Inside The Hive With Nick Bilton

On this week's episode of Inside the Hive, co-hosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan are joined by Hive political reporter Abigail Tracy to talk about the plight of the Democratic Party leading into this year’s midterms. With the right savaging Democrats on the economy and culture-war issues, and a total loss of congressional power to the Trumpist right looming, what is the Democrats' message to voters and why isn't Joe Biden delivering it? Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Rebecca Traister, feminist, author and New York Magazine contributor, talks to co-host Joe Hagan about the shocking Supreme Court leak that all but confirms the impending death of Roe v. Wade. Democratic leadership from President Joe Biden to Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi have failed, Traister says, to formulate a "robust and morally persuasive message” to counteract the decades-long march of anti-choice Republicans who are set on reengineering society to the past. With consequential elections on the horizon, the fall of Roe could very well mean the toppling of other progressive rulings, from the right to contraception to marriage equality and even interracial unions. Traister finds slivers of hope in a new generation of progressive female voices who are forcefully connecting abortion rights to economics, class, and race as they face "an era that none of us can imagine.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Author James Pogue talks to cohosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan about the so-called New Right, the intellectual movement congealing around tech billionaire and MAGA mega-donor Peter Thiel and the Trumpist GOP, which he wrote about for this month’s Vanity Fair. After embedding himself with the vanguard of intellectuals whose reactionary politics, antagonism for democracy and visions of retro-patriarchy inform the agendas of people like Tucker Carlson and JD Vance, Pogue demystifies fringe ideas like the “black pill,” “trad wives,” and “ball tanning." Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On this week's episode of Inside the Hive, Nick Bilton--who literally wrote the book on Twitter--returns to dissect why Elon Musk is trying to buy the company, what employees and investors are talking about behind closed doors, and whether or not he thinks the deal will even go through. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On this week's episode of Inside the Hive, Bill Browder joins Emily Jane Fox to talk about how governments around the world can more effectively turn the screws on Russia, and how, if the Russian people begin to see Putin as what Browder calls a "failed, corrupt, tinpot dictator," he could be stripped of his power. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This week, Inside the Hive cohost Joe Hagan talks to Florida Congressman Charlie Crist, former Republican and one-time governor, about the culture wars emanating from his home state and specifically, from Governor Ron DeSantis. As DeSantis passes discriminatory new laws targeting gay and trans people, generating partisan bile for a potential presidential run, Crist is betting DeSantis is a “paper tiger” who is weaker than he appears. "I think he's terribly vulnerable,” he says. “[His] support is a mile wide and an inch deep.”Taking a page from Biden’s playbook against Trump in 2020, Crist thinks voters secretly want civility and not bullying, Disney and not DeSantis, even if current polling shows DeSantis trouncing Crist in a theoretical match up. "I'm an optimist, I'm idealistic, and I believe good will triumph over bad,” Crist says. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This week, cohost Joe Hagan digs into the latest on the Jan. 6 story with CBS New correspondent Robert Costa, who, along with legendary reporter Bob Woodward, broke the news that the House Committee investigating the insurrection discovered a 7 hour and 37 minute gap in Donald Trump’s call logs from that day. Costa explains the importance of that Watergate-like hole in Trump's story — when he was MIA while the Capitol burned — and what it may portend for the investigation. He also defends the Department of Justice against critics who believe AG Merrick Garland isn’t doing enough to probe Trump’s involvement in an attempted coup. “Maybe we just don't know the full story because they work like sharks,” he says. "They're underwater in a way congressional committees are not.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

People were grappling with "fake news" long before it became Donald Trump's favorite term.Fake news might feel new — but the concept has a long twisted history in the United States, as Andie Tucher, a Columbia Journalism School professor and author of the new book "Not Exactly Lying: Fake News and Fake Journalism in American History," tells Inside the Hive cohost Emily Jane Fox this week. How did we get to this moment, with its toxic mix of hyperpartisanship, disinformation, and seemingly endless turmoil? What is the role of social media, and of Donald Trump and Fox News in making our understanding of reality feel so dire? Tucher also explains how Democrats and Republicans, as well as liberal media and conservative media, communicate about truth differently, and explores how we can restore faith in our sources of news. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

CNN senior international correspondent Matthew Chance flew to Kyiv in January as Russia began amassing troops on Ukraine's borders, and was in the capital on February 24 when it launched its brutal assault. He tells Inside the Hive cohost Joe Hagan about covering a war that has transformed a country overnight, sending millions fleeing and others into the resistance as Russia targets civilians in its quest to take over the country. Chance describes what he witnessed, and what it’s like to be a journalist on the ground, as fellow reporters lose their lives. He also mulls what the war could mean for the global order, and the hopeless quagmire Vladimir Putin now finds himself in. Now recouping in London, Chase says the Kyiv he last saw was the tragic shell of a formerly vibrant metropolis, a hollowed-out death trap awaiting Russian forces with "a javelin anti-tank missile in every window.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On this week's episode of Inside the Hive, Emily Jane Fox talks to The Hive's editor and resident Russia-Ukraine expert Miriam Elderabout what is happening on the ground in Ukraine. As Russia escalates its war in Ukraine, including its bombing of a maternity and children's hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, Elder talks through the human toll of this war: the impossible choices families are having to make, the horrors children are living through, the impact on a pediatric cancer hospital, and what Russian families are facing at the same time. Then, author Rebecca Fox Starr stops by to discuss how we talk about hard things with children, teach kids to take in events with empathy and how we process our own feelings about what is happening in this world. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This week, Inside the Hive cohosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan talk to an expert on the ultrarich oligarchs behind Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Dartmouth sociologist and author Brooke Harrington. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has implicated Putin’s feudal system of corrupt oligarchs, rallying the West to trying to seize their offshore bank accounts and superyachts. Taking their stuff could weaken them, but Harrington says tarnishing and destroying their social status in London and New York, where they’ve built opulent fiefdoms, may be just as effective. Also, Harrington tells of her efforts to join the White House’s new anti-oligarch task force, KleptoCapture—with distressing results.Follow our guest, Brooke Harrington:https://twitter.com/EBHarringtonFollow Emily and Joe on Twitter:https://twitter.com/emilyjanefoxhttps://twitter.com/joehagansays Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Russia expert Nina Khrushcheva and Trump impeachment hero Alexander Vindman explain what is driving Putin's assault on Ukraine — and how Republicans also have blood on their hands.Cohosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan interview two leading experts about Russia's invasion of Ukraine — how it happened and how it could reshape the world as we know it. First, Nina Krushcheva, a Russia expert and professor at the New School in New York, takes us inside the mind of Vladimir Putin, how he was underestimated and whether the cold, calculated ex-KGB man has finally succumbed to a world-historic megalomania. Next, Hagan talks to Alexander Vindman, the former Army Lt. Colonel and outspoken participant in Trump's first impeachment trial that revolved around the then president's attempts to dig up dirt on Joe Biden in Ukraine. Vindman reserves his harshest criticism for Putin sympathizers in the GOP: “These folks have blood on their hands. They're going to own this.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choice

This week, cohost Joe Hagan talks to renowned writer, culture critic, and scholar Lucy Sante, whose essay in the February issue of Vanity Fair describes her transition at age 67. Sante expands on her many stages of personal revelation—how the “egg” was cracked—and the relief and liberation she experienced in embracing her long-denied gender as well as the challenges she still faces, personally, socially, and romantically. While she works on a new book about her self discovery, the author of nonfiction classics like Low Life and Factory of Facts is navigating the misunderstood nexus of gender and sexuality with her signature erudition, wit and curiosity. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This week, Inside the Hive cohosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan examine potential cracks in the American ice. On one side of the aisle, Republicans Mike Pence and Mitch McConnell appear to have distanced themselves from the Jan. 6 insurrection. On the other, Democrats have begun backing away from COVID restrictions. Are these maneuvers for political advantage in advance of the 2022 midterms, or signs of something more? Plus: Fox and Hagan weigh in on this year's Oscar nominations. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This week, cohost Joe Hagan talks to Hive media correspondent Joe Pompeo, who helps unwind the Succession-worthy melodrama around the departure of CNN president Jeff Zucker in the wake of the ouster of anchor Chris Cuomo, which itself came in the wake of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s resignation following accusations of sexual harassment. How does one ouster connect to the other? And was the reason Zucker gave for his exit — failing to disclose a romantic relationship with a top CNN executive — the true reason he left or is there something more at work? Pompeo explores the possibilities and reveals new details. All this and the drama surrounding Joe Rogan too on the latest episode of Inside the Hive. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The week’s episode of Inside the Hive gets to the heart of this puzzling economic moment—with inflation on the rise and the supply chain a mess but the rest of the fundamentals stronger than they have been in years. Economist Beth Ann Bovino breaks it down and looks ahead to what comes next. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On this week’s Inside the Hive, cohost Joe Hagan and Paul Begala, CNN analyst and former counselor to Bill Clinton, discuss the woeful state of the Biden White House and the fate of the Democrats, including the latest defeat over the Voting Rights Act and the filibuster. With Biden trying to be both a “normal” President and an FDR change agent for the ages, he’s managed to do neither and please no one as his polls sink. Begala offers his analysis and advice for rebuilding Democratic prospects in the midterms and countering a Republican Party hellbent on destroying democracy. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The CDC's messaging around Omicron has been a disaster, and with cases surging and despair on the rise, Dr. Katelyn Jetelina stops by this episode of Inside the Hive to give a clear picture of what we should know about the virus right now. The epidemiologist, professor and author of the popular "Your Local Epidemiologist" newsletter answers all of our questions about when the variant might peak, what comes next, what we should know about schools, and where to find some silver linings. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On this week's episode of Inside the Hive, co-hosts Joe Hagan and Emily Jane Fox are joined by their colleague Abigail Tracy to talk about what's next for the January 6 commission, what is at stake in an election year, and whether it will practically mean anything to half of the country. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This week, Inside the Hive cohosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan discuss strategies for surviving holiday isolation and anxiety during the COVID resurgence. In that spirit, Hagan talks to Don Was, famed record producer and president of Blue Note Records, about the transporting power of music, taking listeners through his own personal playlist of favorite recordings and the stories behind them, from Norah Jones and Iggy Pop to the Wayne Shorter and Charles Lloyd. A holiday special for the news weary. (Find an exclusive playlist on Spotify under "Inside the Hive Holiday Special.")https://open.spotify.com/playlist/26EFfPAJpggIMELvWuy30u?si=c59e5615593c46e9 Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices