Firewall with Bradley Tusk

That's what the framers would say if they popped out of a time machine and saw our politics today, argues John Opdycke. From the start, they cautioned against political parties. Forty-one percent of the country now identifies as independent, yet closed primaries in states like New York lock them out of the elections that actually decide who governs. Opdycke, who runs a group called Open Primaries, talks to Bradley about the effect nonpartisan primaries have had in California, why he's suing to overturn closed primaries in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Oregon, and how the DSA and New York's entrenched party establishment — despite hating each other — both benefit from keeping turnout low. The fight isn't ideological, he and Bradley agree, it's all about power.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

But are Americans really upset about them — or something much larger? The data-center fury, Bradley argues in today's episode and in his recent Substack, reflects humankind’s inability to cope with the ever accelerating pace of technological change. Plus, why Mayor Mamdani's penchant for taking political gambles will eventually cost him, a happy-ending story of how a lost dog brought out the best in New Yorkers, and a summer's worth of food, travel and cultural recommendations.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

But a concrete economic plan for extreme job losses just might. In this repost from an episode first released in June, Daniel Schreiber, CEO of Lemonade and founder of the MOSAIC AI Policy Institute, joins Bradley to make a surprisingly hopeful case. The enormous wealth generated by AI can be captured and redistributed in a way that leaves almost everyone better off, he argues, without raising taxes, punishing innovation, or trusting politicians with a slush fund. "Poverty should end in the era of abundance," says Schreiber. "It should simply end."This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

Bradley talks to Michael Idov, author of The Cormorant Hunt, about how his own life — coming to the US from Latvia at age 16, running a café on the Lower East Side into the ground, getting discovered by Nora Ephron and moving to Moscow as editor of GQ Russia — feeds his fiction, as well as the passage from his novel that turned Bradley into a superfan: "The left-right distinction, he kept having to remind himself, no longer applied. The only existential standoff now was between the people who wanted to replace institutions with better institutions and the people who wanted to replace institutions with themselves."This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

If you write out a list of bad things happening in the world right now, it's easy to feel the apocalypse closing in on us. To counteract that kind of negative thinking, Bradley makes a list of the most important things about the world that are improving, including breakthroughs in medicine and gene editing, falling murder and opioid death rates, record US charitable giving, clean energy advances, and steep declines in global extreme poverty and child mortality. All in all, Bradley believes, there is more than enough encouraging news to keep hope alive.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

What can be done to preserve the value of learning in the age of AI? Bradley sits down with Adam Chilton, the dean of University of Chicago Law School, to discuss his vision for fortifying legal education. Chilton argues that critical thinking and judgment, the muscles built by Socratic teaching, are the skills AI can't easily replace. But at the same time, students need training in applying AI in the workplace. "We cannot put the toothpaste back in the tube," says Chilton, "nor can you prohibit your students from having access to them."This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

Bradley returns from a week-long stay at the Hoffman Institute, an intensive personal-development program that he calls “the single most helpful experience I’ve ever had.” He explains how it reframed his understanding of childhood patterns, self-criticism, and emotional healing, including a cathartic exercise that drew out an important lesson. "We literally drew a picture of our dark side on a poster board," he says, "and then took a shoe and beat the sh-t out of the poster for 45 minutes. Destroying the drawing illustrates that our dark side is a creation of our own minds and patterns, which means we can change them."This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig joined Bradley for a live event last month at P&T Knitwear, co-hosted by Teddy Himler of Optimist Ventures, about the two most fundamental threats to American democracy and what to do about them. Lessig, founder of EqualCitizens.US and author of numerous books on copyright, technology, and political corruption, makes a surprisingly hopeful case that Super PACs can and will be ended without overturning Citizens United. Bradley makes his argument for mobile voting as the only scalable fix for low-turnout primaries that boost extremists in both parties. The two agree on a particular culprit — an engagement-based media economy that profits from turning Americans into "ignorant people who hate each other." Lessig offers the Titanic as a useful metaphor: If there's "a gash in the hull," don't waste your time clearing ice off the deck. This is a full-blown emergency and we need lifeboats.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

Bradley shares his ten rules for writing well, starting with the most important: get it down fast and spend almost all your time editing. Plus: why the annual outrage over admissions to New York's most selective public schools keeps missing the point; how Governor Hochul's data center moratorium will play out, and what Bradley is doing on his non-vacation in the Canadian Rockies.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

Was MAGA's cultural dominance ever real, or was it always partly a joint hallucination of self-aggrandizing Republicans and self-lacerating liberals? David Wallace-Wells, opinion columnist for the New York Times, joins Bradley to argue that the vibe shift, to the extent it ever existed, has reversed itself. Trump's approval ratings are in freefall, his celebration of the nation's 250th birthday was a farce and the war against Iran is turning into a quagmire. But can Democrats seize the advantage? "When I look around and I'm like, you know, I find some of these leaders appealing rhetorically, politically," says Wallace-Wells. "But I'm like, what is the program they're proposing here? If it comes to pass that the Democrats even have a trifecta — what even would they try to do?"This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

What if the secret to happiness is as simple as learning to extend a little more grace? Bradley argues that every unnecessary judgment — of your own behavior, of other people's choices, of all the ways the world fails to meet your standards — creates small negative emotions that accumulate into a dark psychic cloud. Showing grace dispels that cloud. Plus, Bradley sketches out the highly unlikely but increasingly plausible sequence of events that topples the Trump administration and also explains how he fell in love with Stockholm on a recent trip abroad.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

In this special taping in front of a live audience on the Lower East Side, Bradley hosts his niece Ellie Gottheimer, daughter of Rep. Josh Gottheimer, and Larra Mullin, daughter of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, to discuss their new children's book Shmoo & Ozzie Go to Washington, which imparts an important message about bipartisanship and democracy — through the story of two dogs. This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

Fresh from celebrating his mother's 80th birthday in Paris, Bradley reflects on what makes the city so breathtakingly beautiful while also declaring it mightily overrated as a food city. Then he tackles one of the trickiest conundrums in business and life. Drawing lessons from business, politics and parenting, he argues that while not knowing what you don't know is obviously dangerous, knowing what you don't know and deferring to the wrong experts can often be just as costly.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

Before he decided to run for Congress, Micah Lasher was a proud member of the Matzoh Ballers political consultant text chain. For the duration of the campaign, he had to disconnect. But now he's back with the Ballers — and headed to Congress. He joins Bradley to discuss how he won what may well be the most expensive congressional primary in American history, with $50 million spent across all sides. They talk about why OpenAI's decision to pour money into defeating his opponent Alex Bores backfired spectacularly, how the sophisticated voters of CD-12 recoiled at the avalanche of outside spending and what he can get done as a freshman member of Congress with virtually no power. Micah's top three legislative priorities: housing, childcare and a first-job guarantee for young people as part of a national service program. Plus, he intends to support Hakeem Jeffries as Speaker, should Democrats take back the House. "If you think the Democrats in the House are going to follow the example of the Republicans and weaken the speaker such that moving together with unity becomes very hard," Micah says, "that's going to be to our great detriment."This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

Why do voters keep rewarding candidates with no realistic plan for fixing anything? Bradley argues that the far left's triumph in last week's New York primaries wasn't really about Israel or AI or the 1% — it was about tapping into anxiety rather than offering workable solutions. Then he turns his attention to Zohran Mamdani, who is riding a wave of historic approval ratings as he hits the six-month mark of his mayoralty. Bradley sees his early tenure as "a tale of two mayors," one as a successful politician, the other as a failing leader. "If you confuse his governing with Instagram likes," Bradley says, "that's a serious misunderstanding of the job." He closes with his ten favorite books of the first half of 2026, including a Stanford scandal exposed by a student journalist and a comedic novel imagining Trump running for a third term against a wrestler-mystic.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

Israel dominated the heart and minds of voters in New York this week. Chris Coffey, CEO of Tusk Strategies, joins Bradley to break down a "brutal" primary night for establishment Democrats. They dig into why calling the far left anti-semitic keeps backfiring as an electoral strategy, how long Mamdani's vibes-based popularity will survive contact with reality, and where the pattern of electing extreme candidates leads. If voters keep rewarding rhetoric over results, Bradley says bluntly, "this country's not going to survive."This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

What's the putdown that Donald Trump loves to dish but can't take? Loser. Bradley lays out a two-prong strategy for Democrats, hitting the broader GOP on the Iran war as a self-inflicted disaster while attacking Trump mercilessly as the architect of one of America's most humiliating defeats in history. Plus, a breakdown of why Mayor Mamdani keeps choosing ideology over the real interests of New Yorkers, the secrets to saving time and what New York City neighborhood should be your next dining destination.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

What does it take for the son of an actor from Park Slope to make it all the way to the major leagues? Adam Ottavino — who pitched for both the Mets and Yankees over a 15 year career — joins Bradley to talk about growing up in Brooklyn, the terror of retirement and why he thinks the sport is headed for a labor showdown that the players might not be ready for. Plus, a little about the Knicks, because what else are people talking about?Be sure to follow Adam on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@adamottavinozeroThis episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

What is the best reason to be a sports fan? For Bradley, it's all about sharing the experience with friends and loved ones. That's what makes the Knicks' first NBA championship in more than 50 years so deeply satisfying. "If the one thing in life that matters most is having relationships with unconditional love and support," he says, "sports helps make that happen for so many of us." Plus, why the smartest move for the forgotten Nets is to pack up and head west, what made his first-ever soccer game — the World Cup match between Brazil and Morocco at the World Cup — genuinely memorable despite not quite understanding the rules, and a recommendation for Rasputin Swims the Potomac, Ben Fountain's rollicking political satire.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

But a concrete economic plan for extreme job losses just might. Daniel Schreiber, CEO of Lemonade and founder of the MOSAIC AI Policy Institute, joins Bradley to make a surprisingly hopeful case. The enormous wealth generated by AI can be captured and redistributed in a way that leaves almost everyone better off, he argues, without raising taxes, punishing innovation, or trusting politicians with a slush fund. "Poverty should end in the era of abundance," says Schreiber. "It should simply end."This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

But Bradley gives it his best shot. He argues that AI has hit its own "Google 2017 moment" — the point where political winds shift from positivity to poisonous — and that the regulatory environment AI companies enjoy today is probably the most permissive it will ever be. Plus, fresh off binging Sons of Anarchy, he ranks his all-time top 25 TV shows — The Wire is number one, by statute — with apologies to Israel, whose shows he loves but they're just too stressful. Oh, and about the Knicks, let's just say that Bradley wore his Josh Hart jersey to the studio but isn't counting on a sweep.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

There is an obvious reason men have drifted to the right, says Justin Cohen: Nobody on the left wants to hear from them. The co-founder of Dads for All joins Bradley to discuss how social isolation, economic anxiety, and political polarization have created both a crisis and an opportunity. Justin's group works through local chapters to bring dads together around areas of shared interest, like sports, as well as issues they care about, like parental leave and affordable childcare. It's a simple organizing philosophy that political leaders ignore at their peril. Says Justin: "The left's allergy to men is going to be a strategic problem for everything they want to do forever."This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

Because that's what Bradley argues retail investors will be banking on if they buy OpenAI stock if it goes public as early as this fall. Taking a careful walk through the numbers, he set it up as a classic conflict between math and mythology. Does a debt-laden company with massive annual losses and hard-core competitors deserve to be instantly admitted to the ranks of giants like Apple, Microsoft and Amazon? Plus, Bradley recounts his epic weekend stroll down Broadway, from the Bronx to the Staten Island Ferry, and imagines what a Mamdani-esque ticker tape parade might look like if his prediction of the Knicks in six comes true.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

If government is one of the best career moves a young person can make right now, why does nobody seem to know it? Caitlin Lewis, Executive Director of Work for America, joins Bradley to extol the benefits of working for state and local governments. They're desperate for talent, they pay better than you think and the work makes a difference in people's lives. Not that there aren't problems, like painfully long and onerous hiring processes, which Caitlin is addressing. She and Bradley talk about the long shadow of Tammany Hall, how displaced federal workers are finding new jobs and why idealism is alive and well in the public sector. "If you want to be part of the resistance," she says, "there is no better way to do it than actually going into City Hall and changing things from the inside."This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

What are the ingredients of a healthy life? Bradley discusses the major changes he made after turning 50, including protein shakes, testosterone therapy, sleep apnea mouth guards, a stay this summer at the Hoffman Institute in the Canadian Rockies and a complete abstinence from ice cream, even though he loves it and would eat it at every meal if he could. "All I can do is just try to do the practices that will maximize my chances of living a healthy life," he says. "Ultimately, you can do all that stuff and if you lack unconditional love and support and things that give you meaning and purpose, you're still probably not that happy."This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

Have we been gradually destroying our physical health by sitting still and staring at screens? Manoush Zomorodi, author of the new book Body Electric, joins Bradley to explain how our digital addictions are bad for us in ways that we rarely consider — spiking blood sugar, wrecking posture, and darkening our moods. The fix, she argues, is easily within reach: as little as five minutes of movement every half hour has dramatic health benefits and actually raises productivity. Bradley argues, in turn, that smartphones manufactured an ADD epidemic in otherwise normal people.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

Yes, we're talking about sandwiches — which, to Bradley, almost constitute a religion. What matters most is not the food itself but the human connections that surround it: the first po'boy that made him fall for New Orleans, the brisket at a Texas wedding that defined a circle of loved ones and the fish sandwich in Bellevue that made him feel like an adult for the first time. Plus, Bradley responds to a listener who challenges his description of Mayor Mamdani as "a nice guy" and assesses Ben Thompson's argument that defusing opposition to data centers is quite simple: just give people money.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

Is there any level of American government that is actually doing its job well? Bradley sits down with his Tusk Strategies partner Shontell Plummer to talk through the slow-motion dysfunction of Albany. Why is the state budget late when there are no major issues at stake? How come Governor Hochul and Mayor Mamdani can't get along? What will gerrymandering do to the congressional map? Plus, what's going on with the NY-12 race and is Hakeem Jeffries cut out to be House Speaker?This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

Why is that so hard? Bradley argues that the zero-sum mentality driving our politics and social media has infected our basic daily behavior — the phone zombies blocking subway doors, the gym hogs who won't let you work in, the airplane line-cutters — and that only a shift in social norms, not legislation, can fix it. Plus, Bradley breaks down why Mamdani put pandering to his base ahead of the city's well-being in his ill-conceived targeting of Ken Griffin. That wasn't so nice, either.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

Are you climbing the right mountain, or just getting really good at the wrong one? Bradley sits down with Judah Taub — Israeli intelligence veteran, cybersecurity investor, and author of How to Move Up When the Only Way is Down — who borrows a concept from machine learning called the "local maximum" to explain why smart people and successful companies so often underperform their potential. Plus, how AI is affecting cybersecurity, why mandatory military service in Israel produces better founders than any business school, and whether a diverse, equal society can ever agree on the collective good.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

Is the richest, most productive state in America about to shoot itself in the foot? Bradley argues that California's proposed 5% tax on assets over $1.1 billion is a losing bet that will hurt the very people it claims to help. When billionaires leave, he says, jobs will follow. And if the legislature gains the power to lower the threshold whenever it needs cash, today's billionaire tax becomes tomorrow's millionaire tax. Bradley proposes an entirely different path, based on the radical idea that the goal should actually be helping people, not feeding the political machine that claims to represent them.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack.

Bradley sits down with Matt Wing and Josh Mohrer to talk about Smith & Moses, their newly launched AI venture that ingests every bill introduced in the New York State legislature in real time, summarizes it in plain English, and scores each legislator based on the impact and passage rate of their bills. It's essentially a performance review for Albany, an exciting new way to understand what our elected leaders are really doing and to hold them accountable.Learn more at www.smithmoses.comThis episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack + YouTube.

With support for Israel eroding faster than most people realize — a recent poll found 70% of American Jews oppose continued military aid — Bradley argues that the greatest existential threat to Israel is not its avowed enemies but the retrenchment of its most reliable ally. He lays out eight concrete ideas for how Jewish organizations could rebuild that support, starting with listening before lecturing: understanding why mainstream American Jews have drifted away before launching any campaign to bring them back. Plus, Bradley implores congressional candidates to stop the cold-calling fundraising charade that tortures everyone involved.Discussed on today's episode:Israel’s Greatest Challenge? Winning Back American Jewish Support, by Bradley Tusk, April 27, 2026 (Substack)This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack + YouTube.

Can government catch up to a technology moving faster than any regulatory response ever has? Bradley and his Tusk Ventures partner Bob Greenlee work through two competing taxonomies: Bradley organized his around four areas of real impact (consumer protection, catastrophic risk, job displacement, and AI's potential to make government work better), while Bob's is built around political feasibility — what can actually get passed and when. The bracing conclusion is that landmark legislation is probably pie in the sky, which means the advantage goes to people who can keep thinking critically and asking the right questions.

Prediction markets, not polling, argues Bradley, will be the defining information source of the 2026 midterms and a change worth celebrating. By incentivizing people to think beyond their own preferences and sharpen their analysis, these markets provide reliable metrics of public opinion and are good for democracy. Plus, how Yale did the right thing with its report on higher education, why basic social norms are breaking down in New York City, what the CEO succession at Apple's reveals and why the best thing to watch on TV (for Bradley, anyway) is one from the vault. This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack + YouTube.

American democracy is doomed if people can't tolerate disagreement. Bradley sits down with Ed Manzi, founder of Unmuted, who is building something genuinely countercultural: in-person forums for politically curious New Yorkers to listen to each other. They get into mobile voting, why Congress has become a tweet farm, and whether the lesson politicians should take from Trump is the terrifying one.Learn more about UNMUTED: https://www.unmuted.fyi/On May 14, UNMUTED will be hosting a debate between candidates for Congress in New York's 12th district, at Hungarian House in Upper East Side. More details: https://luma.com/syqniv23Firewall nominated for a Webby! Vote today and support us for best individual episode - interview or talk show -for Bradley's interview with then-candidate Zohran Mamdani in April 2025. We’re up against Oprah, so we’ll need all the votes we can get! It only takes 10 seconds - thanks in advance: https://bit.ly/firewallwebbyThis episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack + YouTube.

Is Mayor Mamdani's first hundred days as mayor a genuine reason for celebration, or just a decent start before the hard part kicks in? Bradley gives the mayor real credit for focusing on the operational stuff that actually matters to New Yorkers, but says that if he's serious about running this city, he should start making the case for bringing the subways and buses back under city control, the way Bloomberg brought the schools back under mayoral control in 2002. And he should stop banking on squeezing more out of the small group of high earners who already pay for almost everything, because when they leave, the people who suffer most are the ones he claims to be fighting for. Plus: Bradley opens up about joining Marijuana Anonymous, how the NBA can solve its tanking problem and why he has no regards for Broadway.Firewall nominated for a Webby! Vote today and support us for best individual episode - interview or talk show -for Bradley's interview with then-candidate Zohran Mamdani in April 2025. We’re up against Oprah, so we’ll need all the votes we can get! It only takes 10 seconds - thanks in advance: https://bit.ly/firewallwebbyThis episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack + YouTube.

Amid meme coins, scams, and scary price swings, something more consequential is quietly happening in the crypto world: stablecoins are offering a faster, cheaper way to transact — the original promise that Bitcoin made but never quite delivered on. Bradley talks to Tusk Strategies partner Eric Soufer about how the regulatory framework is being engineered to survive future administrations that might not be as friendly. Despite the banking industry's loud objections, Eric's verdict is blunt: "I don't see tons of small businesses in the Rust Belt suddenly pulling their deposits out of community banks." FIREWALL NOMINATED FOR A WEBBY! Vote today and support us for best individual episode - interview or talk show -for Bradley's interview with then-candidate Zohran Mamdani in April 2025. We’re up against Oprah, so we’ll need all the votes we can get! It only takes 10 seconds - thanks in advance: https://bit.ly/firewallwebbyThis episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack + YouTube.

What if we human beings are an evolutionary anomaly, a species that discovered how to destroy ourselves before we learned how not to? Bradley links that question to his thoughts on a decidedly different subject: Why everything we tell our kids about how to live is basically useless if they don't see us doing it. "Show, don't tell" is not only good advice for writing, it turns out. It works for raising kids, tooFIREWALL NOMINATED FOR A WEBBY! Vote today and support us for best individual episode - interview or talk show -for Bradley's interview with then-candidate Zohran Mamdani in April 2025. We’re up against Oprah, so we’ll need all the votes we can get! It only takes 10 seconds - thanks in advance: https://bit.ly/firewallwebbyThis episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack + YouTube.

[Vote for Firewall and help us win our first Webby Award! https://bit.ly/firewallwebby]Is it possible to build the most powerful technology in human history while remaining a genuinely decent person, or does that kind of greatness require a willingness to burn everything down? Sebastian Mallaby, author of The Infinity Machine, joins Bradley to argue that Demis Hassabis may be the rarest breed: a Nobel Prize-winning scientist and world-changing CEO who cares deeply about safety. But as Mallaby and Bradley explore the coming political reckoning with AI, the big unknown is what sort of catastrophe it will take for our leaders to bring this technology under control.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Firewall nominated for a Webby Award! Vote today and support us for best individual episode - interview or talk show - for Bradley's interview with then-candidate Zohran Mamdani in April 2025. We’re up against Oprah, so we’ll need all the votes we can get! It only takes 10 seconds - thanks in advance. Vote here before April 16: https://bit.ly/firewallwebbySend us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack + YouTube.

We all need to stop worrying about who the Democrats will nominate in 2028, argues Bradley. Unless it's someone from the far Left, the main candidates are essentially interchangeable — structural conditions, not the picayune distinctions between them, will determine the outcome. Plus, Bradley and Hugo discuss what makes life worthwhile, trade basketball stories, and discuss why starting a band might be the answer to everything that ails us.Discussed on today's episode:Start a Band, Even if You’re Terrible, by Hugo Lindgren, The New York Times (03/22/26)Why Sweden punches above its weight in music, by Henrik Karlsson (03/21/23)The Web of the Game, by Roger Angell, The New Yorker (07/13/81)This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack + YouTube.

How did the Democratic party drift so far from the real interests of the poor and working class it historically championed? Legendary journalist Joe Klein joins Firewall to argue that the rot starts with his own generation — Baby Boomers — who indoctrinated two generations of Americans in ideals that have never worked in the real world. Bradley and Joe find surprising common ground on three big fixes.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack + YouTube.

On the eve of a college trip with his son, Bradley reflects on the murky future that kids are facing and how education will have to be massively rethought. Plus, he thoroughly debunks the concept of the all-powerful Israel lobby, chastises the Mamdani administration for policies that will adversely affect quality of life, and contemplates how to manage the level of difficult news we let into our lives.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack + YouTube.

One big reason that the Left has grown so powerful in the city, Bradley argues, is that the Partnership for New York — the group that should have been fighting for centrist, pro-business interests — never showed any inclination to play politics. That could be changing now that Steve Fulop, former three-term mayor of Jersey City, has taken over as the Partnership's CEO Fulop joins Firewall for a spirited debate on what it will take for business to punch its weight in political matters and reinvigorate the pro-growth agenda.Discussed on today's episode:What Steve Fulop Needs to do to Make the Partnership for New York City Relevant and Effective Again by Bradley Tusk, November 5, 2025This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack + YouTube.

Progressives make life hard on the rest of us, Bradley argues, by claiming to champion the poorest Americans while supporting policies that reflect their own biases and selfishness. But his ultimate conclusion is that far-left behavior, for all its flaws, is fundamentally and recognizably human — driven by a mix of self-interest, genuine idealism and the universal desire to belong to something meaningful.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack + YouTube.

Even when your issue won't win votes, there are ways to make your political opponents pay. Bradley sits down with his friend and partner, Tusk Strategies CEO Chris Coffey, to break down how the firm helped a climate group go after Rep. Chip Roy in a Texas Republican primary. Running ads on Truth Social and Rumble, they attacked him for not being MAGA enough — a strategy that produced a roughly 20-point swing and forced him into a runoff without mentioning climate change once. Bradley and Chris also dig into New York City's budget crisis, the upcoming 2026 congressional primaries in New York, and what it will take for Mayor Mamdani to succeed in a job that demands pragmatism over purity.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack + YouTube.

Why do a small minority of selfish, fear-mongering people wield so much power over the rest of us? Bradley argues that most of us want essentially the same things: meaningful work, healthy families, a little fun, and some peace. The problem isn't human nature — it's broken systems that reward the loudest and most divisive voice. He also weighs in on whether Trump's instincts are well suited to the Middle East, why the AI companies fundamentally misread their political situation, and what makes Los Angeles his ideal "composite city."This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack + YouTube.

Does fixing America's $5 trillion healthcare crisis start with taking a single picture? Bradley sits down with Andrew Lacy, founder and CEO of Prenuvo, to explore how full-body MRI scans are shifting healthcare from reactive to proactive — and why that shift could be the most important change in medicine today. They discuss Lacy's 80/20 approach to personal longevity (sleep first, everything else follows), his vision of patient-driven healthcare spending and why AI promises to make world-class diagnostics accessible to everyone.Firewall listeners can go to prenuvo.com/firewall to get $300 off a scan from Prenuvo.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack + YouTube.

But in taking a principled stand against the Pentagon and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, it will gain valuable trust with customers, argues Bradley, and that means winning the war. Plus: Jack Dorsey's 4,000-person layoff at Block is a sign of things to come as AI efficiency tools displace white-collar workers — and nobody has a real plan for what comes next; why the addiction claims being made in the lawsuit against Meta are "1,000 percent accurate" but that doesn't mean it's illegal; is Mayor Mamdani governing as a pragmatic big-city leader or showing his progressive stripes; a Chuck Klosterman theory about political movements that Bradley mostly finds fault with; and the case for cautious optimism about the Mets pitching staff.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack + YouTube.

Early childhood education has quietly become one of the most successful — and bipartisan — reform movements in the country. Elliot Regenstein, author of Readiness: Preparing State Early Childhood Systems for a Brighter Future, sits down with Bradley to explain how it's working. They dig into why the system is more adaptable than K-12 or higher ed, which states are leading the way, and what the Trump administration's push to dismantle the Department of Education could mean for the most vulnerable kids.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack + YouTube.