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based on input check responses for accuracy.

1:02

on input check responses for

1:04

accuracy. Hi, she's Nancy and I'm

1:06

calling from Fort Wayne, Indiana. And this

1:08

might not- A few days back, we

1:11

got a message here at the show

1:13

from a listener after my own heart.

1:15

A listener who cannot help but talk

1:17

to people. about what's going on in

1:19

the world. Like she said, her

1:21

name's Nancy. I am a 64-year-old with

1:24

hiree and I recently filed

1:26

for Social Security benefits. We'd

1:28

asked you to tell us

1:30

stories about how you are

1:32

seeing government funding cuts in

1:34

your own lives. Nancy's story

1:36

is about Social Security. Her

1:39

checks were not coming in until she

1:41

got on the phone with a guy

1:43

named Larry who realized Nancy's case

1:45

worker was on medical leave. and

1:47

then he took it upon himself

1:49

to get her sorted out. And when

1:51

he was done, he completed the application

1:54

for me. I've already got the benefits

1:56

in my bank account thanks to him.

1:58

But when he was done, he... said, I

2:00

said, I said to him,

2:02

so are you expecting, like,

2:04

you know, firings at Social

2:06

Security anytime soon. And he

2:08

said, we're expecting 7,000 more

2:11

job eliminations. And I said,

2:13

how's that going to work?

2:15

I mean, you're already so

2:17

behind in benefits. And he

2:19

said, I honestly don't know.

2:21

And I said, are you

2:23

likely to keep your job?

2:25

And he said, I don't

2:27

know. I love that Nancy

2:29

asked this call center worker

2:31

what was up with him.

2:33

So just another anecdote to

2:35

add to your list. Thanks

2:37

so much. After listening to

2:39

his voicemail, I had so

2:41

many questions. So I tapped

2:43

in Joe Perticone. So Joe,

2:45

you report on Congress? Do

2:47

you feel like politicians in

2:49

Washington have answers for Nancy?

2:52

Joe writes for the bulwark.

2:54

He sees the way the

2:56

Trump administration is talking about

2:58

Social Security, and he says,

3:00

Nancy's on to something. The

3:02

acting commissioner has hinted at

3:04

chopping half of his employees.

3:06

I got my hands on

3:08

a memo from the acting

3:10

Social Security Commissioner, where he

3:12

said, we'll be looking to

3:14

industry experts for non-essential functions.

3:16

very vague, but what that

3:18

really translates to is could

3:20

they be privatizing certain elements

3:22

of it? The cheapest way

3:24

to do that would be

3:26

to be talking to a

3:28

machine and not having a

3:31

person who can really work

3:33

through it and go above

3:35

and beyond like they did

3:37

in her case. So the

3:39

fact that Nancy got a

3:41

human on the phone may

3:43

be a luxury in future?

3:45

Oh, definitely. And so even

3:47

if there are still humans,

3:49

there might not be enough

3:51

of them. Doj

3:57

is in every department now. They

3:59

have marked Social Security offices for

4:02

closure, they're looking at ways to

4:04

cut down in every way they

4:06

can. And the backlash has been

4:08

severe, as we saw with some

4:11

of the rowdy town halls, but

4:13

severe enough to create a red

4:15

line for these members of Congress

4:18

who have this power to stop

4:20

it, I don't think so. Today

4:22

on the show, what it might

4:24

look like for Doge to go

4:27

after your Social Security. I'm

4:29

Mary Harris. You're listening to

4:32

what next? Stick around. Decisions

4:34

made in Washington can affect

4:36

your portfolio every day. But

4:38

what policy changes should investors

4:40

be watching? Listen to Washington-wise.

4:42

An original podcast for investors

4:44

from Charles Schwab to hear

4:46

the stories making news in

4:49

Washington right now. host Mike

4:51

Townsend, Charles Schwab's managing director

4:53

for legislative and regulatory affairs,

4:55

takes a nonpartisan look at

4:57

the stories that matter most

4:59

to investors, including policy initiatives

5:01

for retirement savings, taxes and

5:03

trade, inflation concerns, the Federal

5:05

Reserve, and how regulatory developments

5:08

can affect companies, sectors, and

5:10

even the entire market. Mike

5:12

and his guests offer their

5:14

perspective on how policy changes

5:16

could affect what you do

5:18

with your portfolio. Download the

5:20

latest episode and follow at

5:22

schwab.com/Washington-wise, or wherever you listen.

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7736 to learn more or

6:13

visit Trimphia radio.com. Like you said,

6:16

there are a lot of federal

6:18

departments that the Trump administration and

6:20

Doge are targeting right now.

6:22

I'm kind of curious, why

6:24

do you think it's important

6:26

to focus on Social Security

6:28

in particular? A couple reasons. First,

6:30

it's size. It's absolutely massive.

6:33

Millions, tens of millions of

6:35

Americans depend on it every month.

6:37

But also, it's one of the

6:39

few remaining areas of government where

6:41

there's this very concrete level of

6:43

trust. Most Americans have very little

6:46

faith in their government. That's

6:48

not really the case with Social

6:50

Security. They've never missed a check.

6:52

Is it worth getting into the

6:54

history of the Social Security program,

6:56

like why it exists and... how

6:59

it developed that trust over the

7:01

years? Yeah, so I mean, in response to

7:03

the Great Depression, it was

7:05

absolutely necessary because prior to

7:07

that, people all kind of

7:09

lived in one home, families

7:11

did, multi-generational. And then the

7:13

Great Depression happened and people

7:15

became more transient, people moved to

7:17

cities, they moved across the country,

7:19

and a lot of them, their

7:21

savings were wiped out too as

7:23

a result of that. So the

7:26

economic response was needed, and it

7:28

turned out to be. extremely smart

7:30

of a thing to do because

7:32

right after that obviously came to

7:34

baby boom. So now decades later

7:36

we have all these seniors. They've

7:38

attempted to reduce the Social

7:40

Security workforce in the past

7:43

happened under Reagan and as a

7:45

result you saw a drop in

7:47

registrants and after that it kind

7:50

of rebounded a bit. But

7:52

now we're looking at even

7:54

more severe cuts. in this

7:56

current administration that could have

7:58

the same or as most people

8:00

are predicting much worse effects. Yeah,

8:03

and at this point, how many

8:05

people rely on Social Security? And

8:07

we should say it's not just

8:09

people who are older, right? It

8:11

also provides some disability benefits. Yes,

8:13

there's, you know, it's not just

8:16

seniors, it also includes children. And

8:18

so it's about a little under

8:20

$75 million. One thing we should

8:22

make clear before we move on

8:24

is just the way Social Security

8:26

works. is really simple, right? It's

8:29

like you get a job and

8:31

you have this money come out

8:33

of your check each week, goes

8:35

to the government, and the idea

8:37

is that is your kind of

8:39

investment in the social security system,

8:42

and then eventually when you're older

8:44

you can tap into it as

8:46

a retirement benefit. Yeah, and you

8:48

know, throughout your career, I mean,

8:50

every year when you file your

8:52

taxes, you'll see how much you

8:55

put into it, and the expectation,

8:57

and so far it's... remain strong

8:59

and that's why there's that level

9:01

of trust in this is that

9:03

you're going to get that money

9:05

back regardless of you know whether

9:08

you're on the poorest end of

9:10

the spectrum or even the wealthiest

9:12

end of the spectrum you can

9:14

you know file for Social Security.

9:16

Has Social Security been broadly popular

9:18

with legislators until now? Or is

9:21

it more that Social Security is

9:23

necessary? People like it so much

9:25

that it's like you just can't

9:27

touch it? I think there's always

9:29

kind of been this consensus amongst

9:31

Republicans in Congress. They know that

9:34

if they want to get the

9:36

federal debt down, they have to

9:38

go through entitlements. And that's super

9:40

unpopular because there's the public broadly

9:42

trust this thing. And so you

9:44

see bipartisan action to keep these

9:47

things in place or to make

9:49

sure that the checks keep flowing.

9:51

And that Social Security... can remain

9:53

solvent, but amongst the true believer

9:55

conservatives that you need to get

9:57

the debt under control. There's also

10:00

this acknowledgement that you have to

10:02

dip into these areas of entitlements

10:04

because doing it with the discretionary

10:06

spending is nowhere near enough money,

10:08

and then doing it with defense

10:10

is wildly unpopular in their circles

10:13

too. And so there is this

10:15

understanding that they will need to

10:17

go after it, and it kind

10:19

of looks like they're spending that

10:21

political capital right now. Yeah. So

10:24

what do we know about what

10:26

is happening within Social Security that's

10:28

making people nervous? Because there are

10:30

a few things, right? Like there's

10:32

job cuts potentially within the agency.

10:34

And then there's also a lot

10:37

of talk about fraud waste abuse.

10:39

I put that in quotation marks,

10:41

but it's what the conversation is.

10:43

So maybe let's start with the

10:45

job cuts. How much do we

10:47

know about who is being cut

10:50

or who is potentially being cut

10:52

at Social Security? kind of indiscriminately

10:54

going out about this. There's thousands

10:56

lined up. The difficult thing with

10:58

these doesh cuts is that it's

11:00

really hard to get a firm

11:03

grasp on the numbers because it

11:05

might be, you know, 50 office

11:07

closures or it might be 7,000

11:09

employees getting cut, but there's also

11:11

reporting that it could be as

11:13

high as 50% of the workforce

11:16

to be more than double what

11:18

Reagan did. And The lack of

11:20

clarity from the administration and the

11:22

lack of action by the majority

11:24

in Congress is part of what's,

11:26

you know, fueling this level of

11:29

uncertainty because, you know, as we

11:31

heard on the voicemail, the employee

11:33

says, well, I don't know if

11:35

I'm going to get cut, I

11:37

might be, doesn't know if their

11:39

colleagues are going to be cut

11:42

as well, and then how does

11:44

that translate to helping beneficiaries? The

11:46

lack of clarity here is really

11:48

what's fueling this concern amongst people

11:50

like Martin O'Malley. The former commissioner,

11:52

right, under Biden? Yeah, yeah, and

11:55

he was predicting in a very

11:57

finite timeline and collapse, but that's

11:59

just the first guess. I mean,

12:01

it could be, like he said,

12:03

30 to 90 days before our

12:05

collapse. It could be six months,

12:08

it could be a year, it

12:10

could be tomorrow. We really have

12:12

no idea with the level of

12:14

these cuts, the way they happen

12:16

overnight, and they happen without, in

12:18

some cases, without members of Congress

12:21

being notified when it's occurring in

12:23

their districts or states. And it's,

12:25

again, you know, creating mass confusion.

12:27

Yeah, part of the cuts are

12:29

happening or coming, and then a

12:31

lack of information about how the

12:34

lack of workforce would be made

12:36

up for? Like every bit of

12:38

reporting I see basically says we

12:40

assume or we think that the

12:42

government would somehow use AI to

12:44

make up for the fact that

12:47

people have been fired. But no

12:49

one seems to quite know, because

12:51

no one's really laying out, like,

12:53

OK, here's the path forward. First,

12:55

this happens, and then that, and

12:57

we're going to rely on this

13:00

new technology, and here's how it'll

13:02

work for you. It's just not

13:04

going down like that. Yeah, and

13:06

typically, when you want to introduce

13:08

a new component to a government

13:10

program, let's say they did want

13:13

to transition to AI, or a

13:15

working group in Congress with. figure

13:17

out exactly how to do this,

13:19

and then they would whittle it

13:21

down and narrow it and put

13:23

it into a funding package. They

13:26

would outline it for the next

13:28

year and years to come. They're

13:30

not really doing that. And that

13:32

was apparent when we saw that

13:34

the chairman of the Appropriations Committee,

13:36

Tom Cole, he was a person,

13:39

for example, who was blindsided by

13:41

a Social Security office closure in

13:43

his district. And because he has

13:45

the ear of the White House

13:47

and Elon Musk, he was able

13:49

to prevent it from being closed.

13:52

And he bragged about it like

13:54

it was this great accomplishment, but

13:56

it was actually very, it exemplified

13:58

the the lack of fairness in

14:00

this process and the lack of

14:02

transparency. Yeah, it sounds a little

14:05

corrupt. Yeah. Like if you're if you're

14:07

friends with Elon, you can prevent something

14:09

from going down in your district, but

14:11

that's it. Yeah, and you know, our

14:13

system of government isn't really designed. It's

14:15

designed for these different branches of

14:17

government to kind of work in tandem

14:19

and figure out the best way and

14:21

get something implemented. and it needs to

14:24

be complex. It shouldn't be operating based

14:26

on how well you know a guy

14:28

who knows a guy. And that's kind

14:30

of what's happening here. And the fact

14:32

that, you know, the top appropriators

14:35

in the House and Senate, Tom

14:37

Cole and Susan Collins, have both

14:39

had to deal with this, and

14:41

they've been successful because of the

14:43

positions they're in. That does not apply

14:46

to Democrats. And it certainly won't

14:48

apply to some of the rank and

14:50

file Democrats who maybe don't have

14:52

the ear of... the people

14:55

and the

14:59

channels they

15:01

need to

15:03

go through to

15:07

prevent this

15:10

stuff. We'll

15:13

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16:42

Let's talk about the allegations of

16:45

fraud in Social Security. Like if

16:47

you listen to Donald Trump's speech

16:49

in front of Congress, the other

16:52

week, he talked about finding dead

16:54

people in the Social Security system.

16:56

Believe it or not, government databases

16:59

list 4.7 million Social Security members

17:01

from people. aged 100 to 109

17:03

years old. It lists 3.6 million

17:06

people from ages 110 to 119.

17:08

I don't know any of them.

17:11

I know some people that are

17:13

rather elderly, but not quite that

17:15

elderly. This is a long riff

17:18

that even had a laugh line

17:20

in it. He talked about we

17:22

found a person listed as 360

17:25

years of age and someone in

17:27

the audience was like Joe Biden

17:30

ha ha ha. Are there dead

17:32

people in the Social Security system?

17:34

So when you say though there's

17:37

a 200 year old person on

17:39

Social Security, that might be because

17:41

they don't have a death certificate

17:44

attached to them or they their

17:46

date of death was not fine.

17:48

or whatever. And that's a problem

17:51

that has been mentioned before for

17:53

years and trying to figure that

17:56

out. However, it's not, that doesn't

17:58

immediately mean that, oh, that 200-year-old

18:00

person is still getting checks to

18:03

their bank account. They was going

18:05

to ask, are these people alleged

18:07

people even a cause of waste

18:10

or abuse? No. And we would

18:12

see that like, if all of

18:15

these dead people... and this massive

18:17

population of people who are no

18:19

longer living, we're receiving Social Security

18:22

checks, the number of beneficiaries would,

18:24

it would be safe to assume

18:26

that those would exceed the living

18:29

population of people over 65. That's

18:31

not true. There's several million fewer

18:33

people receiving benefits than are living

18:36

right now that are over 65.

18:38

The idea that there's this mass

18:41

fraud occurring and all this money

18:43

going out the door hasn't been

18:45

backed up by the facts, but

18:48

this method of saying, oh, well,

18:50

I found a person who was

18:52

300 years old on Social Security,

18:55

it's just sort of cherry picking

18:57

to justify. We mentioned before was

19:00

waste fraud and abuse. They love

19:02

using that term because it's sort

19:04

of undefinable. When you listen to

19:07

members of Congress and say, would

19:09

you vote for a bill that

19:11

cuts Medicaid Medicaid? They don't say,

19:14

oh, no, I won't. They say,

19:16

I will not vote for something

19:19

that cuts Medicaid benefits. Their definition

19:21

of benefits is very different than

19:23

probably a Democrat's definition of benefits.

19:26

In Social Security, would you say

19:28

that a benefit is being able

19:30

to get someone on the phone

19:33

in a timely manner? Someone say

19:35

yes. Oh, that's such an interesting

19:37

point. Like, yeah, like how well

19:40

do you want it to work?

19:42

You know what I mean? Is

19:45

that being factored into the calculus?

19:47

You know, and if it's more

19:49

than just a benefit is more

19:52

than just a dollar amount hitting

19:54

your bank account, it's the ability

19:56

to resolve issues in a timely

19:59

fashion. depending on who you ask,

20:01

in Congress, you get a different

20:03

answer. And same with waste fraud and

20:05

abuse. It could be waste to have

20:07

human call centers when you could farm

20:09

it out to AI. It just really

20:12

depends on who you ask and the

20:14

industries they favor and the way they

20:16

want to go about cutting these things.

20:18

And if they need to find enough

20:20

money to cut to pay for their

20:22

tax cuts that they are planning

20:24

to do, they might need to dip into

20:26

these things. That's how they

20:29

create this narrative that

20:31

there's waste fraud and abuse.

20:33

I want to talk about

20:35

an allegation I've heard from

20:37

Trump and his administration

20:40

that I think gets

20:42

at something important, but

20:44

the framing is off to me.

20:47

This is the fact that

20:49

Elon Musk talked to Joe

20:51

Rogan. And the way he

20:53

framed the problems with Social

20:55

Security. He said, it's the biggest

20:58

Ponzi scheme of all time.

21:00

Social security is the biggest

21:02

Ponzi scheme of all time.

21:05

Well, explain that. Oh, so,

21:07

well, people pay into Social

21:09

Security and the money goes

21:11

out of Social Security immediately,

21:13

but the obligation for Social

21:16

Security is... of your entire

21:18

retirement career. And he kind

21:20

of had trouble explaining himself,

21:22

but what I think he

21:25

was trying to explain here

21:27

was the fact that you pay into

21:29

this system, but in the end

21:31

it's not your money you're getting.

21:33

That money is going to people

21:36

who rely on Social Security

21:38

now, and there is

21:40

solid information that Social

21:42

Security in 10 years is going

21:44

to be in bad shape. when a

21:47

lot of people need it. Like that

21:49

is a real thing, right? But I'm

21:51

wondering what you make of this Ponzi

21:53

scheme framing and kind of what it

21:55

does to the debate that's going on

21:57

right now. Yeah, my first reaction. is

22:00

that I don't think Elon Musk

22:02

knows what a Ponzi scheme is.

22:04

And the fact that you're paying

22:06

in now and then other people

22:09

are being paid with it now.

22:11

That's because it's this cyclical system

22:13

that people are paying into. You

22:15

pay in with the assumption that

22:18

you're gonna get it with the

22:20

other generations who are working for

22:22

it. And so for him to

22:24

frame it like that is incredibly

22:27

short-sided. Because there are always new

22:29

people coming in. Yeah. you know

22:31

if if we were living in

22:33

the world from the movie Children

22:36

of Men where no more kids

22:38

were born well then that'd be

22:40

a concern and obviously birth rates

22:42

go up and they go down

22:45

and right now we have the

22:47

baby rumors filing for Social Security

22:49

who are the most massive generation

22:51

ever but the ideas that you

22:54

pay in and then there's this

22:56

assumption that you get it back

22:58

out because more Americans are always

23:00

going to be paying in if

23:03

you make it more difficult for

23:05

Americans to begin paying in or

23:07

take out now that creates massive

23:09

problems on both ends. And so

23:12

the way to fix this Ponzi

23:14

scheme, as he called it, really

23:16

all of their fixes actually exacerbate

23:19

existing problems. Yeah. You know, it's

23:21

interesting, you and I have talked

23:23

about how we have very little

23:25

visibility into exactly what is happening

23:28

within Social Security right now. But

23:30

one of the few ways that

23:32

we do is that a recently

23:34

retired Social Security insider, this woman

23:37

named Tiffany Flick, actually just gave

23:39

a legal declaration of what she

23:41

witnessed as Trump took office and

23:43

Doe sort of developed an interest

23:46

in her agency. And her concerns

23:48

were actually kind of different from

23:50

everyone else's and that she was

23:52

really concerned about privacy. Her whole

23:55

thing was we spent months and

23:57

years prepping to keep Americans data

23:59

secure, basically. And she was worried

24:01

that what's happening right now puts

24:04

all of that at risk. It

24:06

was this whole other dimension. where

24:08

I was like, hold it, I

24:10

have to be worried about the

24:13

agency being sliced and diced, I

24:15

have to be worried about all

24:17

these things, and oh, by the

24:19

way, privacy, it just felt like

24:22

kind of the cherry on top

24:24

to me, you know? Yeah, so

24:26

when, in the first like couple

24:28

weeks of Doge, just rifling through

24:31

the government, when they first got

24:33

to the Treasury Department and we're

24:35

trying to look into payrolls and

24:37

maybe into the Social Security payrolls,

24:40

There was kind of this, oh

24:42

no, what Doj is doing is

24:44

great. The cuts are great. And

24:46

my colleague Sam Stern and I

24:49

reported, we got our hands on

24:51

a bunch of letters that members

24:53

of Congress, Republicans, had sent to

24:55

constituents in which they were kind

24:58

of contradicting their public statements where

25:00

they said, oh, Doj is great,

25:02

we're not worried. And then in

25:04

these private letters to concerned constituents,

25:07

they were saying, yes, we're taking

25:09

your privacy very seriously. And so

25:11

I know that members of Congress

25:13

are getting these kinds of complaints

25:16

about security, about data, and Republican

25:18

members of Congress, at least some

25:20

of them, about a dozen that

25:22

we found, understand that's real concern.

25:25

What are they doing about it?

25:27

Nothing. But they know the concern

25:29

exists, and I think that... when

25:31

you start receiving the influx of

25:34

calls and contacts and obviously the

25:36

big town halls, they understand when

25:38

it becomes a political risk. In

25:40

terms of what that translates into,

25:43

I think that the matter of

25:45

how long that pressure keeps up,

25:47

if there's major data breaches, which

25:49

have happened before, and I was

25:52

Social Security, but with private companies

25:54

all the time, then that becomes

25:56

a huge, huge component of this

25:58

that, again, further complicates everything. For

26:01

what it's worth, it's not just

26:03

Social Security recipients getting worried right

26:05

now. ProPublica just obtained a recording

26:07

of acting Social Security Commissioner Leland

26:10

Dudek, telling seniors staff members, it

26:12

would be catastrophic for the people

26:14

in our country if Doge were

26:16

to make changes as sweeping as

26:19

what it's already done in other

26:21

agencies. Privacy is a concern too.

26:23

Talking about how the agency has

26:25

been handling citizens data, Dudek openly

26:28

wonders, are we going to break

26:30

something? And then he answers his

26:32

own question, saying, I don't know.

26:34

So when will any of this

26:37

get through to lawmakers? With Social

26:39

Security specifically, Republicans in Congress right

26:41

now are hovering their hands over

26:43

the hottest stove in politics, and

26:46

they're listening to how their constituents

26:48

respond. The concern really is not

26:50

so much, oh no, are things

26:52

going to be cut? It's more,

26:55

will this have political ramifications for

26:57

me next election cycle? When that

26:59

becomes understood, you start to see

27:01

people speak out. But in terms

27:04

of members of Congress, at least

27:06

with Republicans, drawing these red lines

27:08

against what the Trump administration could

27:10

do, every time a red line

27:13

has been drawn and crossed by

27:15

Trump, I've seen them push it

27:17

further and accept it. And, you

27:19

know, whether that's an attack on

27:22

the Capitol or it could be

27:24

disrupting Social Security. Every

27:26

time that they've been tested, they've

27:28

moved the goalposts and they've pushed

27:31

it away because there is this

27:33

undying loyalty to Trump and his

27:35

administration. In terms of it really

27:37

affecting them politically, that's where you

27:39

see them start to move. And

27:41

you start to see it first

27:43

in these purple swing districts, a

27:45

lot of which went Republican. whether

27:48

you like like Orange County, you

27:50

know, Southern California, where there are

27:52

these purple districts, that scenario where

27:54

there's a lot of seniors, there's

27:56

a lot of. older people who

27:58

are either filing for the first

28:00

time or have been filing for

28:02

a long time if there's lots

28:04

of concern there. If you look

28:07

at even some of the safer

28:09

Republican areas in Florida and Arizona

28:11

with heavy senior populations, you could

28:13

see huge backlash. And I think

28:15

if people are going to start

28:17

breaking and start moving away from

28:19

what this administration is doing, those

28:21

are probably the first places to

28:24

look. more and more as we've

28:26

been talking about, the Elon Musk

28:28

use of the term Ponzi scheme.

28:30

And I feel like part of

28:32

what it does is it has

28:34

the effect of denigrating this program

28:36

that people have trusted for a

28:38

long time. And if you denigrated

28:40

enough, I feel like you do

28:43

make it easier to cut because

28:45

people have this language for thinking

28:47

of it as a bad thing

28:49

versus something that their mom needs.

28:51

Yeah, and the trust is probably

28:53

one of the best things that

28:55

Social Security has going for it.

28:57

And if you erode that trust,

29:00

then that's more pretext to go

29:02

after it. Joe, I'm really grateful

29:04

for your time. Thanks for coming

29:06

on the show. At a blast.

29:08

Thanks. Joe Pritticoan is a political

29:10

reporter at the Bullwork. And that's

29:12

her show. What next is produced

29:14

by Paige Osborne, Elena Schwartz, Rob

29:16

Gunther, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharm, and

29:19

Ethan Oberman. Ben Richmond is the

29:21

senior director of podcast operations here

29:23

at Slate. And I'm Mary Harris.

29:25

You can go track me down

29:27

on Blue Sky, say hi, I'm

29:29

at Mary Harris. Thanks for listening.

29:31

Catch you back here, next time.

29:33

Everything I knew about Watergate came

29:36

from the movie All the President's

29:38

Men. However how

29:40

it ends, Woodward

29:42

and Bernstein are

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sitting with their

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typewriters clacking away.

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And then there's

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this rapid montage

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of newspaper stories

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about campaign aids

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and White House

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officials getting convicted

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of crimes, about

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audio tapes coming

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out that prove

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Nixon's involvement in

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the cover -up. The

30:12

last story we

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see is Nixon

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resigns. It

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takes a little over a minute

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in the movie. In real life it

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took about two years. Five men

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were arrested early Saturday while trying to

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install eavesdropping equipment What was it

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like to experience those two years in

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real time? What were people thinking

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and feeling as the break -in in

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Democratic Party headquarters went from a weird

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little caper to a constitutional crisis

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that brought down the president? The downfall

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and more exciting than you can imagine.

30:44

Over the course of eight episodes,

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this show is going to capture what

30:48

it was like to live through

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the greatest political scandal of the 20th

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it's time for another look at

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