China and Iran, Alabama’s Shadow, Eileen Wang, Dr. Marty Makary

The Politics Guys

Michael Baranowski

News, Politics

4.4 • 783 Ratings

🗓️ 15 May 2026

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Trey Ken opens this week’s episode by dissecting the deteriorating situation in the Persian Gulf, where a nominal ceasefire is currently on life support. Ken argues that the administration is merely using ceasefire nomenclature to bypass Congressional oversight and stabilize financial markets. The conversation then shifts to Trump's high-stakes visit to Beijing, where President Xi Jinping warned that Taiwan’s independence cannot continue, while intelligence reports suggest Chinese companies are masking arms transfers to Iran. Ken and Trey debate whether the U.S. remains a credible counterbalance in the region or if Trump is signaling a willingness to deal away Taiwan. The duo then tackles the Supreme Court's controversial shadow docket ruling allowing Alabama to proceed with a congressional map previously found to dilute Black voter influence. Ken labels the Court’s reliance on the Purcell principle as raw political corruption, prompting a deep dive into potential Democratic reforms should they regain power. They explore the possibility of reigning in the court on voting rights via Article 3, though Trey remains skeptical of the political appetite for such a move. This leads to a broader discussion on the Senate filibuster, which Ken argues must be eliminated now that it has been routinized to block virtually all legislation. Turning to domestic scandals, Trey highlights the resignation of Arcadia Mayor Wang after federal charges revealed she acted as an unregistered agent for the People’s Republic of China. Ken views this specific case as a relatively minor technical violation of the Foreign Agent Registration Act, while Trey wonders if it represents a beta test for deeper Chinese infiltration into local U.S. politics. Finally, the pair discusses the great grape vape resignation of FDA head Dr. Marty McCary, who lasted only 13 months before clashing with the White House over fruit-flavored vaping products. Ken and Trey speculate on whether McCary's departure signals a shift toward tobacco as health or to a larger break with Kennedy. Check out the ⁠Future of Our Former Democracy⁠ podcast Read Trey's Substack for a deep dive into the Federalist Papers⁠⁠⁠⁠ The Politics Guys on ⁠Facebook⁠ | ⁠X⁠ Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at⁠ patreon.com/politicsguys⁠ or⁠ politicsguys.com/support⁠. On Venmo, we’re @PoliticsGuys. The Politics Guys is part of⁠ The Democracy Group⁠, a network of podcasts that examines what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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1:01.7	Welcome to the politics, guys.
1:03.0	I'm Trey Orndorff, a political scientist at Oklahoma Christian University, and I'm joined, as usual, by Ken,
1:08.1	Katken, a professor of law at Chase Law School.
1:27.6	Ken, welcome back this month. It's great to be back. It is good to be back. It's good to be doing some things. See, last week I was the third man on the show, and this week I get to take a more leading definitive role. They needed to bring you in because they needed someone who could talk some sense. Yeah. Well, you know, we're going to talk about that because I'm going to bring up Mike and Terry this week a little bit.
1:32.6	Because I'm curious to get your view.
1:33.8	I was the odd man out on a few items, you know, now that Mike's gone all conservative on us.
1:40.9	Yeah.
1:43.9	But so be that as it may, I wanted to start with both kind of our overseas stories.
1:49.0	And that includes the situation in the Persian Gulf where the ceasefire is, I mean, it's starting
1:54.5	to have almost no meaning.
1:57.0	That's one of the things I want to talk to you about.
1:59.0	Ken, you know, last week, Mike and Terry argued that I was missing the positive outcomes of the war.
2:04.8	And this week, Trump made it clear that the ceasefire is on his words, life support.
	...

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