Not Even Mad: Michael A. Cohen and Jamie Kirchick
The Gist
Mike Pesca
4.4 • 3.6K Ratings
🗓️ 18 September 2025
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Michael A. Cohen and Jamie Kirchick discuss the Charlie Kirk assassination and the immediate retreat to priors — who’s weaponizing grief, what counts as incitement, and whether “fascistic” vs. “authoritarian” language clarifies or inflames. Plus, the TikTok law end-run and why process crimes don’t move voters the way visible force does. In Goat Grinders: antisemitic conspiracies about Kirk’s murder; presidential pressure to prosecute Letitia James; and one deeply baffling Visa/Christian McCaffrey toaster ad that raises more questions than it protects appliances.
Produced by Corey Wara
Production Coordinator Ashley Khan
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's Thursday, September 18th, 2025. |
| 0:06.5 | From Peachfish Productions, it's the gist. |
| 0:09.1 | I'm Mike Pesca. |
| 0:10.1 | And today is a not even mad day. |
| 0:12.0 | We have Michael Cohen, we have Jamie Kirchuk. |
| 0:14.1 | They get into it and discuss things in a really high-minded manner. |
| 0:18.0 | However, the discussion did take place before Jimmy Kimmel was suspended |
| 0:22.0 | indefinitely for doing what his job description says. Gentle, generally gentle mocking of President |
| 0:29.8 | Donald Trump. Donald Trump and his minions did not like that and they applied pressure and now |
| 0:36.2 | Kimmel is off the air. |
| 0:37.8 | Tomorrow I'm going to bring you an interview on the gist with Brendan Nihann. |
| 0:41.0 | No one in political science is better for getting to the real truth about what the populace is thinking in terms of endorsing violence. |
| 0:48.2 | And I have to tell you, there has been some shockingly misleading thoughts, statistics, survey results that you've |
| 0:55.3 | probably heard of that greatly overstate just how bad a place we're in in terms of people |
| 1:01.7 | endorsing violence. |
| 1:02.9 | And getting those ideas that it's as bad as the numbers that you've been hearing are can |
| 1:08.8 | only worsen our situation. |
| 1:11.7 | So Brendan Nyan is going to talk to us. |
| 1:13.3 | He did quote another expert. |
| 1:15.6 | He's at Dartmouth, Harvard expert, Stephen Levitsky, who analyzes why democracies die, |
| 1:20.2 | who said, and this is succinct in liberal democracies, the price for criticizing the government |
| 1:27.2 | is nothing. You can criticize the |
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