How Trump Made 2025 Worse Than 2020

The Muckrake Political Podcast

CLNS Media Network

News, Politics

4.6 • 530 Ratings

🗓️ 30 December 2025

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Co-hots Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman return for the final Muckrake episode of 2025, and the vibes are… kinda emotionally stable. They look back on a year that somehow felt darker than 2020, then pivot straight into the current circus: Trump raging at the media, posturing about the Epstein files, hosting Zelensky at Mar-a-Lago, and then parroting Putin’s lines like the Oval Office has a Kremlin teleprompter. From there, the conversation goes where 2025 always seems to go: Into the flashing dashboard lights of institutional collapse, Trump’s visible decline, and the unnerving signals that J.D. Vance is already laying 2028 groundwork with Turning Point backing. And if that wasn’t bleak enough, they close with an absolutely cursed focus group of Gen Z Republicans that reads like a “content brain” case study, complete with casual extremism, conspiracy marination, and the kind of political illiteracy that would be funny if it wasn’t actively setting things on fire. Support the show by signing up to our Patreon and get access to the full Weekender episode each Friday as well as special Live Shows and access to our community discord: http://patreon.com/muckrakepodcast

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, everybody.
0:02.7	Welcome to the Muckering podcast.
0:04.3	I'm Jaday, it's next to.
0:05.2	And I've got good news for everybody.
0:06.8	The rumors are true. The boys are back in town. The boys are back. I'm here with Nick Alasman. How you doing, bud? I'm good. I'm good. Always good post-Christmas cheer. Are you feeling that Christmas cheer? If you're watching on YouTube, maybe you can see Nick's got a glow about him.
0:23.1	Rosie cheeks.
0:23.9	Is that what you're feeling? You know, it's funny. I didn't, I'll tell you this, feeling neutral has to be considered positive at this point. I think that is a beautiful way to look at it. Yes. Yeah. So, yeah. So I didn't, it wasn't down. I was able to stay neutral and
0:38.8	emotionally stable. And I think that that's all we can ask for at this moment while we're getting our bearings. Well, I wasn't able to stay emotionally stable. So I'm very jealous. Oh, that's awesome. Good for you for that, though. How are you stable like in this very moment? is stable in the room with me?
0:55.6	I don't know.
0:56.6	I don't know.
0:57.4	I never even heard. How are you stable like in this very moment? Is stable in the room with me?
0:55.6	I don't know.
0:56.6	I don't know.
0:57.4	I never even heard her.
0:59.1	I have I have no idea.
1:00.8	And that's part of what we have to talk about today.
1:02.9	Before we get going, a reminder, we need your help.
1:06.3	We need your support.
1:07.7	We are independent media.
1:08.7	We are living in the dying days of corporate media. And why is corporate media dying, Nick? Because nobody trusts it. Nobody believes any of the bullshit that they're spewing anymore. It's tired. It's old. It needs to lay down and pass away into the dustbin of history. We need your support, though. We don't have ads. We don't have people who are, we,
1:29.2	we don't have billionaire benefactors who are paying us in order to carry their laundry and
1:34.7	spout their, their parrot of talking points. We need your help. Head over to patreon.com slash
	...

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