“It’s fair to call the deteriorating situation at the US/Mexican border a crisis,” declared NBC’s Meet the Press in 2021. “[CNN anchor Dana] Bash presses Netanyahu on Gaza death toll: 'Is Israel doing everything possible to... avoid civilian casualties?',” boasted CNN’s State of the Union in 2023. “Principle over party… The latest high-profile Republican endorsement for Harris. And she got another Cheney endorsement,” announced ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

These shows – ABC’s This Week, NBC’s Meet the Press, CNN’s State of the Union, CBS’s Face the Nation – are fixtures of a major genre of television: the Sunday morning news show. Since the 1940s, these weekly shows have featured panel interviews with government officials, lawmakers, candidates, and other political figures, usually from the US, as part of their stated missions to “tackle pressing issues,” produce robust discourse on current events, and hold electeds and aspiring electeds accountable.

A relic from a different era, these Sunday News Show still loom large today. No, they don’t have particularly high ratings, but much like the role editorial boards of major newspapers play, they matter to people who matter. They shape the agenda and tell lawmakers, advisers, CEOs and other people who wield power across our political, economic and social systems what to care about that week and how to analyze the current moment.

But to what extent do they serve any real journalistic function? To what extent do they actually ask difficult and challenging questions? Do the Sunday morning shows truly illuminate our political moments and interrogate the powerful, or essentially do the opposite? And what effect do these shows, known for “setting the agenda” in Washington, have on policymakers, news media, and the public?

On this episode, we discuss the history, ideology, and effects of Sunday morning news shows, look at how—despite their lofty claims to challenging journalism—they prioritize and revel in prestige and access, flattering existing power structures and further enabling reactionary policy. 

Our guest is FAIR's Julie Hollar.

Episode 216: Sunday Morning News Shows and the Problem With 'Agenda Setting' Court Stenography

In this News Brief, we detail how Center-Left institutions and media have cynically wielded "lived experience" claptrap to assist Trump's overtly fascistic crackdown on dissenting speech.

News Brief: The Disappearance of Mahmoud Khalil and the Phony 'Campus Safety' Panic

In this Citations Needed News Brief interview, we're joined by Rutgers professor Eric Blanc to discuss his new book "We Are The Union," and lay out how any meaningful resistance to Trump and Trumpism has to be grounded in a growing, strong, confrontational labor movement. 

News Brief: Trump's Hollow Working Class Aesthetics and How Unions Can Lead a Real Resistance

Ep 219: How Elites Concern Troll "Waste" to Gut Social Welfare and Divide the Working Class

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Investigative reporter Jacqueline Sweet joins us to talk about Ben Gvir’s visit to Crown Heights, the messy world of Betar USA, Kahanist organizations, and a little bit of gossip from the right-wing-fringe freak show.

Episode 458: Betar Tar Binks [trailer]

Tech reporter Mike Isaac returns to the show for a round-up of the latest AI news. From collegiate cheating to funeral planning, Mike helps us make some sense of how this wonderful emerging technology is reshaping human society in so many delightful ways, and certainly is not a madness rune chipping away at what little sanity remains in our population’s fraying psyche.  

We’re doing another call-in show with Matt for the midweek, so if you have any questions or comments, send an UNDER 30 SECOND voice recording to calls@chapotraphouse.com

We also have some new merch going up at chapotraphouse.store this Weds, May 14. So keep your eyes out for that!


933 - We Can Grok It For You Wholesale feat. Mike Isaac (5/12/25)

We’re joined by Gareth Gore, author of the book Opus, to talk about Opus Dei, the secretive Catholic society with deep links to the current U.S. government.

Discover more episodes at podcast.trueanon.com.

Call the tip line: (646) 801-1129

Episode 459: Opus D.E.I.

“Jaw Clench Study Takes Tax Dollars,” United Press International cautioned in 1975. “‘Shrimp On A Treadmill’: Rand Paul Mocks National Science Foundation Studies,” Forbes reported in 2021. “Gov't waste report finds $400K spent to give lonely rats cocaine: 'Absurd',” Fox News told viewers in 2024. 

According to these headlines, a wasteful, woke liberal government has been squandering taxpayer money on something wholly undeserving: frivolous scientific studies. Tens of thousands to millions of dollars, we’re told, are being handed out like candy so scientists can sit around watching monkeys clench their jaws, putting shrimp on treadmills, and give cocaine to rats. And who gets to choose which studies are funded? Wasteful ultra woke organizations like the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and Health and Human Services. 

It’s true that some research doesn’t end up having much practical relevance––indeed this is the nature of scientific inquiry! There are sometimes cul-de-sacs and wrong paths. But the majority of the time, studies that are trivialized in media and on the Senate floor aren’t superfluous at all. 

While soundbites like “shrimp on a treadmill” might paint a ridiculous picture, they’re also taken out of context, obscuring the scientific merit and moral import of the research and researchers, who work for years on often obscure, tedious lines of inquiry only to have their lives’ work reduced to a cheap punchline by bad-faith demagogues playing to the public’s ignorance and lizard brain impulses. 

So, why is this media and political punchline so popular? And what’s the agenda of the lawmakers and media organizations that denigrate and misrepresent research and science more broadly, and the larger current of conspicuous anti-intellectualism that has always been present in American political culture, but in the last ten years has entirely taken over the modern American Right? 

On this episode, we discuss the decades-old, anti-intellectual gambit of mocking and attacking the “frivolous study,” examining how it warps and devalues science and international cooperation in a broader effort to defund public institutions, both scientific and otherwise.

Our guest is Brenda Ekwurzel, Senior Director of Scientific Excellence at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Ep 221: Anti-Science Mugging on the Right and the Ascent of American Anti-Intellectualism

Tim Faust returns to the show to look at the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and its dire consequences for American medicine. We discuss Medicaid as a load-bearing feature of our healthcare infrastructure, how this bill will affect millions of Americans using the program, and the potential ways forward in the wake of its evisceration. We also look at last week’s absolute omnishambles article on Zohran’s college admission, a perfect encapsulation of the Failing New York Times approach to just about everything.

Pre-Order YEAR ZERO: A Chapo Trap House Comic Anthology at https://badegg.co/products/year-zero-1

949 - Big Beautiful Swill feat. Tim Faust (7/7/25)

We talk to investigative journalist Jack Poulson (https://jackpoulson.substack.com/) about the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's roots in private equity, mercenary firms, private intelligence outfits, and intelligence agents in the US & Israel.

Hit the tip line: (646) 801-1129 | tips@trueanon.com

Discover more episodes at podcast.trueanon.com

Episode 475: GHF

TWO WEEKS LEFT to pre-order YEAR ZERO: A Chapo Trap House Comic Anthology at badegg.co/products/year-zero-1

Journalist Jasper Nathaniel joins us to discuss his reporting on the West Bank and Israel’s second front in the war on Palestine. We look at the increasingly violent settler movement, Israel’s flagrant violation of international laws, the use of archaeological warfare in the region, and the constant ubiquitous violence that defines life for Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. And on the domestic front, we have an update on the good professor Davidai and his relationship to the august institution Columbia University. 

Follow Jasper’s Substack: https://substack.com/@infinitejaz
Follow Jasper on Twitter: https://x.com/infinite__jaz?lang=en
Follow Jasper on Insta: https://www.instagram.com/infinite_jaz/?hl=en


953 - The Hills Have Eyes feat. Jasper Nathaniel (7/21/25)

Citations Needed is a podcast about the media, power, PR, and the history of bullshit. It is hosted by Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson, and produced by Florence Barrau-Adams.

Ep 219: How Elites Concern Troll "Waste" to Gut Social Welfare and Divide the Working Class

Citations Needed Podcast

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