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PODCAST

Talk Cocktail

Jeff Schechtman

Jeff Schechtman talks with authors, journalists, newsmakers and opinion shapers, and sheds light on the issues of the day, from local stories to national and international headlines and ideas. jeffschechtman.substack.com

news & politics

All Episodes

27:08

The Assassin Next Door: Luigi Mangione and America’s...

Talk Cocktail ·

2025/11/15

Luigi Mangione became a folk hero after allegedly killing a healthcare CEO. “Free Luigi” merchandise. Hacked highway signs. But he’s not alone. In a recent WhoWhatWhy podcast I spoke with journalist John Richardson who reveals how Ted Kaczynski’s ideology radicalized Mangione and is appealing to alienated young men who’ve reached a dark conclusion: the system won’t change without violence. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

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29:13

Robot Gladiators and the Future of AI Combat

Talk Cocktail ·

2025/11/12

San Francisco’s underground robot fight clubs: humanoid machines in steel cages, VR pilots, roaring crowds. China builds the hardware, America stages the spectacle, AI makes them lethal. I talk with journalist and filmmaker Ashlee Vance on my latest California Sun Podcast. He expalins how the technology is advancing at breakneck speed — raising questions about entertainment, military applications, and what happens when these machines become truly intelligent. Get full access to Talk Cocktail

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33:06

How Desi Arnaz Invented Modern Television and Lost...

Talk Cocktail ·

2025/11/08

On this recent California Sun podcast I talk with Todd S. Purdum, veteran journalist and author of “Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television.” Purdum expalins how a Cuban refugee revolutionized Hollywood. He invented the three-camera sitcom format, shifted television production from New York to LA, and created the business model that sustained the industry and TV production for seven decades—fundamentally transforming the entertainment business. It cost him everything! Get full access to Talk

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41:51

Is Political Violence Built Into America’s DNA?

Talk Cocktail ·

2025/11/05

Political violence isn’t an aberration in American democracy — it’s a defining trait. From the Boston Tea Party to January 6, it’s how we settle our differences.My guest on this WhoWhatWhy podcast is professor Matthew Dallek of George Washington University. The author of numerous books and papers on political violence, including the definitive history of the John Birch Society. Dallek argues we’re living through an “era of violent populism” — driven by institutional distrust, dehumanizing rhetoric,

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31:36

Where is the Literary Center of America?

Talk Cocktail ·

2025/11/01

On this latest California Sun podcast, John Freeman, author of “California Rewritten: A Journey Through the Golden State’s New Literature,” talks to me about how California has become America’s new literary center, challenging New York’s dominance. He discusses the pandemic book club that sparked his journey, the state’s evolving mythology, and how diverse voices are redefining what it means to imagine America’s future. Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at

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40:18

Globalization and Its Discontents: How the World’s...

Talk Cocktail ·

2025/10/29

In the theater of history, irony often plays a leading role. How did the greatest engine of prosperity the world has ever known — according to the World Bank lifting 1.5 billion people out of crushing poverty — become America’s most dangerous political wager? In this recent WhoWhatWhy podcast I spoke with Journalist David J. Lynch — author of The World’s Worst Bet: How the Globalization Gamble Went Wrong (And What Would Make It Right.) He witnessed first-hand globalization’s arc from golden dawn to

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26:47

Education Reimagined: Building the world’s most...

Talk Cocktail ·

2025/10/22

Minerva University, has earned the No. 1 ranking in the World University Rankings for Innovation for four consecutive years. Founded in San Francisco in 2012, Minerva reimagined higher education — eliminating campuses, lectures, and tenure while sending students to live and study across seven global cities. In this California Sun podcast, Mike Magee, President of the University discusses how Minerva, with only a 4% acceptance rate and students from more than 100 countries, is preparing the next

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42:03

The Economy May Be Our Last Guardrail

Talk Cocktail ·

2025/10/18

More than taking to the streets, a souring economy may be democracy’s last hope. Beneath calm headlines, inflation persists and wealth accumulates. The numbers reveal what matters most.It’s the economy, stupid.” Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign mantra has never felt more prophetic. In an era when presidential scandals barely register, where lawbreaking and corruption seem consequence-free, where the president himself once boasted he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue without losing support — the

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36:13

Echoes of Japanese Incarceration: It Can Happen Here

Talk Cocktail ·

2025/10/15

Today, as immigrant families are again separated and detained, Satsuki Ina joins me on the California Sun podcast to talk about her memoir “The Poet and the Silk Girl.” Her story chronicles her family’s journey through California’s network of assembly centers and permanent camps during World War II. It’s a reminder, she says, that what happened then is not just history — it’s a warning about how easily such chapters of fear and racism repeat themselves.Satsuki was born behind barbed wire at Tule

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51:14

How America Really Lost Control of Its Own Future

Talk Cocktail ·

2025/10/11

While America fixates on President Donald Trump’s psychology, the real story may be the fundamental mutation of American power itself — one that makes Trump merely a symptom of a deeper transformation reshaping our world.On this recent week’s WhoWhatWhy podcast, I talk with British novelist and essayist Rana Dasgupta, who argues we’re missing the seismic shifts beneath the surface. Author of the upcoming book After Nations: The History and Future of the Nation State, Dasgupta reveals how three

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20:58

My 1998 Conversation with Jane Goodall

Talk Cocktail ·

2025/10/04

In March 1998, I had the privilege of sitting down with Jane Goodall, whose pioneering work transformed how we understand chimpanzees and our shared planet. This week, as we mark her passing at 93, we revisit that conversation. The recording has survived nearly three decades — the audio may not be perfect, but her wisdom and spirit shine through.This post is FREE for everyone. Please spread it far and wide. And please consider becoming a paid subscriber to TalkCocktail. It’s $8 a month or just $80

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45:18

California's Crown Jewel Has a Dark Secret: The...

Talk Cocktail ·

2025/09/30

How one of California’s corporate crown jewels, Apple, faces an unprecedented rebellion. Tech leaders such as Spotify’s Daniel Ek and Epic Games’ Tim Sweeney are waging a legal war over what they have portrayed as a shakedown operation — the 30% App Store cut that generates massive profits for Apple while stifling competition.On this Califonria Sun podcast I talk with WSJ reporter Tim Higgins to discuss his new book “iWar,” examining Apple’s hold on the mobile world, and how the rise of artificial

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40:14

Propaganda 2025: Lies, All The Way Down

Talk Cocktail ·

2025/09/27

We inhabit a fractured information landscape where truth itself has become negotiable. Lying has not only lost its stigma — it’s become a viable strategy for success.My guest on this WhoWhatWhy podcast, Renée DiResta, author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality, reveals the machinery behind this transformation.Politicians lie with impunity, corporate leaders fabricate narratives, and social media influencers craft false personas, all understanding that in the attention economy,

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26:44

Bruce Lee and the emergence of Asian American pride

Talk Cocktail ·

2025/09/24

Jeff Chang, in his new biography “Water Mirror Echo,” and in our recent California Sun podcast explores how the short of life of Bruce Lee helped shape modern Asian American culture and politics.Born in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Lee was denied the lead role in Warner Bros.’s 1970s TV series “Kung Fu,” which was given instead to David Carradine in yellowface. Lee’s collision with Hollywood rejection became a catalyst for his rise at a time of emergent Asian American political consciousness. Chang

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38:38

Empire of Secrets: Robert Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein,...

Talk Cocktail ·

2025/09/20

What Ghislaine Maxwell knows about her father Robert Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein may be the final untold chapter of two of the great scandals of our timeBoth men were fabulously wealthy, both wrapped themselves in the trappings of power, both had rumored ties to intelligence services, and both of their lives ended in disgrace. Epstein’s death in a Manhattan jail cell remains a source of speculation and allegations of conspiracy. Robert Maxwell’s fall from his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, is no less

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31:27

An Autopsy of the Left

Talk Cocktail ·

2025/09/17

Joan Williams— a UC law professor, author of Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Working Class and How to Win Them Back delivers the prevailing wisdom on Democrats' working-class exodus: how cultural condescension drove voters to Trump. But this tidy narrative misses deeper currents of economic and technological transformation, aspirational politics, and structural failures that shaped today's realignment. Getting the prescription wrong could doom us to years more of the chaos we're desperately trying

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30:22

America’s Most Expensive Lie: Why Tariffs Are Killing...

Talk Cocktail ·

2025/09/13

Violence subsumes us this week, but at the end of the day, it’s still the economy that impacts all of us.Politicians sell tariffs as job protection, but economist Kimberly Clausing cuts through the spin: They’re a direct assault on working families’ wallets while destroying the very manufacturing jobs they claim to save. In this recent WhoWhatWhy podcast The former Treasury official and UCLA professor talks to me about how Donald Trump’s trade war has become an expensive lesson in economic

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28:50

Privilege and Vulnerability for the Sons of the Elite

Talk Cocktail ·

2025/09/10

The sons of the elite also struggle.Filmmaker Peter Jones turned his camera on his former classmates from the Harvard School for Boys, a former military academy for boys in Los Angeles, for his new PSB documentary “Fortunate Sons,” chronicling the lives of the 1974 graduating class through their 50th reunion. In this California Sun podcast, Jones tells me that what started as pandemic Zoom calls became surprisingly honest conversations about addiction, suicide, and the pressure of living up to

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40:04

How One San Francisco Murder Exposed Silicon Valley's...

Talk Cocktail ·

2025/09/06

How did Silicon Valley's best and brightest become Trump's cheerleaders? Journalist Scott Alan Lucas may have found the origins in his investigation of Cash App founder Bob Lee's 2023 murder. When Lee was killed in San Francisco, tech elites immediately abandoned their supposed data-driven principles, blaming liberal governance despite clear evidence pointing elsewhere. The same figures—including future Trump advisor David Sacks—chose narrative over facts, ideology over analysis. Lucas reveals how

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37:49

China's Moment: How History and Family Shapes Today's...

Talk Cocktail ·

2025/09/04

With China's rising global influence amid America's shifting position worldwide, understanding China's complex history has never been more critical. New York Times diplomatic correspondent Edward Wong offers unparalleled insight in his book "At the Edge of Empire: A Family's Reckoning with China." Through his family's personal story and decades of reporting from Beijing, Wong reveals how China's imperial past continues to shape its modern aspirations and growing tensions with the West.This post is

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1,369 results

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