

Jane Coaston: Nope, it’s never happened. 

Jerusalem Demsas: Um. It’s never happened. Um. 

Jane Coaston: Nobody’s ever done it. 

Jerusalem Demsas: Well, aside from the novelty bit, um. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Jerusalem Demsas: I think that the difference that The Argument can make is the difference that I think a lot of ideological small media outlets have made in American history. When we look at places like the New Republic or even the National Review, these are small outfits that are not trying to be mass media um, organizations, what they’re trying to do is change how ideology is conceived of in the American, both electorate, but also in the American elite. And that to me is the big question right now. All of our liberal media is now, you know, the New York Times, the Atlantic, the New Yorker. These are massive companies that are trying to do general purpose work and they do great work. They do great reporting, great essays. I’m glad that they exist. But at the same time, like I’m very, very worried that these smaller magazines and ideological outfits that exist are not advancing an alternative to post-liberalism. And so my goal is to provide that alternative. And like who knows how this how this all plays out [?] largely? People who work in the ideas game like we do are at the whim of whatever politician ends up actually winning. Um. But I do think there is a lot of evidence that when we platform these ideas, when you make clear arguments for the stuff that you care about, it is the only way that someone could ever end up picking those up in four years, eight years, ten years, and actually using them. I think that one of the best examples of this is just when I see the nascent abundance movement coming up, which is, you know, the you know book by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. These ideas were ones that had been pushed for years by a lot of people and a lot of activists on the ground. And now, it’s part of a massive national political um conversation. and I remember talking to political scientists years ago, like, hey, do you ever think that like um, being pro housing in this way could ever really take on um a national valence? And they were kind of just like, no, this is like an impossible problem. You can never solve this problem. Like no one would ever do this. It’s so politically unpalatable. And I’m just witnessing now that like no, a lot of people were like, yes, it’s really unpopular and I’m going to really just fight for the thing I believe in. And now there’s like a real chance that it becomes a bigger shift in our politics. And I think that everyone who believes strongly in in how to make the world a better place should do what they can to to say the things they believe in. 

Jane Coaston: You can just do things. 

Jerusalem Demsas: You can just do things. 

Jane Coaston: Jerusalem, thank you so much for joining me. 

Jerusalem Demsas: Thank you for having me. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Jerusalem Demsas. She’s the CEO and founder of The Argument. We’ll link to it in our show notes. We’ll get to more of the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]

[AD BREAK]

Jane Coaston: Here’s what else we’re following today. 

[sung] Headlines.

[clip of indistinct chanting plays]

Jane Coaston: Kilmar Abrego Garcia returned home to Maryland Friday. You might remember he’s a Salvadoran immigrant who entered the US illegally to escape gang violence. He’d held a work permit since 2019. In March, he was deported to El Salvador, despite a court order that was supposed to prevent that. He’s been back in US detention since June, facing human smuggling charges that he’s denied. His story’s not over though. Minutes after leaving custody Friday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement informed Abrego Garcia’s attorneys that he would be deported to Uganda early this week. He’s expected to appear in an ICE field office today. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers say the Trump administration’s threat to remove him to Uganda was designed to force him to plead guilty to the human smuggling charges. According to his lawyers, the Department of Justice offered Abrego Garcia another option, one that would have landed him in Costa Rica, where he could live as a free man if he agreed to plead guilty to the human smuggling charges against him and stay in jail over the weekend. That plea deal, which Abrego Garcia declined, expires today. Plead guilty to a crime you say you didn’t commit and go to Costa Rica. Don’t plead guilty and go to Uganda. And remember, no option to stay with your family. That’s fucked up. 

[clip of Hakeem Jeffries] We should continue to support local law enforcement and not simply allow Donald Trump to play games with the lives of the American people as part of his effort to manufacture a crisis and create a distraction because he’s deeply unpopular. 

Jane Coaston: Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries criticized President Trump Sunday for threatening to deploy the National Guard to Chicago. Jeffries made those comments during an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union. So far, Trump has deployed the National guard to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. On Friday, Trump had claimed that Chicago residents clambered for troops, too. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] The people in Chicago, Mr. Vice President, are screaming for us to come. They’re wearing red hats, just like this one. But they’re wearing red hats. African-American ladies, beautiful ladies, are saying, please, President Trump, come to Chicago. 

Jane Coaston: Sure they are. Every beautiful African-American lady is wearing a red hat in Chicago because they just can’t get enough of President Trump and they want the National Guard to come. Sure. Democratic Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker hit back. In a statement released Saturday, he said quote, “There is no emergency that warrants the President of the United States federalizing the Illinois National Guard, deploying the National guard from other states, or sending active duty military within our own borders.” 

[clip of unnamed NBC’s  Meet the Press reporter] It’s a yes or no question, Mr. Foreign Minister, do you acknowledge Russia invaded Ukraine? 

[clip of Sergey Lavrov] I said to you that we started special military operation. 

[clip of unnamed NBC’s  Meet the Press reporter] So yes. 

Jane Coaston: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov sat for a sometimes tense interview that aired on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday morning. Lavrov defended Russia’s actions in Ukraine. He said Russia is serious about peace and he blamed Ukraine for a lack of progress since President Trump’s meeting with President Putin earlier this month. 

[clip of Sergey Lavrov] We want peace in Ukraine. He wants, President Trump wants peace in the Ukraine. The reaction to encourage meeting, the gathering in Washington of these European representatives and what they were doing after Washington indicates that they don’t want peace. 

Jane Coaston: Lavrov said there is no meeting between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky currently planned, at least until Zelensky considers land swaps and a potential pledge to stay out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO. The Russian Foreign Minister also denied that Russia targeted civilian sites like schools and hospitals in Ukraine, despite many, many reports to the contrary. He also had a fascinating take on an airstrike on an American-owned factory in Ukraine. 

[clip of unnamed NBC’s  Meet the Press reporter] This is an electronics factory though. Sir, this is an electronics factory. I’ve spoken to people on the ground there. It builds coffee machines among other electronics. This is not a military site. 

[clip of Sergey Lavrov] Well, I understand that some people are really naive, and when they see a coffee machine in the window, they believe that this is the place where coffee machines are produced. Our intelligence has very good information. 

Jane Coaston: Ukraine celebrated its Independence Day Sunday. In a video address, Zelensky declared the country, quote, “needs a just peace, a peace where our future is decided only by us.” Transcripts and tape from an interview of Ghislaine Maxwell by the Department of Justice were released Friday and have been making their way across the internet. Maxwell is the former girlfriend and collaborator of disgraced financier and convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. She’s serving a 20-year prison sentence on sex trafficking charges. In the interview, Maxwell said Trump had been, quote, “friendly with Epstein in the 1990s and 2000s,” but was also, quote “a gentleman in all respects.” She added that she never saw inappropriate behavior from other former Epstein associates, like Bill Clinton, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Prince Andrew. As for Epstein himself, Maxwell denied hearing of any sexual misconduct committed by Epstein or his acquaintances. 

[clip of Ghislaine Maxwell] In the entire time I was with him or friends with him or had anyone, no one ever reported to me or came to me and said that anything inappropriate happened or was upset by it, I never saw tears, I never saw ever any of that.

Jane Coaston: Wow, so Jeffrey Epstein was just a rich guy who did absolutely nothing and nothing ever happened? Wild! Family members of one of Epstein’s accusers said they were outraged by the Justice Department’s decision to release the transcripts, saying the department gave Maxwell a, quote, “platform to rewrite history.” They have a point. In one section of the interview, Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche sounds exasperated after feebly pushing against Maxwell’s claims. 

[clip of Todd Blanche] When you say no one reports me meaning like the masseuses or–

[clip of Ghislaine Maxwell] Never. 

[clip of Todd Blanche] Any of the house staff? 

[clip of Ghislaine Maxwell] Never. 

[clip of Todd Blanche] Or the clients or the client themselves? 

[clip of Ghislaine Maxwell] Never. 

[clip of Todd Blanche] Um. [sigh] Okay. 

Jane Coaston: Hard-hitting interview tactics from our Department of Justice. Great job, Todd! And that’s the news. [music break]

[AD BREAK]

Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, congratulate tennis great Venus Williams on returning to the U.S. Open, and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading, and not just about how Venus Williams debuted at the U. S. Open at the age of 17 in 1997, and is back playing at the U S Open tonight at the Age of 45, like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston, and I turned 10 three days after Venus Williams appeared in her first US Open final. I am no longer 10. [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producer is Emily Fohr. Our video editor is Joseph Dutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had production help today from Greg Walters, Matt Berg, Shawna Lee, and Gina Pollock. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our senior vice president of news and politics is Adriene Hill. We had help with our headlines from the Associated Press. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. [music break]

[AD BREAK]