The Worst Country You Know Just Made A Great Point

Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman open on the Iran war officially entering quagmire territory, with refineries and tankers getting hit at will while the US has essentially run out of missiles to respond with. They then tear apart Scott Bessent's solution to the Strait of Hormuz crisis, which is to just build underground pipelines and make it irrelevant, a fantasy on par with nuking hurricanes. Todd Blanch gets confirmed as attorney general on the deciding vote of Bill Cassidy, the same man who voted to convict Trump and now can't swallow shit fast enough for him, while Susan Collins pulls her signature move of discovering her conscience only after the votes are already locked. They bid a fond farewell to Ross Douthat, whose 17 years at the New York Times were spent giving conservatives permission to drift further right under the guise of just asking questions. Now he's leaving one of the most influential posts in American media for a cratering 60 Minutes because Bari Weiss told him he'd be a star. The episode closes on Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White declaring themselves eligible for the WNBA, a bad-faith stunt that reveals less about trans athletes than about the right-wing compulsion to hijack anything women build and make it about themselves. Support the show by signing up to our Patreon to hear the full Weekender episode each Friday as well as special Live Shows and access to our community discord: http://patreon.com/muckrakepodcast