Show Notes
Office Hours is back, and Washington looks more like the Trump Taj Mahal every day. Karpf and Loge talk the logic of the Trump administration, what is and isn't breaking under Trump 2.0, and the White House Correspondent's Dinner.
Footnotes: Everyone Has Trump's Phone Number Now | The Atlantic Killing in the name of....nothing | The Verge
More from Office Hours with Karpf and Loge
In their last episode before the 2026 midterms, Karpf asks listeners to do their civic duty by watching the Elizabeth Holmes documentary while Loge monitors the peace prize business. They discuss why being bad TV gets you fired from the White House and how Abdul El Sayed turned a bad faith attack into a lesson in framing. Karpf and Loge also share their midterms predictions and discuss the intra-party dynamics they're watching after the polls close.
Why do elephants inspire more trust than engineers, and what do chicken carcasses have to do with safer airplanes? We discuss Dave Karpf and Nina Hall’s piece on Turning Point USA and MoveOn, make the case against the Paramount merger, and ask when Peter Loge last read a book.
On this week's episode of Office Hours, Loge is somehow still talking about bat ecologist certifications and Karpf is too busy marathon training to play D&D. They break down how Trump's $5,000 pledge to voters went viral on prediction markets and discuss the difference between moderate politics as a rhetorical style versus an actionable ideology. Also, Karpf and Loge read the pod's first AI-generated listener email!
Office Hours is back for the semester, and just in time, because Loge is getting a little too fascinated by bat ecologists. As a record high number of Americans say that government corruption is widespread, Karpf and Loge discuss why political elites get away with bad behavior, when voters will punish them and how political actors can effectively push back. Also, our hosts respond to their first listener email!
As summer ends and classes begin, Washington is offering plenty of material for a lesson in political theater: from Natalie Harp's expanding West Wing role to James Talarico turning Ken Paxton’s $1,000 pen into a campaign prop. Karpf and Loge dissect these stories, as well as why Trump's picks keep losing their primaries. They also discuss why a Peter Loge Bot is a terrible business idea, how an alien garbage can won 10,000 votes in Clacton, and their political predictions for this fall.