The Daily Whatever Show: Politics

The Daily Whatever Show: Effed-Up Friday With Ayana Madrone

Lawrence Winnerman — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 04:48:32 GMT

Fucked-up Friday with the amazing was incredible.

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

Have a listen!

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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.

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TDWS: A Call To Action: Say No to Crip Crow with Nick Paro

Lawrence Winnerman — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 06:33:38 GMT

We made an exception to our Summer Vacation one-show-per-week schedule today, for good reason: we had our pal on to discuss an issue that impacts all of us as Americans, and especially those with disabilities.

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

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The Daily Whatever Show: Effed-Up Friday With Guest Ann Kramer

Lawrence Winnerman — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 13:03:28 GMT

Effed-up Friday was back with guest , a therapist and systems thinker who’s developing a framework she calls the integrative economy—and who fit right in by immediately swearing like a sailor.

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.

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The Daily Whatever Show - Effed-Up Friday with Ellie Leonard!

Lawrence Winnerman — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 20:33:02 GMT

As we headed into our final daily show before summer vacation, TDWS favorite joined us for a conversation that started with parenting stories and with our weekly news competition.

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.

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The Daily Whatever Show - Effed-Up Friday With Guest Nick Paro!

Lawrence Winnerman — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 03:20:39 GMT

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The Daily Whatever Show: Effed-Up Friday with Grounded Podcast

Lawrence Winnerman — Sat, 30 May 2026 19:19:01 GMT

joined us for a Effed-up Friday that connected authoritarianism, reproductive rights, independent journalism, and the increasingly disturbing question of who our institutions are actually protecting.

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.

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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.

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TDWS: Effed-up Friday with Qasim Rashid

The Daily Whatever Show — Sat, 23 May 2026 04:22:43 GMT

Fucked-up Friday returned in peak form this week: technical chaos, existential dread, climate collapse, Elon Musk taking credit for Andrew Yang’s UBI idea a decade late and acting like it was his own, and an incredible conversation with one of our favorite guests,

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.

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The Daily Whatever Show: Effed-Up Friday with Anne P. Mitchell, Esq.

Lawrence Winnerman — Sun, 17 May 2026 01:05:57 GMT

We were delighted to welcome our official legal correspondent back to for Fucked-up Friday. We managed to cover Jeffrey Epstein’s secret bank, AI-induced societal collapse, Hantavirus surviving in sperm for six years, global financial manipulation, trademark law, goat hiking, and whether humanity is building the technology that eventually destroys it.

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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.

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"Dis-Dick-Formation" and the Fall of Empire

The Daily Whatever Show — Sat, 09 May 2026 17:03:41 GMT

Fucked-up Friday is always our favorite day of the week, and this week we welcomed valued community members and .

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.

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TDWS: Mayday Effed-Up Friday with Julie Roginsky of the Mayday Network!

The Daily Whatever Show — Sat, 02 May 2026 00:41:33 GMT

Happy Mayday. Today’s Fucked-up Friday guest was from , because how could we resist that?

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.

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TDWS: Progressive Candidate Rundown

The Daily Whatever Show — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 01:33:04 GMT

Today were joined by and two congressional candidates, (Michigan) and (Virginia), and the throughline was pretty clear: people are done waiting to be handed a voice.

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.

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The Daily Whatever Show: EFFED-UP FRIDAY with Michelle Kinney

The Daily Whatever Show — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 16:22:49 GMT

It’s Fucked-up Friday, and we’re ending the week with of , who is becoming one of our favorite people (shhh, don’t tell anyone else!).

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.

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FiveStack: The Daily Whatever Show Talks Top 5 Breaking News — April 16

Lawrence Winnerman — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 02:01:01 GMT

When writes and asks if you want to fill in as guest co-hosts on FiveStack—of course you drop everything and say YES. Or at least, that’s what we did.

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

Go check it out!

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TDWS: Fucked-up Friday with Anne P. Mitchell, Esq.

The Daily Whatever Show — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 16:43:29 GMT

Today’s Fucked-up Friday welcomed back P. Mitchell, Esq.: attorney, legal journalist, co-founder of the email deliverability industry, and the ’s unofficially official legal correspondent.

Anne brought her entry from deep inside the Epstein files: during his work release—16 hours a day, six days a week, at his own shell company—Epstein had a sex bed in the back of his SUV. This is documented in an FBI witness statement. No other outlet has reported it, but you can read all about it over at Anne’s Substack, Notes from the Front:

Notes from the Front

OMG! *Bombshell* Epstein Document Says He Had a *Bed in His SUV* During Work Release!! And I Have the Actual Document!

I just uncovered an FBI interview with "[XXXXXXX]" (funny how so many of them have this name) and it confirms that Jeffrey Epstein *had a sex bed in his SUV* - the SUV that he used to commute to the 'office' during his work release…

3 months ago · 123 likes · 48 comments · Anne P. Mitchell, Esq.

’s pick was more meta. He asked ChatGPT for the most fucked-up news story of the week, and it provided him with five different stories. Not a single one was real. So we have no link to share—just the knowledge that AI bots are vulnerable at best when it comes to accuracy and veracity.

’ pick: a New York Times story called The Women Who Believe That Women Should Lose the Right to Vote (gift link). They believe that one household equals one vote, cast by the husband. The NYT treated it as a trend piece. Dana treated it as a five-alarm fire. It is. Lawrence noted that in any normal week, either of these stories would dominate the news cycle for a month. This one has barely made a blip.

It was a close vote between Anne and Dana for the winner, but ultimately Dana pulled off the win for this week. 🏆

Not bad for a week that almost opened with Trump threatening to annihilate an entire civilization. We survived. See you Monday.

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TDWS: Interviewing Political Candidates with Walter Rhein & Emily Berge

The Daily Whatever Show — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 18:20:34 GMT

Today on , we welcomed back our very first guest ever, of I’d Rather Be Writing, and his district’s congressional candidate, , running for Wisconsin’s 3rd District.

Emily is a therapist, eight-year Eau Claire City Council president, and the kind of candidate who actually picks up the phone when a scared constituent calls. Walter told the story of panicking when ICE arrived in his area — his wife is an immigrant, his kids are biracial — and Emily called him back personally and talked him down. That’s the moral argument for her candidacy right there, and she’s got the experience and smarts to back up her empathy.

She’s running in a primary against the DCCC-backed Rebecca Cook, with local endorsements throughout the district and a ground game built on showing up.

If you’re in Wisconsin’s 3rd, vote for her.

If you’re not, consider making a donation. $5 still matters — ask AOC how she won.

Donate to Emily Berge's Campaign

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The Daily Whatever Show With Guest Keira Havens of Citizens' Impeachment

The Daily Whatever Show — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 16:49:29 GMT

Today we welcomed Keira Havens, Executive Director of — and the timing couldn’t have been more urgent. We opened the show with Trump’s post threatening to annihilate an entire civilization overnight. Keira, a former ICBM crew commander turned citizen activist, didn’t flinch.

She walked us through what Citizens Impeachment has built over its first year: 600 constituents showing up simultaneously in every congressional district’s inbox, articles of impeachment that made it to the House floor in three weeks, and a Democratic leadership that promptly bullied the whole thing back into committee — where five impeachment resolutions are now sitting, untouched.

She was clear about what that means: Congress can act. They are choosing not to.

The path forward is Courage for Democracy — 130 pro-impeachment candidates running in over 110 districts across 37 states. There is probably someone running in your district right now.

This is the work. This is one of the people doing it.

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The Daily Whatever Show: Effed-Up Friday With The Grounded Podcast

The Daily Whatever Show — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 16:14:29 GMT

This week's Fucked-Up Friday brought a full quad to the table for the first time — former Senator John Tester and investigative journalist Maritza Georgiou from .

Our news picks moved from the absurd (Trump's cabinet-meeting Sharpie rant) to the genuinely chilling. Maritza's pick for the week's most fucked-up story: Trump's True Social post after Robert Mueller's death — "Good, I'm glad he's dead" — a statement Senator Tester called far beneath the office, and everyone agreed has become somehow both shocking and utterly unsurprising.

The conversation widened from there into ICE detaining a U.S. citizen for two and a half days with no explanation, nurses in Arizona forming a human chain to protect women in active labor from arrest, and what it means to raise kids — or send a daughter to college far from home — in a country that increasingly feels at war with itself.

This episode felt like a visit with old friends. We hope you’ll join us again soon, Maritza and Senator Tester! We’re totally going to take you up on that trip to Missoula…

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TDWS: Election Fraud Activism with This Will Hold

This Will Hold — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 17:30:19 GMT

T, the anonymous investigator behind the Substack publication This Will Hold, joined us to walk through the thread she's been pulling since before the 2024 election: from Elon Musk getting her nuked off Twitter to the connections she uncovered between election equipment companies, Peter Thiel, Palantir, and Russian influence networks.

A veteran and former book-in-progress writer turned citizen journalist, T and her team of 62 have amassed over 15 million views in under a year — because, as she puts it, they bring the receipts. The chat was on fire, the conversation was dense, and we came away more convinced than ever that Gen X is going to have to be the ones to fix this.

If you’re interested in joining the as a volunteer, DM her account directly. She especially needs help in social media, so if you have this expertise, reach out.

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The Daily Whatever Show: Effed-Up Friday with Lisa | We Are the 3rd Estate

The Daily Whatever Show — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 16:48:38 GMT

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The Daily Whatever Show: Effed-Up Friday, March 6

The Daily Whatever Show — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 20:17:30 GMT

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