I’m Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, ad-free, non-partisan politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from the right and left on the news of a day. If someone sent you this email, they’re asking you to subscribe. You can do that by clicking here.

I’m on my honeymoon this week, so I’ve scheduled a few posts for you while I’m gone.

Today’s is a brief look at five of the most popular Tangle interviews we’ve ever published. I have gauged “favorite” by a mixture of data and personal experience: the editions that drove the most responses, comments, shares, tweets, and also the ones that seemed to drive the most positive responses.

— Former CIA operative Jonna Mendez (audio). In this podcast, I spoke to Jonna Mendez, who is also known as the “master of disguise.” She told me the fascinating story of her life in one of the government’s most secretive agencies and shared enthralling tales about her time in the service. This is, without a doubt, one of the most popular interviews I have ever published in Tangle.

— Josh Rogin on the lab leak theory (audio). In this podcast, Washington Post reporter Josh Rogin explains the lab leak theory, and why he thinks an investigation is needed into a laboratory in Wuhan. Rogin was writing a book about U.S.-China relations when coronavirus broke out, and has been owning this story for the last year.

— Alex Vitale on abolishing the police. Audio here and transcript here. In this podcast, one of the foremost proponents of abolishing the police sits down with me to discuss the movement and justify its end game. Vitale is the author of The End of Policing.

— Conservative writer Drew Holden on bias in the media (audio). In this episode, Drew and I discuss bias in the media, where we agree and where we disagree. Holden has become well-known for his Twitter threads exposing the mistreatment of conservatives in the press, and we went long on a lot of the topics he likes to tweet about.

— Brian Riedl and Noah Smith on the national debt (transcript only). In this edition, I sat down with two prominent economists with liberal and conservative leanings to ask them a simple question: does our debt actually matter? Then I transcribed their responses in a bit of a back and forth conversation that illuminated where they agreed and where they disagreed.

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