The Lever - Accountability Journalism For Your Ears

The Lever is taking over the airwaves —  we have three weekly podcasts and more series to come. All of these podcasts’ regular episodes are free to listen to on your podcast player of choice, while we also offer bonus episodes for paid subscribers. 

For those who haven’t yet joined the podcast party, below is a starter pack of great introductory episodes of our three podcasts, along with information about how to subscribe and access bonus content.

It’s Lever Time

Lever Time is our flagship weekly podcast. Hosted by The Lever’s founder, journalist and Oscar-nominated writer David Sirota, it features exclusive reporting from The Lever’s newsroom, high-profile guest interviews, and expert analysis from the sharpest minds in media and politics. Recent guests include Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Susan Sarandon, Marianne Williamson, Russell Brand, Nina Turner, Judd Apatow, and Chris Hayes.

🎧 How The Lever Forced Buttigieg To Do His Job

This episode examines The Lever’s coverage of the train derailment in East Palestine, explaining how the influence of industry lobbies and regulatory capture precipitated this environmental disaster. Producer Frank Cappello sits down with our reporters Julia Rock, Matthew Cunningham-Cook, and Rebecca Burns to get a sense of how The Lever’s reporting on the issue gained national coverage, triggered a public pressure campaign, and helped lead to a response from Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.

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BONUS: All of The Lever’s supporting subscribers get access to Lever Time Premium, an extended version of Lever Time that includes bonus interviews and content. Recent bonus segments have included:

• How Vince McMahon Bodyslammed America
• Who Really Profits In A US/China Trade War?
• No Politics But Class Politics

To get access to Lever Time Premium, click here.

School’s Out, But The Audit Is In

On The Audit, comedian Dave Anthony and screenwriter Josh Olson audit a variety of online classes, docuseries, and other media products created by noxious political figures and boil them down to the good stuff. By which they mean… the bad stuff.

🎧 The Kids Are Not Alt-Right

In the latest season of The Audit, Dave and Josh team up with The Lever to take on Prager University (aka PragerU), a right-wing propaganda machine masquerading as an online education hub that’s been slowly creeping its way into the public education system and the American ideological conversation. This episode, featuring Los Angeles-based public school teacher and union organizer Betsy Long, looks at PragerU Kids, a streaming hub of “pro-America” kids programming intent on battling the evil woke agendas “infiltrating classrooms, culture, and social media.”

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Our Movies, Ourselves

Movies vs. Capitalism (MVC) explores the politics of your favorite films through an anti-capitalist lens. Each episode, hosts Rivka Rivera and Lever podcast producer Frank Cappello are joined by a guest for an irreverent yet critical discussion about a film and how it’s obviously a scathing indictment of late-stage capitalism. MVC examines the crucial intersection between pop culture and politics — unpacking the ideological messages baked into some of your favorite movies. 

🎧 The Matrix (w/ Wren Mack)

In honor of Pride month, Rivka and Frank are joined by actor, director, and educator Wren Mack for a deep-dive conversation about Lana and Lilly Wachowski’s sci-fi masterpiece The Matrix, which has become a meaningful film for the LGBTQ community since its release in 1999. They unpack how the Wachowskis unintentionally created a transgender allegory in “Thomas Anderson vs. Neo,” and they gush about how the movie remains one of the most entertaining, sexy, and sweaty action films of all time.

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