Podcast Listening Challenge Week 9: Pod Save America Podcast
This week I decided to listen to a Podcast that I had previously mentioned in Week 7 and see how this podcast has become such a prominent podcast in the political space. The Pod is hosted by former Obama aides Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Dan Pfeiffer and Tommy Vietor which is clearly a cast of heavy hitters and gentlemen who know their stuff when it comes down to politics.
Besides my affiliation for the name of the Podcast, there is a song by Evidence that has the sample “God Save America” in it and everytime I read Pod Save America or God Save anywhere, i immediately think of that song. The song was produced by Alchemist and it’s such a gem.
In the process of looking for the Youtube video of this song, I also looked for the sample that was used because that is where the song really comes to life. I had never heard of Congress Alley till today, guess you learn something new everyday.
Anyway enough of my tangent, lets get back to the Podcast. We are currently living in a world in which the news cycle is dominated by Corona and Covid-19. It has literally inundated our lives and therefore I tried to find an episode that avoided Corona but unfortunately politics moves at breakneck speed and if you go too far back then the information will feel extremely dated.
Then this video flashed on my twitter feed whereby Trump was castigating journalist Yamiche Alcindor over a question that she asked him. I saw that she was going to be a guest on the next episode and my decision became easy.
The episode is called “Ratings to Die For” because President Trump manages to make the news about him at all times and its pretty indicative of the state that US politics is in. Trump is grandstanding about his tv ratings even as the US is the epicentre of the Coronavirus. The hosts of this podcast are pretty sensational because they ask each other great questions and it is clear that they understand the political landscape in America because of their experience from the Obama administration.
There are many good questions that get asked and member of the podcast gives an opinion on a political topic and how Trump could have handled it differently. Their insights lead to good ideas and great insights which keep the podcast interesting and keep the listener well informed. My gripe with this podcast is that the hosts are left leaning and therefore they continuously bash Trump without any pushback. Bashing Trump is easy because he actually gives so much ammunition to his critics its scary. I would have loved a republican guest to try defend Trump’s indefensibles’. But at the same time I doubt a republican guest would come onto the podcast because she would be faced with four highly intelligent people to debate with. The chances of winning are not at all in their favour.
After debating about Trump and the US reaction to Covid, they interviewed Yamiche Alcindor and asked her about her about being attacked by Trump. She was very graceful in her answers and kept it very professional because she still has a job to do. The nice thing is that reporters are becoming braver with Trump and asking him more of the hard questions that he does not like. In the interview they spoke about how reporters are sending the questions back so that Trump is forced to answer them. Part of this is possible due to the fact that there is only one story dominating the news cycle at the moment.
This is a great Pod and their expertise and experience of doing this Podcast clearly shine through. Its a must listen and I plan to give it another spin post Corona.
Till next week’s Podcast, you can read about last week’s podcast here: Week Eight (Why Won’t You Date Me?)
