Pardon the Politics
You didn't ask for the most chaotic political era in modern American history. But here you are watching executive orders fly, whistleblowers get silenced, world leaders get bombed mid-negotiation, and a president who apparently thinks Greenland is the size of Africa. Somebody's got to make sense of it.
That's where Pardon the Politics comes in.
Every week, co-hosts Jeezy and Manny, joined by the Chairman of Chaos himself, Chuck, bring you an unfiltered, unscripted breakdown of the biggest stories in U.S. and NC politics with the kind of honesty, humor, and cultural fluency you won't find anywhere on cable news. These are three brothers from North Carolina who cut their lawns, cheer for their kids, argue about the Patriots, and also happen to do their homework. Deeply.
Season 3 has already taken listeners through it all: Trump's bizarre Davos appearance, the Epstein files and the accountability that still hasn't come, the Tulsi Gabbard whistleblower scandal, tariff chaos in the courts, the last MLK Day we may ever see, a world that went to war without a Congressional vote, and the death of a Supreme Leader while diplomats were still at the table. And they're just getting started.
This is not a show for people who want to be told what to think. This is a show for people who want the context, the history, the real questions nobody's asking, and three real perspectives from people who live in the same America you do.
Where chaos meets clarity. New episodes every week.
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Pardon the Politics
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Two years ago, this show was two guys and a Zoom link. This week we hit Episode 99 on our 2-year anniversary, and it's the longest one yet, because there was too much to leave out.
The centerpiece: a full down-ballot breakdown of North Carolina's 2026 midterms, the open Senate seat (Cooper vs. Whatley), the Supreme Court race (Earls vs. Stevens), the Don Davis rematch in CD-1, and the General Assembly races that actually draw the state's maps, including Senate Leader Phil Berger's primary loss. If you live in NC, this episode is basically your ballot guide: early voting runs October 15–31, and the registration deadline is Friday, October 9.
Then things got weird: the heads of OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI publicly aligned this week on slowing AI development, days after a whistleblower report. Chuck and Manny walk through why that alignment is either a genuine warning sign or a very convenient ask for government money, and why it matters either way.
We closed with the GOP's first-ever midterm convention and the $5,000 "tariff dividend" promise that needed a walk-back before the week was out. Jeezy does the math on what $5,000 actually buys once gas, groceries, and rent take their cut.
Pickle of the Week goes to Sen. John Fetterman. Spotlights cover the Fed's rate-hike odds, a lab-grown biological computer out of Singapore, and Mitch McConnell's expected return to the Senate floor.
Thank you for two years. We started this on a whim and you're the reason it's still going.
🎤 Listen: https://pardonthepolitics.com/ | linktr.ee/pardonthepolitics | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube
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