Erik Barmack of Wild Sheep Content -- a veteran of Netflix and ESPN -- on Hollywood's seemingly neverending retrenchment; the prospect of neverending, user-generated reels on Insta, YouTube and TikTok; login fatigue; hopes, fears and hallucinations around artificial intelligence. Lots, lots more. Barmack writes for The Ankler.

Politics guru Chuck Todd, formerly of NBC's Meet the Press, on the issues, personalities and various realignments driving Election 2026. We also discussed his career journey, from Miami to George Washington University and The Hotline... all the way to striking out on his own in the great wide open of YouTube and social media. Recorded for an audience at the University of Richmond's Modlin Center.

Former investment banker and NY Times bestseller William Cohan on his latest book, Money to Burn: The Unvarnished Truth About Leon Black, Apollo, and the Rise of a New Wall Street. Also discussed: Paramount's debt-laden buyout of Warner Bros and how no price tag seems to deter the uber-wealthy likes of Elon Musk and today's private-equity players.

Former Miami Playboy bunny, drug smuggler and serial cheater-of-death Francine Fox on her new memoir Pirate Bunny.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: highlights from recent episodes -- including Shashank Joshi, The Economist's new Washington bureau chief; the duo behind The Wall Street Skinny; and Pulitzer Prize-winner Jonathan Kaufman on his book, When America Roared: How the 1980s Saved, Then Broke, the Country–and Led Us to Today.

Jonathan Kaufman on his new book, When America Roared: How the 1980s Saved, Then Broke, the Country--And Led Us to Today. And child-of-the-'80s Dan Goldman on the graphic novelist life in the algorithmic dystopia of the 2020s.

Shashank Joshi, The Economist's new Washington bureau chief, on Trump's Iran dilemma, the bipartisan backlash to data centers, Democratic Socialists' ascent, Midterms math....much more.

Ron Insana -- a CNBC OG (he joined its predecessor network in 1984!) -- is a regular on MSNOW and Substacks on "Message of the Markets." He discussed the ginormous, mind-blowing buildout of A.I.; the Fed and Treasury's interest-rate bind; and what he calls an "E-shaped economy."

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy's Holly Dagres on the United States' stop-and-go / stick-and-carrot impasse with Iran. What started 2026 with grand talk of regime change has lately turned into a staredown over the flow of crude oil through Hormuz. Dagres curates The Iranist, a newsletter widely followed by Iranians and the diaspora.

NPR critic-at-large Eric Deggans -- newly announced as professor of journalism and media ethics at Washington and Lee University -- on Paramount's contested, politicized buyout of Warner Bros. (and CNN); NPR's talent flight; how his students consume news vs. noise; and moving to Virginia to join a university that still carries the name of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.