THE JAMES S. BRADY PRESS BRIEFING ROOM, FIVE CHAIRS EMPTIER THAN USUAL, WASHINGTON, D.C. (The Daily Whatever Press) — Friday night, Donald Trump got on Truth Social and banned CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House “effective immediately,” on the grounds that their reporting amounted to, in his professional media-criticism opinion, “FICTION and LIES.” Real boo-hoo crybaby shit coming from the so-called leader of the free world, but nothing less than we’ve come to expect.

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No process. No warning to his own press shop — several aides reportedly found out from the same post the rest of us did. Saturday morning, three reporters showed up for work anyway: CNN’s Betsy Klein, MS NOW’s Akayla Gardner, and Politico’s Cheyenne Haslett. All three got turned away at the gate, hard passes confiscated on the spot.

That part, you already know. Here’s the part that turned a petty tantrum into a four-alarm, self-inflicted humiliation.

CNN was up this week as the White House’s TV pool lead — the network that shoots the shared video every other outlet runs, including coverage of the UN General Assembly trip Trump is on right now. So the White House pulled CNN off pool duty. Fine, you’d think. Somebody else steps in. ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC — four other networks sitting right there.

Except pool coverage doesn’t work if the White House gets to hand-pick who’s allowed to cover the president based on how it feels about the coverage. And rather than simply slot another network into CNN’s place, the pool did something considerably more consequential. Monday morning — as in, today — the acting chair of the pool sent out a memo shutting the whole thing down. Not “we’ll find a workaround.” Done.

“Effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President,” it read. “There will be no replacement pool put in place.”

The guy who wrote that memo is Bryan Boughton. He runs Fox News’s Washington bureau.

Fox. News. The network that has spent a decade wearing a Trump hat to the office picnic just told the White House it would rather go dark on the President of the United States than pretend a hand-picked press corps is normal. My teenagers manage smoother substitute-teacher logistics than the White House managed here, and they’re fifteen. You spent eight years building a media ecosystem that owes you everything, and it just walked off the beat rather than help disappear the outlets you don’t like. That’s not loyalty breaking. That’s loyalty finding a floor.

This isn’t even the first rerun. Trump yanked Jim Acosta’s credentials in 2018; a federal judge — one he appointed, for the bit — put them back within the week and called it a due-process problem. The administration tried the same move on the AP last year over three words on a map; an appeals court ruled that one unconstitutional too, though it’s stayed pending appeal, because apparently losing once isn’t instructive if you can lose again slower.

Even the White House Correspondents’ Association isn’t buying the “we’re just holding liars accountable” framing — and its current president, Jacqui Heinrich, is also Fox. She put it plainly: a standard used to exclude one outlet for its coverage works on any outlet, the second you’re the one they don’t like.

So here’s where we’ve landed, seventy-two hours in: CNN, MS NOW, and Politico filed suit today. The consortium that’s supposed to be neutral plumbing for presidential coverage went on strike rather than launder the ban. And the man who spent his second term turning conservative media into a loyalty test just found the one thing it turns out not everybody was willing to fail.

This is the most solidarity the Fourth Estate has managed since the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, when every late-night host stayed dark rather than cross a picket line their own union wasn’t even on. Except this time the picket line is the First Amendment, and the guy who drew it just got refused by his own network.

I don’t know how the lawsuit shakes out. Courts have sided with the press before and the administration keeps doing this anyway, so maybe they will again and maybe it won’t matter this time either. But somewhere this week, a Fox News bureau chief looked at “help us ban the network we don’t like” and said no, actually, we don’t do that here. Write that down. Some Mondays deserve to be remembered for what didn’t happen.

Thanks for reading!

We’re Dana DuBois and Lawrence Winnerman, lifelong BFFs and co-hosts of The Daily Whatever Show — our independent home for smart, irreverent conversations about culture, politics, media, creativity, relationships, aging, and whatever else is shaping modern life this week.

We’re live every weekday at 10am ET with thoughtful analysis, sharp interviews, cultural commentary, humor, and the kind of conversations that don’t pretend everything is fine when it clearly isn’t.

If you’re enjoying what we’re building, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Your support helps us keep the show independent, book fascinating guests, and continue creating smart conversations with your morning coffee.

We love you — mean it!

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Thanks for listening!

We’re Dana DuBois and Lawrence Winnerman, lifelong BFFs and co-hosts of The Daily Whatever Show — our independent home for smart, irreverent conversations about culture, politics, media, creativity, relationships, aging, and whatever else is shaping modern life this week.

We’re live every weekday at 10am ET with thoughtful analysis, sharp interviews, cultural commentary, humor, and the kind of conversations that don’t pretend everything is fine when it clearly isn’t.

If you’re enjoying what we’re building, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Your support helps us keep the show independent, book fascinating guests, and continue creating smart conversations with your morning coffee.

We love you — mean it!

Get more from The Daily Whatever Show in the Substack app

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DALLAS, TEXAS (The Daily Whatever Wire)—I raised my daughters to believe that if you have to make someone swear an oath to keep them loyal, you’ve already lost the argument (and the friendship). Apparently nobody explained it to the President of the United States, who stood on a stage in Dallas Thursday night, raised his own right hand, and had a room full of grown adults repeat a loyalty pledge to him personally—not the country, not the Constitution, him—that ended with an open, on-the-record promise to commit voter fraud.

As he does.

Here’s the quote, word for word:

He closed the pledge with “so help me God,” a phrase normally reserved for testifying in federal court, not for confessing to a crime in advance of committing it. Then, in case anyone in the room had failed to grasp the stakes, he added that if you don’t vote, “you go to hell.”

So let’s recap the sequence here: 1) swear loyalty to me, 2) commit to voter fraud, 3) so help you God, or 4) eternal damnation.

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Here’s the part where I must toss in a caveat to you, dear readers: yes, The Daily Whatever Wire is quasi-satirical, in that it’s not a real, actual newswire. But make no mistake—those are actual quotes from the actual Republican National Convention that our actual president made. Who needs satire when real life is this absurd, amirte??

Donald Trump Jr., Speaker Mike Johnson, and RFK Jr. reportedly raised their hands in appreciation, I guess?. Karoline Leavitt laughed along but kept hers down, which—awww, look at her, developing a self-preservation instinct at this late stage of the game. That’s so cute, Karoline! Somewhere there’s a chief of staff furiously drafting a memo titled “Optics of Publicly Pledging Fraud” and I hope that person is paid a great deal of money, because they’re about to earn every red penny (that no longer exists) of it explaining to the boss why “we swore to cheat, on camera, at a podium” is a bad look even by his deep-in-the-lowest-pits-of-hell standards.

Here’s the part where I tell you what I made up, because Dana DuBois does not let fabrication pass as fact, not even for a bit. So: I don’t actually know that RNC merchandising has begun selling a laminated, notarized wallet card of the pledge for $39.99, engraved gold-foil edition $89.99, “so you can carry your commitment to defraud the American electorate wherever you go.” I don’t know that. I made that up. But I want you to notice how little work I had to do to make it funny, because the actual pledge is already a wallet card away from a QVC segment.

I also don’t know that a Heritage Foundation spokesperson issued a statement calling the pledge “a bold recommitment to procedural flexibility.” I invented that quote. But if you handed it to me blind, in a stack of real Heritage Foundation statements, I wouldn’t be able to pick it out, and that should worry you more than anything I’ve written on purpose.

What isn’t invented: the man running to hold onto a Republican-majority Congress opened his closing pitch by admitting—out loud and in front of a camera, televised to the world and before his own son, not that he gives a shit about his kids—that the plan is to cheat “like hell.” Not to resist or safeguard against cheating. But to be outwardly and boldly great at cheating. He told his own supporters that “there’s never been bigger cheaters,” a sentence that requires you to believe both that the other side invented industrial-scale fraud and that his solution is to become better at the thing he insists doesn’t exist.

If that’s not a confession wearing a policy position as a costume then… oh fuck, I don’t know. It’s clearly a confession. How can I try to make that bit more biting?

I can’t, because I don’t have a bit for the ending. This isn’t a bit, not at all. A sitting president stood in front of thousands of people, asked them to raise their hands like they were being sworn in, and got them to promise to break the law for him.

And the room laughed. Here’s hoping history not only remembers the laughter but also avenges what the laughter was covering.

Thanks for reading!

We’re Dana DuBois and Lawrence Winnerman, lifelong BFFs and co-hosts of The Daily Whatever Show — our independent home for smart, irreverent conversations about culture, politics, media, creativity, relationships, aging, and whatever else is shaping modern life this week.

We’re live every weekday at 10am ET with thoughtful analysis, sharp interviews, cultural commentary, humor, and the kind of conversations that don’t pretend everything is fine when it clearly isn’t.

If you’re enjoying what we’re building, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Your support helps us keep the show independent, book fascinating guests, and continue creating smart conversations with your morning coffee.

We love you — mean it!

WASHINGTON D.C. (The Daily Whatever Wire) — Somewhere in the Upside Down, a demogorgon just felt seen. A reporter asked Donald Trump whether he’d declare a national security emergency and personally take over the 2026 midterms. This is not a hard question. It has a one-syllable, two-letter answer. Toddlers manage it 40 times a day about broccoli.

“Stranger things have happened,” Trump replied.

I’ll wait while you throw your phone across the room. Go ahead.

Here’s what “stranger things have happened” is not: a no. It’s not “the Constitution doesn’t allow that,” which is a true fact a first-year law student could recite in his sleep. It’s not even the standard-issue political sedative, “I have complete confidence in our electoral process.” It’s four words engineered to leave the door open, and make the rest of us do the work of figuring out why.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard Trump insinuate an end to free elections.

In January, Trump told a crowd he wasn’t saying cancel the election — they should. It was just a suggestion, tossed into a room full of people whose job is applauding on command, like he’s workshopping a bit at an open mic where the only other act is fascism. Days later, he told Reuters that, “we shouldn’t even have an election.” The White House subsequently characterized the remark as facetious.

My pal Merriam-Webster defines facetious as, “joking or sarcastic especially in a way regarded by others as silly, annoying, or inappropriate.” Hmm. Do you find the president “joking” about not holding elections silly? Or annoying? Because maybe I’m overreacting here, but I consider it like a DEFCON 1-LEVEL NOT A FUCKING JOKE sort of scenario.

In February, a reporter asked him point-blank about a specific proposal circulating among his allies to declare a national election emergency. His answer: “No. I’ve never heard about it.” Hold onto that sentence. We’re going to need it.

Because that same month, he told Republicans they should “nationalize” voting in at least 15 places. Which is an awfully specific suggestion for a man who’d just said he’d never heard of the idea of using emergency powers to intervene in elections.

Except there was, in fact, an idea.

A 17-page draft executive order was circulating among pro-Trump activists. It proposed using alleged Chinese interference in the 2020 election as the basis for declaring a national emergency and unlocking extraordinary presidential powers over voting. The Washington Post got hold of the document, because apparently even the potential federal takeover of American elections now comes with a paper trail.

Trump said he had never heard of it.

Sure.

By August, the hypothetical had gotten considerably more comfortable. That’s when Wayne Allyn Root went on Real America’s Voice and handed Trump a gift-wrapped workaround: if Congress wouldn’t pass the SAVE America Act, Root suggested, Trump could declare a national security emergency and impose photo ID, proof of citizenship, and limits on mail voting anyway. Root invoked the 1983 Supreme Court case INS v. Chadha to support his theory, although Chadha concerned the legislative veto in immigration law, not presidential authority to take over elections.

Trump could’ve said no. He’d already said no, in February, on tape, pre-written, load-bearing.

Instead, he said the four words you met at the beginning of this story: “Stranger things have happened.”

And now you know the history behind them.

The insidious part is watching how the ask keeps getting closer to reasonable, or at least, realistic. First it’s a joke about canceling the election. Then it’s Republicans “nationalizing” voting in 15 places. Then there’s a draft executive order, complete with legal citations and a theory about national security. Then a friendly host hands the president a ready-made workaround and asks, essentially, Why not just do it?

The hypothetical keeps creeping ever closer to possibility, to policy.

But the legal case for any of this is garbage — actual, structural, Tenth-Amendment-shaped rubbish. States have the primary role in administering elections, while Article I gives Congress — not the president — the authority to alter the rules governing congressional elections. The Constitution does not hand the president a giant emergency button labeled ELECTIONS: DO WHATEVER.

Which makes Trump’s repeated flirtation with the idea more interesting than the legal theory itself. Maybe it’s political theater. Could it be leverage on Congress? Sure, why not. Or perhaps some of the people circulating these ideas are simply throwing constitutional spaghetti at the wall and waiting to see what sticks.

Or… maybe it’s a stress test.

Maybe Trump and the ding-dongs feeding him these ideas are testing exactly how loudly the alarm rings before somebody hits snooze.

We’ve seen the trailer for this movie. In 2020, Trump’s false claims about election fraud produced months of lawsuits, recounts, and pressure on election officials before culminating in an effort to overturn the certified result. Courts rejected the central claims.

The difference is that last time, the chaos came after the votes were counted. This time, the argument is already underway before anyone has voted.

Our instinct may be to file this under noise, because Trump says an enormous number of things and nobody has enough nervous-system capacity to treat every one of them like a five-alarm fire. You’d have no gasps left if you spent one on every “stranger things” sentence he’s ever muttered.

But that instinct is precisely why the sequence matters more than any individual remark. A comment in January can be dismissed as a joke. A proposal in February can be dismissed as a fringe idea. A draft order can be dismissed as something Trump says he never saw. A friendly interviewer can be dismissed as a crank.

Eventually, though, the pieces start sitting next to one another.

So here’s my unequivocal, unsolicited advice: Take. Trump. At. His. Word.

Not because he never bluffs — dude bluffs constantly, professionally, it’s basically his whole personality — but because the sitting president and his people have been escalating the rhetoric all year.

And when a man finally handed him the easiest possible version of the question, Trump did not say no.

He’s been not saying no since January.

The Upside Down isn’t a metaphor anymore. It’s 17 pages in a Washington Post filing cabinet. By November, we’ll know whether we heard the warning — or whether we waited for the alarm to become the emergency.

Stranger things have happened.

Thanks for reading!

We’re Dana DuBois and Lawrence Winnerman, lifelong BFFs and co-hosts of The Daily Whatever Show — our independent home for smart, irreverent conversations about culture, politics, media, creativity, relationships, aging, and whatever else is shaping modern life this week.

We’re live every weekday at 10am ET with thoughtful analysis, sharp interviews, cultural commentary, humor, and the kind of conversations that don’t pretend everything is fine when it clearly isn’t.

If you’re enjoying what we’re building, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Your support helps us keep the show independent, book fascinating guests, and continue creating smart conversations with your morning coffee.

We love you — mean it!

Then it was time for Fucked-up Friday, where we discussed three wildly different contenders. pitched a story about AI-created viruses with no evolutionary history, discussed the cop supervisor in Texas who stole a female police officers’ intimate photos from her phone without recourse, and connected the dots from Jon Stewart’s 9/11 first responders fight to the broader failures of this administration to protect the military people they claim to serve with basic provisions—and the guarantee their loved ones won’t be deported by ICE while they’re deployed.

As always, the chat had the final say on who brought the most horrifying story of the week—listen in to learn who won!

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning in and to for moderating.

Thanks for listening!

We’re Dana DuBois and Lawrence Winnerman, lifelong BFFs and co-hosts of The Daily Whatever Show — our independent home for smart, irreverent conversations about culture, politics, media, creativity, relationships, aging, and whatever else is shaping modern life this week.

We’re live every weekday at 10am ET with thoughtful analysis, sharp interviews, cultural commentary, humor, and the kind of conversations that don’t pretend everything is fine when it clearly isn’t.

If you’re enjoying what we’re building, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Your support helps us keep the show independent, book fascinating guests, and continue creating smart conversations with your morning coffee.

We love you — mean it!

Get more from The Daily Whatever Show in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

Thanks for listening!

We’re Dana DuBois and Lawrence Winnerman, lifelong BFFs and co-hosts of The Daily Whatever Show — our independent home for smart, irreverent conversations about culture, politics, media, creativity, relationships, aging, and whatever else is shaping modern life this week.

We’re live every weekday at 10am ET with thoughtful analysis, sharp interviews, cultural commentary, humor, and the kind of conversations that don’t pretend everything is fine when it clearly isn’t.

If you’re enjoying what we’re building, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Your support helps us keep the show independent, book fascinating guests, and continue creating smart conversations with your morning coffee.

We love you — mean it!

Get more from The Daily Whatever Show in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

Because we had the immense honor to welcome the great almighty to The Daily Whatever Show, and while I don’t want to start any blasphemous rumors, I can confirm: God has a sick sense of humor.

And we were all here for it, as the conversation popped off about queer Jesus, fountains of shit, deviled eggs (god-ed eggs?), and my deep unholy desire to challenge the omniscient, omnipotent God to a karaoke-off. (We need to make that happen, amirite??)

Then we settled into our regularly scheduled Effed-up Friday programming, breaking down another week of spectacularly unhinged headlines with God's running commentary. I’m not going to give away the stories or the winner—but let’s say it featured everything from Trump Derangement Syndrome to explosive diarrhea. Was it a cause and effect situation? Who can say. You’re just going to have to listen.

In the end, and I realized: God really is like one of us. Just a slob like one of us.

We wouldn’t want it any other way.

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning in, and to for moderating.

Tune in next Friday, July 17 when we welcome for Fucked-up Friday!!

Thanks for listening!

We’re Dana DuBois and Lawrence Winnerman, lifelong BFFs and co-hosts of The Daily Whatever Show — our independent home for smart, irreverent conversations about culture, politics, media, creativity, relationships, aging, and whatever else is shaping modern life this week.

We’re live every weekday at 10am ET with thoughtful analysis, sharp interviews, cultural commentary, humor, and the kind of conversations that don’t pretend everything is fine when it clearly isn’t.

If you’re enjoying what we’re building, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Your support helps us keep the show independent, book fascinating guests, and continue creating smart conversations with your morning coffee.

We love you — mean it!

We’re not going to reveal the stories—just that Ayana won in a landslide.

Have a listen!

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning in, and to and for moderating.

Thanks for listening!

We’re Dana DuBois and Lawrence Winnerman, lifelong BFFs and co-hosts of The Daily Whatever Show — our independent home for smart, irreverent conversations about culture, politics, media, creativity, relationships, aging, and whatever else is shaping modern life this week.

We’re live every weekday at 10am ET with thoughtful analysis, sharp interviews, cultural commentary, humor, and the kind of conversations that don’t pretend everything is fine when it clearly isn’t.

If you’re enjoying what we’re building, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Your support helps us keep the show independent, book fascinating guests, and continue creating smart conversations with your morning coffee.

We love you — mean it!

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In the interest of time—and because Nick covered this so well—I’m going to quote him below, so we can start spreading the word ASAP.

In Nick’s own words…

A huge thank you to my friends Dana DuBois and Lawrence Winnerman (of The Daily Whatever Show) for hosting Nieta Greene (of Disability Community for Democracy) and me in this call to action for Saying No To Crip Crow.

The only ask I have for any of you reading this, or listening to the replay, is that you take the time today—and every day after—to contact your federal Representative and Senators to help us codify the rights and freedoms of the 1999 Olmstead decision into law as an expansion of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

To get involved, stay informed, and see the scripts/templates to help you make the calls, visit our new support page at: https://app.broadbanner.com/crip-crow

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning in, with huge thanks to Karen and for moderating.

Thanks for listening!

We’re Dana DuBois and Lawrence Winnerman, lifelong BFFs and co-hosts of The Daily Whatever Show — our independent home for smart, irreverent conversations about culture, politics, media, creativity, relationships, aging, and whatever else is shaping modern life this week.

We’re live every weekday at 10am ET with thoughtful analysis, sharp interviews, cultural commentary, humor, and the kind of conversations that don’t pretend everything is fine when it clearly isn’t.

If you’re enjoying what we’re building, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Your support helps us keep the show independent, book fascinating guests, and continue creating smart conversations with your morning coffee.

We love you — mean it!

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We each brought our news of the week and found we had three stories, and one throughline: defund the science, nature wins.

Dana brought the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool — algae-green after a $14 million no-bid repaint job awarded to a Trump donor. Ann brought Battleground, WA, a Portland-area town of 23,000 being methodically taken over by a billionaire white Christian nationalist. Lawrence closed with the New World Screwworm, a flesh-burrowing parasite the US had eradicated for 60 years via a $15M/year sterile fly program — until DOGE cut it. It’s now in Texas and New Mexico. The administration is requesting $1 billion to fight the outbreak.

Lawrence won, though Ann was a very close second.

Ann and Lawrence are launching a four-Tuesday series in July on building a better economy. Watch this space for details.

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning in, and to and for moderating.

Thanks for listening!

We’re Dana DuBois and Lawrence Winnerman, lifelong BFFs and co-hosts of The Daily Whatever Show — our independent home for smart, irreverent conversations about culture, politics, media, creativity, relationships, aging, and whatever else is shaping modern life this week.

We’re live every weekday at 10am ET with thoughtful analysis, sharp interviews, cultural commentary, humor, and the kind of conversations that don’t pretend everything is fine when it clearly isn’t.

If you’re enjoying what we’re building, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Your support helps us keep the show independent, book fascinating guests, and continue creating smart conversations with your morning coffee.

We love you — mean it!

Get more from The Daily Whatever Show in the Substack app

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I’m not going to disclose the stories or the winner, only that Ellie’s story won for funniest Fucked-up Friday pitch we’ve heard in ages.

We’ll be back every Friday all summer. But this was a lovely reminder of why we’ve spent the last fifteen months showing up for these conversations in the first place.

Thank you , , , , and many others for tuning in and the the amazing and for moderating.

Thanks for listening!

We’re Dana DuBois and Lawrence Winnerman, lifelong BFFs and co-hosts of The Daily Whatever Show — our independent home for smart, irreverent conversations about culture, politics, media, creativity, relationships, aging, and whatever else is shaping modern life this week.

We’re live every weekday at 10am ET with thoughtful analysis, sharp interviews, cultural commentary, humor, and the kind of conversations that don’t pretend everything is fine when it clearly isn’t.

If you’re enjoying what we’re building, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Your support helps us keep the show independent, book fascinating guests, and continue creating smart conversations with your morning coffee.

We love you — mean it!

Get more from The Daily Whatever Show in the Substack app

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Get the app

Thanks for listening!

We’re Dana DuBois and Lawrence Winnerman, lifelong BFFs and co-hosts of The Daily Whatever Show — our independent home for smart, irreverent conversations about culture, politics, media, creativity, relationships, aging, and whatever else is shaping modern life this week.

We’re live every weekday at 10am ET with thoughtful analysis, sharp interviews, cultural commentary, humor, and the kind of conversations that don’t pretend everything is fine when it clearly isn’t.

If you’re enjoying what we’re building, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Your support helps us keep the show independent, book fascinating guests, and continue creating smart conversations with your morning coffee.

We love you — mean it!

Get more from The Daily Whatever Show in the Substack app

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The conversation opened with ’s revelation that the Department of Justice sought access to subscriber information connected to his journalism — a chilling reminder that attacks on the press don’t just target reporters. They target audiences too.

From there, Maritsa brought what was easily the most alarming story of the day: a North Carolina bill that would classify abortion as murder and authorize deadly force to stop it. The implications are as horrifying as they sound, and the conversation quickly turned to what happens when extremism stops being rhetoric and starts becoming legislation.

I also dug into the return of Motherless, the website CNN exposed for hosting thousands of videos of men drugging and raping their wives and girlfriends. Despite international attention, the site is back online, no arrests appear to have been made, and the responsibility for policing rape videos apparently remains with the same community that uploaded them in the first place.

And of course, Lawrence had to nominate the absurd story of Trump wanting his ugly mug on a $250 bill. It would be laughable if it weren’t so gross.

Martisa won in a landslide.

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning in, and to and for moderating.

Thanks for listening!

We’re Dana DuBois and Lawrence Winnerman, lifelong BFFs and co-hosts of The Daily Whatever Show — our independent home for smart, irreverent conversations about culture, politics, media, creativity, relationships, aging, and whatever else is shaping modern life this week.

We’re live at 10am ET with thoughtful analysis, sharp interviews, cultural commentary, humor, and the kind of conversations that don’t pretend everything is fine when it clearly isn’t.

If you’re enjoying what we’re building, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Your support helps us keep the show independent, book fascinating guests, and continue creating smart conversations with your morning coffee.

We love you — mean it!

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The show opened with the loss of Stephen Colbert’s late-night platform and a larger discussion about free speech, authoritarianism, and why even someone as universally beloved—and frankly as mainstream white Catholic American as Colbert—is no longer safe from political retaliation. From there, things escalated quickly into the actual Fucked-up Friday stories.

Qasim brought data from a story he wrote called Who Is Igniting Antisemitism in America? It highlights a study by the Anti-Defamation League showing that out of more than 41,000 documented antisemitic hate incidents over two decades, only three were tied to leftists or Muslims — despite the nonstop narrative blaming campus protests and Muslim communities for rising antisemitism. The conversation expanded into white Christian nationalism, propaganda, Gaza, Islamophobia, synagogue and mosque violence, and the dangerous ways disinformation is making both Jewish and Muslim communities less safe.

Lawrence tackled Elon Musk suddenly championing Universal Basic Income while simultaneously helping build the AI systems most likely to eliminate millions of jobs in the first place. That spiraled into a conversation about tech billionaires, patriarchy, Andrew Yang being accidentally right too early, and why Jeff Bezos and Musk suddenly sound weirdly progressive now that the pitchforks are aimed in their direction.

And I brought the climate horror: a new study recommending that relocation from New Orleans begin immediately because the city may have already crossed a point of no return due to sea level rise. Which led us back again to parenting, children, collective trauma, and the fact that America keeps forcing entire generations to grow up inside overlapping crises while pretending none of them are connected.

Our audience voted, and while I captured a fair number of votes, today’s winner was clearly Qasim.

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning in, with special thanks to our amazing mods, and .

Thanks for listening!

We’re Dana DuBois and Lawrence Winnerman, lifelong BFFs and co-hosts of The Daily Whatever Show — our independent home for smart, irreverent conversations about culture, politics, media, creativity, relationships, aging, and whatever else is shaping modern life this week.

We’re live every weekday at 10am ET with thoughtful analysis, sharp interviews, cultural commentary, humor, and the kind of conversations that don’t pretend everything is fine when it clearly isn’t.

If you’re enjoying what we’re building, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Your support helps us keep the show independent, book fascinating guests, and continue creating smart conversations with your morning coffee.

We love you — mean it!

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We call it the “whatever” show for a reason.

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Anne joined us to talk about the increasingly wild Epstein revelations emerging from the work she’s doing alongside Zev Shalev, including a secret three-hour recording involving Epstein, Ehud Barak, and Larry Summers that appears to point toward far larger geopolitical and financial manipulation than most people understand. The conversation kept circling the same unsettling idea: Epstein may have been far less about sex crimes alone and far more about power, leverage, intelligence networks, and global economics.

Then Anne casually dropped the revelation that Epstein literally owned his own bank.

Not metaphorically. An actual bank. In the Virgin Islands. As one does.

Meanwhile, sent the show spiraling into existential dread discussing the AI-powered peptide research company he just built almost entirely using Claude. What started as “look what AI can do” quickly became “oh my God, what happens when 93 million white-collar workers become obsolete?” followed shortly thereafter by “also AI may accidentally wipe out civilization.” You can read his full essay here.

But hands-down won Fucked-up Friday for her story: “We Will Find You, and We Will Kill You,” a harrowing story by our dear friend detailing the latest Trump atrocity. He’s actively threatening to kill trans people and those who support a “radically pro-transgender” ideology. Add to this the same day murder of trans University of Washington student Juniper Blessing, and… well, we have no words, truly. Just horror.

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning in, and to and for moderating.

Thanks for listening!

We’re Dana DuBois and Lawrence Winnerman, lifelong BFFs and co-hosts of The Daily Whatever Show — our independent home for smart, irreverent conversations about culture, politics, media, creativity, relationships, aging, and whatever else is shaping modern life this week.

We’re live every weekday at 10am ET with thoughtful analysis, sharp interviews, cultural commentary, humor, and the kind of conversations that don’t pretend everything is fine when it clearly isn’t.

If you’re enjoying what we’re building, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Your support helps us keep the show independent, book fascinating guests, and continue creating smart conversations with your morning coffee.

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Lawrence kicked things off by recommending a terrifying two-hour interview about the possibility that we’re already living through the opening stages of World War III, which naturally set the tone for the morning. Dana countered with an important question: do weeks have vibes? Because this one absolutely did. Weird vibes. Bad vibes. “Something feels off” vibes.

Then things took a hard pivot into Russian bot farms allegedly catfishing Lawrence with fake hot dudes and “dis-dick-formation,” which may be the most important linguistic contribution of our era. The chat eventually crowned “Dickception” the official winner of the morning’s accidental wordplay Olympics.

Our guests joined us to talk photography, Gen X culture, Star Trek, Star Wars, Substack side quests, and the increasingly chaotic experience of being multi-hyphenate creators online. We discussed everything from Barcelona to latchkey-kid nostalgia to radioactive monster cereal marshmallows that could probably still survive nuclear winter.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, we also covered:

• DOGE allegedly using ChatGPT and DEI keywords to target grants connected to Black history, Holocaust survivors, Native American children, Asian American stories, and women’s projects.

• A Blackstone-owned data center quietly stealing 30 million gallons of water during a drought emergency while residents were told not to water their lawns.

• The terrifying new Claude AI model so good at discovering zero-day exploits that Anthropic reportedly refused to release it publicly because it could destabilize global banking systems.

• A group of doctors formally warning that Donald Trump is showing signs of cognitive decline severe enough that they felt ethically compelled to violate the Goldwater Rule and go public.

• The United States officially crossing the threshold where national debt now exceeds total economic output — historically one of the warning signs of imperial decline. Casual! Totally fine! Everything’s great!

And yet somehow, despite all of that, the show still ended up feeling less like despair and more like what this community often becomes at its best: smart people trying to stay awake to the world without losing their humanity, humor, curiosity, or each other in the process.

Oh, and the Fucked-up Friday competition? It was a total tie.

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning in—with extra THANKS to our amazing mods, and .

Thanks for listening!

We’re Dana DuBois and Lawrence Winnerman, lifelong BFFs and co-hosts of The Daily Whatever Show — our independent home for smart, irreverent conversations about culture, politics, media, creativity, relationships, aging, and whatever else is shaping modern life this week.

We’re live every weekday at 10am ET with thoughtful analysis, sharp interviews, cultural commentary, humor, and the kind of conversations that don’t pretend everything is fine when it clearly isn’t.

If you’re enjoying what we’re building, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Your support helps us keep the show independent, book fascinating guests, and continue creating smart conversations with your morning coffee.

We love you — mean it!

Get more from The Daily Whatever Show in the Substack app

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We spent a good chunk of the hour on Devil Wears Prada 2, Emily Blunt’s deeply disconnected advice to people in miserable jobs, Sex and the City, Bridgerton (Julie hates it), and somehow — seamlessly — medieval English literature, Beowulf, Canterbury Tales, and Pete Hegseth. There is a through-line. Julie found it. We were delighted.

Then we got to the Fucked-up Friday stories.

Lawrence brought the Trump boys’ grift: Don and Eric have quietly stacked the boards of robotics and drone companies that are now receiving massive Pentagon contracts. Their family ventures have gained four billion dollars in value since the re-election. It is brazen and boring at the same time, which is exactly how they get away with it.

Julie came in with Melania. She has done the Slovenian deep dive—actual Slovenian press, a biography, receipts—and the picture it paints of who Melania was before she ever met Trump is nothing like what the New York Times and New Yorker sold America. Julie’s full piece drops Sunday. Watch for it.

I brought a story reported by at : the EPA is now recommending that states test drinking water for abortion medication and birth control pills, listing them as potential “contaminants.” The anti-abortion organization behind the campaign admitted on the record that environmental law is just the most effective weapon they currently have. It’s a clean water campaign. There’s abortion in your water. You’re welcome.

I won the vote. It wasn’t even close.

Thank you , , , , , , , , and many others for tuning in, and huge thanks as always to our amazing moderators, and .

We love you, mean it!

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We talked about everything from broken primaries and money in politics to generational trauma, sex work, healthcare, and what it actually looks like to run for office as a regular person right now.

Messy, honest, occasionally unhinged—in the best way.

And underneath all of it, a real sense that new voices aren’t just coming… they’re already here.

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning in. And biggest thanks ever to our amazing mods, and . Y’all are the best.

Love you all, mean it!

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We opened still buzzing from yesterday — Fine Feminist Hour with Zuri Stevens and Zulfina from Letters from a Feminist, and then FiveStack with Zev Shalev, where Lawrence had one of his finest feminist moments on record. Both Michelle and I wanted to acknowledge it out loud, because it matters when men show up like that. Lawrence, gay man and lifelong ally, made the point himself: women have been his fiercest supporters. Why wouldn’t he stand up in return? Radical concept, apparently.

Then we got into it. Michelle brought the looks maxing story — a 60 Minutes Australia segment on “Clavicular,” a 20-year-old from Hoboken who has built a following around incel-adjacent aesthetics and is proudly collaborating with Andrew Tate. The clip of him walking out on the reporter mid-interview tells you everything you need to know.

My Fucked-up Friday entry was the CNN “online rape academy” exposé, about the online community of men drugging their wives and partners, filming the rapes, and posting them for community, clout, and sometimes profit. 20,000 tagged videos. Women in their own homes, with their own husbands, who have no idea. And equally as important: it’s about the men who are complicit, the ones who argue the semantics or data points of the story instead of expressing the horror it warrants.

I brought a proof point: a Substack thread I’ve had with a man named Paul. He is no one, but he is the story. Not because he’s raping anyone—but because his first instinct when confronted with evidence of mass rape was to question my data points, accuse me of being opportunistic, and also of being “not that dumb” in the comments. The Pauls are the problem. Men, we need you to do so much better than this.

The thread is here if you want to read it, comment, or restack it:

I won Fucked-up Friday. Lawrence conceded without a fight. I called it a tie with Michelle, because looksmaxing and sleep rape aren’t separate stories — they’re integrated, part of the same cultural phenomenon that starts at the highest levels of power right now.

Thank you , , , , and many others for tuning in, with special thanks to and for moderating like the champs they are.

We love you all, mean it!

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And honestly, it was a blast. Big news day, great conversation, a lot of laughs.

Go check it out!

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning into my live video with and ! Join me for my next live video in the app.

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