Podcast
Pardon the Politics
Hosted by LXI Studio · ENGLISH
You didn't ask for the most chaotic political era in modern American history. But here you are watching executive orders fly, whistleblowers get silenced, world leaders get bombed mid-negotiation, and a president who apparently thinks Greenland is the size of Africa. Somebody's got to make sense of it.
That's where Pardon the Politics comes in.
Every week, co-hosts Jeezy and Manny, joined by the Chairman of Chaos himself, Chuck, bring you an unfiltered, unscripted breakdown of the biggest stories in U.S. and NC politics with the kind of honesty, humor, and cultural fluency you won't find anywhere on cable news. These are three brothers from North Carolina who cut their lawns, cheer for their kids, argue about the Patriots, and also happen to do their homework. Deeply.
Season 3 has already taken listeners through it all: Trump's bizarre Davos appearance, the Epstein files and the accountability that still hasn't come, the Tulsi Gabbard whistleblower scandal, tariff chaos in the courts, the last MLK Day we may ever see, a world that went to war without a Congressional vote, and the death of a Supreme Leader while diplomats were still at the table. And they're just getting started.
This is not a show for people who want to be told what to think. This is a show for people who want the context, the history, the real questions nobody's asking, and three real perspectives from people who live in the same America you do.
Where chaos meets clarity. New episodes every week.
🎙️ Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | linktr.ee/pardonthepolitics
88episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
I Love Inflation
5d ago02:14:01Tap to summarizeSend us a message!!!The crew is back at full strength. Jeezy, Manny, and Chuck are all in the room for a packed S3E24 that centers on one question: the economy is “good,” but good for whom?We start with the number that set the week on fire. Inflation hit 4.2%, which is a three-year high. When asked if he was worried, the President said the words no campaign wants on tape: “I love it. I love the inflation.” Things got even stranger with a claim that the U.S. has quietly been pulling millions of barrels of oil out of Iran. We break down what is actually driving prices—energy, with gas up about 40% this year—why core inflation at 2.9% tells a calmer story, and why new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh faces a tough situation. He was brought in to cut rates, but now he is looking at numbers that suggest a hike. Plus, the reality that hits at the kitchen table: inflation has now wiped out the wage gains of this entire administration. PSA: it is no longer acceptable to show up to the cookout with sodas. Bring sides.Then we take a step back. Elon Musk crossed a trillion dollars after the SpaceX IPO valued the company at about $2.1 trillion. The gap between him and the world's number two is now bigger than the gap from number two down to everyone else. Chuck predicted this in last week's spotlight, and we discuss what is real, what is just on paper, and why a fortune built on government contracts and an AI bet might be more fragile than it seems. This all happened as Friday became the worst market day since the 2025 tariff shock.Topic three is the chaos inside the intelligence community. After bipartisan backlash, the White House removed Bill Pulte and nominated Jay Clayton for permanent DNI. Manny's prediction from last week was almost exactly right: the whole situation was a distraction to move Todd Blanche. Meanwhile, the fight led to the failure of Section 702 FISA reauthorization, and Chuck asks the episode's sharpest question: as a Black man in America, what liberty did I ever get to give up?Support the show🎤 Listen: https://pardonthepolitics.com/ | linktr.ee/pardonthepolitics | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube
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The System Is Working - Just Not for You
2w ago01:34:43Tap to summarizeSend us a message!!!The Chairman of Chaos and Manny held it down this week, and this one covers alot.RECONCILIATION 2.0 | The Senate passed a $70 billion ICE and Border Patrol funding bill at 4:47 AM after an 18-hour Voterama. 52-47. Lisa Murkowski voted no. Democrats got nothing they asked for: no judicial warrant requirements before ICE can enter homes, no mandatory body cameras, and no SAVE Act block. The $1.8B anti-weaponization fund got stripped. ICE is now funded through January 2029, the largest ICE recruitment appropriation in the agency's history. And it still has to clear the House.TODD BLANCHE FOR AG | Trump's personal criminal defense attorney, the man who represented him through 34 felony charges, is now the nominee for Attorney General. Tom Tillis is on the Judiciary Committee and has zero equivocation. Pam Bondi said in her own hearing that she let Blanche handle everything. Dead cases are about to come back to life.BILL PULTE, ACTING DNI | No intelligence experience. No military background. No security clearance history. The FHFA Director and social media personality is your next Director of National Intelligence. John Thune, the Republican Majority Leader, has already publicly said that the DNI needs professionals. Manny and Chuck prayed on it. Literally.CHAIRMAN'S MOMENT OF CHAOS | Jared Kushner and Ivanka's $1.4 billion euro eco-resort on Albania's only undeveloped island has put hundreds of thousands in the streets on consecutive days. They're calling it the Flamingo Revolution. It makes the No Kings protests look like a field trip.SPOTLIGHTS | Chuck breaks down the SpaceX IPO $1.75 trillion valuation, $2.6 billion loss in 2025, Elon retains 85% voting control, and the regulatory guardrails have been rolled back. Manny covers the New World screwworm, a flesh-eating parasite not seen in the U.S. since 1966, that just crossed the Texas border. DOGE cut the monitoring program. Canada already blocked Texas livestock imports.Support the show🎤 Listen: https://pardonthepolitics.com/ | linktr.ee/pardonthepolitics | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube
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Trump Caught an L in Every Room
3w ago01:59:51Tap to summarizeSend us a message!!!Trump Caught an L in Every Room: The Heritage Foundation says 1,055 out of 1,913 Project 2025 recommendations have been put in place, and they’re giving Donald Trump the credit. That means 55% of the plan has been carried out in just 16 months. Jeezy, Manny, and Chuck start the show with that news and break it down. Next, they cover Trump’s tough week on four different issues. In Alabama, federal judges stopped efforts to redraw court-ordered maps, and in South Carolina, 12 Republicans joined Democrats to block a redistricting proposal. The $1.8 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund is now under review by judges in two states, and 35 retired federal judges from both parties are calling it collusion. A federal judge also blocked adding Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center, saying Congress would have to approve it. Freedom250 is turning into a PR mess, with more than half of its announced performers dropping out. Manny’s Spotlight looks at Section 224 of the 2027 NDAA, a little-known part of a 500-page bill that would link U.S. and Israeli military systems, including sharing battlefield data and joint AI infrastructure. Hardly anyone is talking about it. Jeezy’s Spotlight focuses on Gaza, where Netanyahu says Israel plans to expand its control from 60% to 70%, squeezing 2 million Palestinians into an even smaller area, while most of the media has moved on. Chuck’s Spotlight shares five important phone numbers everyone should know, including 741741, the text-based emergency line. Pickle of the Week: Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner, who Democrats hope can beat Susan Collins, is still dealing with a Nazi tattoo, offensive online posts, and now a sexting scandal that his own campaign staff already knew about.Support the show🎤 Listen: https://pardonthepolitics.com/ | linktr.ee/pardonthepolitics | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube
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For the Kids. Period. (ft. NCAE President Tamika Walker Kelly)
3w ago01:13:12Tap to summarizeSend us a message!!!We sat down with Tamika Walker Kelly, the six-year President of the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE), the state’s largest professional organization for public school employees. Tamika is an 18-year NC public school educator, a North Carolina Teaching Fellows alumna, and someone our own Chuck Wills knows personally: she taught his daughter.Jeezy, Manny, and Chuck went deep on the issues that don’t get nearly enough airtime: the NC General Assembly budget that is 320-plus days overdue. The “8% average raise” is actually a pay cut when you run the real numbers. School closures are tearing through communities from Martin County to Cumberland County to Chapel Hill. Why the “far-left” label thrown at NCAE by the Monroe mayor is a misfire. And what it will take to fix an educator shortage that goes far deeper than pipeline programs.Support the show🎤 Listen: https://pardonthepolitics.com/ | linktr.ee/pardonthepolitics | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube
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They Wrote Themselves a Check
4w ago02:12:27Tap to summarizeSend us a message!!!Season 3, Episode 21. The chaos was in a crockpot this week, and it came out fully cooked.Jeezy, Manny, and Chuck are back to break down one of the most brazen moves in recent political memory: Trump’s $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund. Starting as a lawsuit over leaked tax returns, this deal ended with a taxpayer-funded slush fund controlled by Trump’s own DOJ, no public disclosure, no congressional oversight, and, as Chuck dropped, Trump and his family are no longer subject to IRS audits. Jeezy lays out the structure cleanly: Trump sued, Trump’s DOJ settled, Trump’s AG controls the fund, and Trump can remove fund members. The boys ask the only question that matters: Is this accountability, or is it a publicly funded grievance machine?Then, the 2026 midterm primary map. Georgia’s Republicans can’t stop fighting each other, Kentucky buries the McConnell era, Pennsylvania shows Democrats what disciplined coalition-building actually looks like, and Manny drops the long game: Josh Shapiro and 2028. Plus, Chuck goes deep on the Thomas Massey primary numbers in Kentucky, and something in those numbers doesn’t smell right.Jeezy debuts the Pardon the Eulogy segment to send off one Tulsi Gabbard, former Director of National Intelligence. The Pickle of the Week lands in Cuba, where 94-year-old Raul Castro just received a federal indictment for a 1996 shoot-down, and Jeezy breaks down exactly why the timing isn’t accidental.In Spotlights: Manny reads the DNC’s 192-page post-2024 autopsy, and it’s not pretty, no mention of Gaza, Black male voters scapegoated, and DNC Chair Ken Martin disowned his own report. Chuck watches Elon Musk vs. Sam Altman and the Georgia judicial elections. Jeezy closes with a warning about RFK Jr. gutting the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, the panel that keeps mammograms, colonoscopies, and cancer screenings free under the ACA.And before we close, a major announcement: Pardon the Politics’ first-ever guest episode drops this Wednesday. NCAE President Tamika Walker Kelly comes to the pod, and if you care about public education, teachers’ rights, or the fight for North Carolina’s students, you need to tap in.Like. Share. Follow. And if don’t nobody love you, you already know.Support the show🎤 Listen: https://pardonthepolitics.com/ | linktr.ee/pardonthepolitics | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube
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Donnie T Goes East, Jerome Goes Home
May 1802:31:03Tap to summarizeSend us a message!!!They said it was a quiet week. They were wrong.This week, Jeezy, Manny, and Chuck break down three of the biggest stories shaping America right now:TRUMP IN CHINA: Donnie T touches down in Beijing to meet Xi Jinping. No major breakthroughs, no major blowups, but the optics, the semiconductor vulnerability, the farmer betrayal, and the Taiwan question tell a much deeper story. Xi played chess. What was Trump playing?JEROME POWELL’S LEGACY: After eight years as Federal Reserve Chair, Jerome Powell is out. Did he save the economy, or leave us with a mess? The team breaks down COVID-era rate cuts, the inflation call that defined his tenure, the “transitory” moment, the soft landing, and what incoming Chair Kevin Warsh means for the Fed’s independence.NC & NATIONAL VOTING RIGHTS: Seven constitutional amendments are moving toward North Carolina’s November ballot. Manny maps everyone. Chuck reports on voting rights marches from Montgomery to Atlanta, and issues a challenge to every organizer listening.Plus: Bill Cassidy gets the Pickle (tried to thread the needle, discovered that the needle can’t be threaded in 2026), Jeezy keeps his eye on Mark Wayne Mullin at DHS, and Manny might be cheering for the wrong team in a Hurricanes state.Support the show🎤 Listen: https://pardonthepolitics.com/ | linktr.ee/pardonthepolitics | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube
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Primaries, Pickles & Pocketbooks
May 1101:43:49Tap to summarizeSend us a message!!!It's Mother's Day weekend, but Jeezy, Manny, and Chuck are still on the job. Season 3, Episode 19 of Pardon the Politics starts with the guys giving a salute to moms and mother figures everywhere, making it clear that pets don't count, before getting into the main topics.The episode starts in Ohio and Indiana, where last week's primaries gave an early preview of the 2026 midterms. In Ohio, Sherrod Brown won the Democratic primary with almost 90% of the vote, setting up a big Senate race against current senator John Husted. The hosts talk about how Brown's name helps him, why Husted's path to the general election is tougher than it seems, and why Vivek Ramaswamy's role in the Ohio governor's race could be the most interesting story in politics right now. If the hantavirus situation changes, and the hosts have thoughts on what that could mean for a public health doctor running for governor, Amy Acton's position could take the race in an unexpected direction.Next, the attention shifts to Indiana, where Trump made a $12 to $13 million statement to Republican state legislators across the country. Five out of seven Trump-backed challengers defeated incumbents who refused to redraw districts in the middle of the decade. The hosts call this a clear punishment move, with an eye on 2028. Manny points out that this spending was 4,000 times higher than the last cycle, all for state senate seats that pay thirty thousand dollars a year. Chuck brings up that the Indiana Constitution says redistricting should follow the federal census. Their conclusion: Ohio showed us a battleground, while Indiana gave us a warning.After that, the discussion moves to the economy, and the hosts are straightforward about the situation. Chuck shares the real numbers: 115,000 jobs were added in April, but 83,387 job cuts were also announced that month. The unemployment rate is at 4.3% and hasn't changed, but the hosts point out that this number leaves out many people. Manny points out the most important data: the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index is at its lowest in 74 years, even lower than in 2008 or throughout COVID. The economy is now split into a K-shape, and if you're not near the top, the numbers you see in the news don't match your reality.Support the show🎤 Listen: https://pardonthepolitics.com/ | linktr.ee/pardonthepolitics | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube
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Democracy Does Not Protect Itself
May 402:25:45Tap to summarizeSend us a message!!!Season 3, Episode 18 opens where it needed to: with North Carolina's teachers. This past week, thousands marched on Raleigh in the biggest public education demonstration in state history, and the reason is simple. North Carolina is the only state in the country where teacher pay is projected to go down in 2025-26. Not hold steady. Down. While the state sits on a $951 million surplus. While the Republican-led legislature cannot pass a budget. And while the NC Supreme Court just vacated the 32-year-old Leandro school-funding case, the last constitutional protection for majority-Black, low-wealth districts like Halifax, Vance, and Robeson. Jeezy, Manny, and Chuck don't just cover the numbers they bring the receipts: the county supplement gap (Chapel Hill teachers make $10,650 more per year than teachers in Caswell County for the same credentials), the teacher who waits tables at Chili's on weekends just to survive, and the moment Jeezy drops the line of the episode: "With the way these kids are coming out, somebody's kitchen is gonna be on fire."Then SCOTUS handed down Louisiana v. Callais on April 29, a 6-3 ruling that Jeezy calls "one of the toughest ones" of the entire season. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is now functionally dead. Gone is the 40-year-old "results test" that let plaintiffs prove discrimination by showing it happened. Now you have to prove intent, which is almost impossible by design, especially when the Supreme Court already ruled in Rucho that partisan gerrymandering can't be challenged in federal court at all. Alabama and Tennessee called special redistricting sessions within 48 hours. The Trump DOJ confirmed it will target majority-minority districts nationwide. And North Carolina's federal voter-ID law, upheld by a judge who personally believed it discriminated, is now locked in. Chuck names the pattern, Manny names the legal trap, and Jeezy names the stakes: "Democracy does not protect itself."Manny's Spotlight covers Walmart's rollout of electronic shelf labels to all 5,200+ U.S. stores by the end of 2026, the largest retail tech deployment in history. The technology itself isn't the problem. The problem is what it enables: surge pricing, surveillance pricing, and discriminatory pricing-by-proxy for Black and low-income shoppers who depend on Walmart as their only grocery option. Manny walks through the FTC study, the 23% Instacart price-variation finding, Walmart's $1 billion contract with VusionGroup, and why 12 states are already moving to ban the technology.The episode closes with Jeezy's Spotlight on King Charles's address to Congress a moment that looked ceremonial and hit like a sermon. A king standing before a republic to remind it that checks and balances don't enforce themselves, that freedom doesn't survive if you only defend it when it benefits your team, and that political loyalty becoming stronger than constitutional loyalty is how democracies die quietly. "It's sad," Jeezy says, "that that mirror has to be held by a king." Chuck replies: "And not the fake king."Pickle of the Week: James Comey and the DOJ. Jeezy makes the case that Todd Blanch and the Justice Department are the real pickles this week, not Come, because if 11 months of investigation can't hold up a "threatening the president's life" charge, the DOJ's last shred of credibility goes with it.Support the show🎤 Listen: https://pardonthepolitics.com/ | linktr.ee/pardonthepolitics | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube
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J. Edgar Boozer and the Ballroom
Apr 2702:15:11Tap to summarizeSend us a message!!!We were 30 minutes from recording when the text came in: "they shootin'." Saturday night, someone took a shotgun to the Washington Hilton during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. One Secret Service officer down — saved by his vest. The suspect is in custody. And within hours, Trump pivoted the entire news cycle to a $400 million White House ballroom. This week also: Virginia voters approved a mid-decade redistricting referendum 50.7–49.3%. A Tazewell County judge blocked it 24 hours later. Virginia Supreme Court hears arguments on the day this drops. Kash Patel filed a $250M defamation suit against The Atlantic, then his own 2005 Bar letter showing two alcohol-related arrests surfaced the next day. RFK Jr. survived seven congressional hearings in seven days defending a budget that cuts his own agency. And the NCGA opened its short session. NC is the only state in America without a budget, 942 days running. No scripts. No spin. All receipts.Support the show🎤 Listen: https://pardonthepolitics.com/ | linktr.ee/pardonthepolitics | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube
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When Politics Meets the Pulpit
Apr 2001:09:49Tap to summarizeSend us a message!!!Jeezy and Manny are holding it down this week for what might be Season 3’s most spiritually grounded episode yet. This week: Trump declared war on Pope Leo XIV, calling him "weak on crime and terrible for foreign policy," then posted an AI image of himself as Jesus Christ. The Pope, from a plane over Africa, responded: "I have no fear of the Trump administration." JD Vance warned the Pope to "be careful" about theology. The boys have thoughts. Also: Pickle of the Week goes to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (allegedly quoting a fake Bible verse in a speech) and FBI Director Kash Patel (reports of drinking on the job, lawsuit threats). Plus: Manny’s spotlight on OpenAI’s 13-page industrial policy blueprint, and Jeezy’s spotlight on Trump’s Ibogaine executive order, signed, allegedly, because Joe Rogan sent a text.Support the show🎤 Listen: https://pardonthepolitics.com/ | linktr.ee/pardonthepolitics | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube
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