In case you’ve missed it, we relaunched our Weekender newsletter earlier this year, adding some fun recurring segments (trivia! “This Effing Guy!”) and refocusing it on the “funny, surreal, and strange in U.S. politics and culture.” I joined publisher Joe Ragazzo this afternoon for a little preview of tomorrow’s Weekender, which will categorize the different ways Republicans are trying to cope with their grim prospects in the midterms.

We also touched on kid stuff (I’m about to have my second), tattoos, the prospect of an AOC 2028 presidential run, and some other fun topics. Check out the full live below, and see more TPM conversations on our YouTube channel.

We’re over a decade into the Trump era. To assess the damage his two terms have wrought and how, exactly, we got here, TPM’s David Kurtz was joined on Substack Live by friend of TPM and charter member of our DC bureau, Brian Beutler, who now writes the Off Message newsletter. 

In a wide-ranging conversation, David and Brian discussed Trump’s propaganda campaign around his war in Iran; how the Democrats could act as a true opposition party; and what the U.S. could look like come Jan. 2027 or 2029 depending on how the next two rounds of federal elections shake out. 

Check out their full live below.