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PODCAST

Firewall with Bradley Tusk

Politics, technology and the pursuit of happiness. Twice a week, Bradley Tusk, New York-based political strategist and venture investor, covers the collision between new ideas and the real world. His operating thesis is that you can"t understand tech today without understanding politics, too. Recorded at P&T Knitwear, his bookstore / podcast studio, 180 Orchard Street, New York City.

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All Episodes

44:46

Can You Be Good and Great?

Firewall with Bradley Tusk ·

2026/04/02

[Vote for Firewall and help us win our first Webby Award! https://bit.ly/firewallwebby]Is it possible to build the most powerful technology in human history while remaining a genuinely decent person, or does that kind of greatness require a willingness to burn everything down? Sebastian Mallaby, author of The Infinity Machine, joins Bradley to argue that Demis Hassabis may be the rarest breed: a Nobel Prize-winning scientist and world-changing CEO who cares deeply about safety. But as Mallaby and

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46:20

It's Way Too Early for the Horse Race

Firewall with Bradley Tusk ·

2026/03/31

We all need to stop worrying about who the Democrats will nominate in 2028, argues Bradley. Unless it's someone from the far Left, the main candidates are essentially interchangeable — structural conditions, not the picayune distinctions between them, will determine the outcome. Plus, Bradley and Hugo discuss what makes life worthwhile, trade basketball stories, and discuss why starting a band might be the answer to everything that ails us.Discussed on today's episode:Start a Band, Even if You’re

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44:23

The Left Broke America. Can It Be Fixed?

Firewall with Bradley Tusk ·

2026/03/26

How did the Democratic party drift so far from the real interests of the poor and working class it historically championed? Legendary journalist Joe Klein joins Firewall to argue that the rot starts with his own generation — Baby Boomers — who indoctrinated two generations of Americans in ideals that have never worked in the real world. Bradley and Joe find surprising common ground on three big fixes.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free

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01:04:03

How Many Liberal-Arts Majors Does It Take to Fix a...

Firewall with Bradley Tusk ·

2026/03/23

On the eve of a college trip with his son, Bradley reflects on the murky future that kids are facing and how education will have to be massively rethought. Plus, he thoroughly debunks the concept of the all-powerful Israel lobby, chastises the Mamdani administration for policies that will adversely affect quality of life, and contemplates how to manage the level of difficult news we let into our lives.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free

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01:07:32

Is Business Waking Up from Its 30-Year Nap?

Firewall with Bradley Tusk ·

2026/03/19

One big reason that the Left has grown so powerful in the city, Bradley argues, is that the Partnership for New York — the group that should have been fighting for centrist, pro-business interests — never showed any inclination to play politics. That could be changing now that Steve Fulop, former three-term mayor of Jersey City, has taken over as the Partnership's CEO Fulop joins Firewall for a spirited debate on what it will take for business to punch its weight in political matters and

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43:35

Am I Too Hard On The Left?

Firewall with Bradley Tusk ·

2026/03/17

Progressives make life hard on the rest of us, Bradley argues, by claiming to champion the poorest Americans while supporting policies that reflect their own biases and selfishness. But his ultimate conclusion is that far-left behavior, for all its flaws, is fundamentally and recognizably human — driven by a mix of self-interest, genuine idealism and the universal desire to belong to something meaningful.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free

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53:57

The Art of the Sneak Attack

Firewall with Bradley Tusk ·

2026/03/12

Even when your issue won't win votes, there are ways to make your political opponents pay. Bradley sits down with his friend and partner, Tusk Strategies CEO Chris Coffey, to break down how the firm helped a climate group go after Rep. Chip Roy in a Texas Republican primary. Running ads on Truth Social and Rumble, they attacked him for not being MAGA enough — a strategy that produced a roughly 20-point swing and forced him into a runoff without mentioning climate change once. Bradley and Chris also

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44:23

The Plague of Zero-Sum People

Firewall with Bradley Tusk ·

2026/03/10

Why do a small minority of selfish, fear-mongering people wield so much power over the rest of us? Bradley argues that most of us want essentially the same things: meaningful work, healthy families, a little fun, and some peace. The problem isn't human nature — it's broken systems that reward the loudest and most divisive voice. He also weighs in on whether Trump's instincts are well suited to the Middle East, why the AI companies fundamentally misread their political situation, and what makes Los

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34:39

Man with a Scan

Firewall with Bradley Tusk ·

2026/03/05

Does fixing America's $5 trillion healthcare crisis start with taking a single picture? Bradley sits down with Andrew Lacy, founder and CEO of Prenuvo, to explore how full-body MRI scans are shifting healthcare from reactive to proactive — and why that shift could be the most important change in medicine today. They discuss Lacy's 80/20 approach to personal longevity (sleep first, everything else follows), his vision of patient-driven healthcare spending and why AI promises to make world-class

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59:02

Anthropic Loses the Battle

Firewall with Bradley Tusk ·

2026/03/02

But in taking a principled stand against the Pentagon and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, it will gain valuable trust with customers, argues Bradley, and that means winning the war. Plus: Jack Dorsey's 4,000-person layoff at Block is a sign of things to come as AI efficiency tools displace white-collar workers — and nobody has a real plan for what comes next; why the addiction claims being made in the lawsuit against Meta are "1,000 percent accurate" but that doesn't mean it's illegal; is Mayor

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41:17

Where Education Matters Most

Firewall with Bradley Tusk ·

2026/02/26

Early childhood education has quietly become one of the most successful — and bipartisan — reform movements in the country. Elliot Regenstein, author of Readiness: Preparing State Early Childhood Systems for a Brighter Future, sits down with Bradley to explain how it's working. They dig into why the system is more adaptable than K-12 or higher ed, which states are leading the way, and what the Trump administration's push to dismantle the Department of Education could mean for the most vulnerable

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01:14:02

The Radical Rest

Firewall with Bradley Tusk ·

2026/02/24

"We don't need purity," says Bradley. "We don't need saviors." The remaking of our institutions starts from the middle, he argues, which has a lot of untapped power against the extremes on both sides. Bradley contends that media, hollowed out by market forces, has ironically become the most adaptive of our broken institutions, while higher education has saddled a generation with $1.83 trillion in debt to prop up a system that puts the needs of administrators over students. And on religion, he sees

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49:34

What is a Museum For?

Firewall with Bradley Tusk ·

2026/02/18

Calling in from Istanbul, Bradley opens with impressions of a historically rich but complicated city — ancient cisterns, street cats, a shady taxi driver, and bomb-proof doors on a synagogue. Earlier, when he was in Madrid, Bradley took Abby to visit the Prado and the Thyssen, which got him thinking about the uncomfortable economics of museums: tens of billions in art, much of it in storage, underwriting tax breaks for wealthy donors while hungry people go unfed. How should we address these issues

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42:43

A Bold Prediction About Prediction Markets

Firewall with Bradley Tusk ·

2026/02/12

Why are the biggest names in venture betting big on prediction markets? Aaron Miller, principal at Will Ventures, joins Bradley to talk about the evolution of platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket into a new kind of financial exchange and societal "source of truth." They dig into the states-versus-federal regulatory battle, the surge in American gambling behavior, and then turn to the messy restructuring of college sports. Do our old ideas about it make sense anymore?This episode was taped at P&T

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49:42

I Want to Give Up All the Time

Firewall with Bradley Tusk ·

2026/02/10

Everybody fails, doubts themselves and encounters unexpected obstacles on the path to whatever they're trying to achieve. But the choice to keep going in the face of difficulty, says Bradley, is what maximizes our own satisfaction and well being. He explains all this in the context of why the business community failed as a political force in New York City since Mayor Bloomberg left office. Plus, he talks about why the merging of philanthropy and commerce is often so fraught, questions Mayor

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42:53

The Gen Z State of Mind: "We're Just Trying to Survive"

Firewall with Bradley Tusk ·

2026/02/05

What happens when an entire generation grows up with nothing but chaos, only to encounter an AI revolution that makes practically every career look iffy? Bradley talks to Rachel Janfaza, founder of The Up and Up, about why COVID didn't just disrupt Gen Z—it split them in two: the older group that remembers life before the pandemic and the younger ones who don't and who never learned how to have an unplanned conversation. She explains how Gen Z voters feel betrayed by Trump just one year into his

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53:32

Who Knew AI Was This Terrible at Math?

Firewall with Bradley Tusk ·

2026/02/03

What do you get when you ask five AI platforms to crunch some numbers and help solve an investment decision for you? A shocking array of basic errors, faulty assumptions and bizarre omissions, Bradley discovered, enough to make him seriously wonder where this revolution might be heading. Plus, he reevaluates his loathing of social media in light of Minneapolis and Greenland, debates the merits of his own particular form of networking and proposes an ad that could propel Rahm Emanuel to the top of

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01:04:20

Live from P&T Knitwear: Of Platforms and Politics

Firewall with Bradley Tusk ·

2026/01/29

In the 1990s, we were promised that the internet was going to decentralize wealth and power. How did we end up with what feels like the exact opposite of that? Tim Wu, author of the new book, The Age of Extraction — an examination of how tech platforms extract value, shape attention, and concentrate power — joined Bradley earlier this month for a live discussion at P&T Knitwear, moderated by Nate Loewentheil, Managing Partner of Commonweal Ventures. "If you look through the history of democracy

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45:57

How to Stand Up to a Bully

Firewall with Bradley Tusk ·

2026/01/27

Canada can never fix the asymmetry of its relationship with the US, but as Prime Minister Mark Carney showed last week in Davos, there’s much to be gained from playing to your strengths. Bradley assesses the strange predicament of the middle power in a zero-sum world. Plus: the real reason Kristi Noem has a cabinet post, why law school applications are surging and — here’s something nice — the 12 finalists for the 2026 Gotham Book Prize.This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard

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01:01:29

Herding Bots

Firewall with Bradley Tusk ·

2026/01/22

Are AI workers easier to manage than humans?Bradley sits down withEvan Ratliff, creator of the award-winning podcast series,Shell Game,to talk about the real startup he launched with a staff of AI employees. They discuss the economic, psychological, and regulatory stakes of AI, plus the creepycomedy of working with bots. “Every time I went in to say, ‘Stop talking about this,’” Ratliff says, “it triggered them to talk about it more. They can create endless busy work—endless process—for no real

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