Reese Gorman on Congress's Vanishing Backbone — and Dexter Filkins' Rubio "Zig and Zag" Portrait
The Gist
Mike Pesca
4.4 • 3.6K Ratings
🗓️ 13 January 2026
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Reese Gorman of Notus (and the On Notus podcast) explains the outlet's "teaching hospital" model for young journalists—and reports that Republicans are privately furious about being cut out of Venezuela, tariffs, and appropriations, even as almost none of them do anything to reclaim Congress's prerogatives beyond symbolic discharge petitions. Then, Dexter Filkins' new profile is our guide to Marco Rubio's ideological malleability as career strategy: swallow the zig, repeat the zag. Plus, why the left's most radical policy ideas can spread under the cover of benevolent framing and definitional ambiguity—and why that's a branding and governing problem for Democrats even if the far right remains more dangerous overall.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's Tuesday, January 13th, 2026 from Peachfish Productions. |
| 0:09.0 | It's The Gist. I'm Mike Pesca. A message came in my inbox yesterday. |
| 0:13.5 | You remember inboxes, embassies? It was from the New Yorker. |
| 0:17.5 | Dexter Filkins, who's great, great reporter, reports on Marco Rubio's |
| 0:22.2 | transformation from Reagan conservative to Trump Enabler. Technically Secretary of State is the title. |
| 0:28.9 | He also, I think, runs the UN, a bunch of other agencies, but we call it Enabler. Here, I'll read |
| 0:33.7 | from some of this email. Marco Rubio has developed a two-step routine in service of Donald Trump. Yes, he is in service of Donald Trump. As Secretary of State, he serves at the pleasure of the president, as all secretaries of state have. What do we expect? Who do we think is going to serve in this role? Malala, Kofi Annan? Okay, let's pick an American. This is going to be someone who is aligned |
| 0:55.3 | and who pleases Donald Trump. So from that universe of people, I don't know, maybe we could do |
| 1:01.7 | worse than Marco Rubio. If you don't believe me, just look slightly to the left who's sitting on the |
| 1:06.5 | couch. Well, it's J.D. Vance. But I digress for now. Dexter Filkins observes in a timely and penetrating profile in this week's issue. |
| 1:16.5 | I'll be the judge of that. Step one. Praise the boss effusively as a hero. |
| 1:20.8 | Step two. Explain that whatever unprecedented thing the president has done, |
| 1:26.1 | capturing the head of state in another country in the |
| 1:27.9 | middle of the night, promising to take control of Greenland, is in fact entirely normal. Yes, yes, |
| 1:33.5 | I did understand that this was a part of the job if you want to keep the job and if you want to |
| 1:38.1 | keep the job and keep power within the job. I read on, Rubio seems less like a foreign policy |
| 1:43.8 | advisor and more, quote, like a support staffer for the job. I read on. Rubio seems less like a foreign policy advisor and more, quote, like a support |
| 1:46.7 | staffer for the president, Filkin's rights. Quote, ultimately, he has to be 100% loyal to the president, |
| 1:53.2 | and when the president zigs and zags, Rubio has to zig and zag, too, one former diplomat who's |
| 1:57.8 | worked with Rubio said, he's had to swallow a lot of shit. |
| 2:01.8 | You got to, you got to include that quote. |
| 2:03.8 | As one retired ambassador told Filkins, trashing our allies, gutting state and foreign aid, the |
... |
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