Deconstructed

Imran Khan became Pakistan’s prime minister through a most unusual route. As he explained in an interview on Sunday night, Khan was for decades the nation’s most famous cricketer, before transitioning into the world of philanthropy, building hospitals and supporting universities. From there, he moved into politics, founding a party — the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI — and sweeping into power in 2018. But he had a slim majority, and was ousted in a no-confidence vote by 2022. Since then, he and his party have been the target of a relentless crackdown by the nation’s military, which has ruled the country directly or indirectly for decades. On this week's Deconstructed, Ryan Grim speaks to Khan about his career, the political crisis facing Pakistan, and his diminishing hope for a negotiated resolution. If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at Podcasts@theintercept.com.

Why is “fund the police” a losing message for Democrats? That’s the question and type of messaging Deconstructed is exploring this week with Anat Shenker-Osorio, the founder of ASO Communications and host of the podcast “Words to Win By.” Grim and Shenker-Osorio discuss why certain messages do well and others fail, why reframing the debate is essential, and how to craft messages that resonate and win. They also revisit Grim’s recent conversation with political strategist Dmitri Mehlhorn and unpack why messaging that gravitates toward the right and center is not effective.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at Podcasts@theintercept.com.

Ever since Congress created a federal debt limit, it has managed to raise it before U.S. borrowing reached the limit. For the first time, it looks as though that may not happen, and the government could conceivably default on its obligations. Today on Deconstructed, Jon Schwarz is joined by the economist Stephanie Kelton to talk about the history that brought us to this moment, why both political parties may take us over this ridiculous and dangerous brink together, and what it all means for now and the future.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at Podcasts@theintercept.com.

On Sunday, as the first round of Turkish elections were underway, the government expelled a team of international election observers. The delegation, including members of Spain’s parliament, was invited by a leading Kurdish party to observe the elections. This week on Deconstructed, Ryan Grim is joined by Ismael Cortés, one of the election observers who was expelled. Cortés is a member of the left-wing Podemos party in Spain and a representative in Spain’s Congress of Deputies. Cortés tells how, as he visited voting sites in southern Turkey, he and his team were arrested by Turkish officials and later expelled from the country. He emphasizes that even though he and the team were mistreated by Turkish officials, it is nothing compared to the repression Kurdish people face.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at Podcasts@theintercept.com.

On Sunday, Turkey’s presidential election could unseat Recep Tayyip Erdogan. This week on Deconstructed, Ryan Grim has a wide-ranging conversation with guests, covering Turkey's election, the arrest of the former prime minister of Pakistan, and ongoing struggles in Palestine. Selim Koru, an analyst at the Ankara-based Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey talks about the political climate in the country ahead of the election. Pakistani journalist Waqas Ahmed breaks down the arrest of Imran Khan, the cricket star turned politician. The Intercept’s Alice Speri discusses the one-year anniversary of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh’s killing and recent developments in the West Bank.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at Podcasts@theintercept.com.

This week on Deconstructed, Ryan Grim is joined by Dmitri Mehlhorn, a tech executive who has emerged as one of the most powerful financiers in the Democratic Party and a strategist who often takes direct aim, with millions of dollars, at the party's left flank. He was in the news this week for helping finance E. Jean Carroll's defamation suit against Donald Trump. Mehlhorn and Grim discuss their competing views on political strategy, the best way to challenge Republicans, and the way forward for the party.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at Podcasts@theintercept.com.

The media world over the last few week has been rocked by major disruptions: Fox ousts Tucker Carlson, CNN fires Don Lemon, BuzzFeed News is shutting down, Twitter has become a less reliable resource, and Vice Media shutters its flagship program “Vice News Tonight.” Over the last two decades, the media landscape has transformed with the advent of social media, and signs of another evolution are surfacing. This week on Deconstructed, Ryan Grim is joined by Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief of Semafor, to talk about his new book "Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral.” They discuss the role social media played in transforming media and politics over the last 15 years, and how one of the most viral moments in history alarmed Facebook.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at Podcasts@theintercept.com.

Recently, peculiar skirmishes have broken out in the U.S. over our history. In Louisiana, Florida, North Carolina, and many other places, conservatives have made efforts to sanitize the teaching of what exactly happened in America’s past. But it’s important to keep in mind this is just part of a much longer war — and, in fact, those who want to misrepresent history have won many victories. This is evidenced by the fact that the conventional wisdom about the past in the U.S., what everyone “knows,” is often wrong or far too simplistic.This week on Deconstructed, senior writer Jon Schwarz speaks to historians Kevin Kruse and Julian Zelizer about their new book, “Myth America: Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past.” With 20 chapters by 20 different historians, the new book takes a look at key fairy tales and replaces the standard bland hokum with the far more interesting reality.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at Podcasts@theintercept.com.

If engagement on TikTok is any indication, a Democratic primary held today among people under 50 would result in a landslide for Marianne Williamson. Williamson has only posted 63 videos but has drawn more than 10 million views, according to a TikTok data counter. This week on Deconstructed, Ryan Grim speaks with Williamson about her growing popularity with Gen Z, why her message focusing on the economic hardships Americans are facing resonates, and what the Democratic Party is missing.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at Podcasts@theintercept.com.