We begin with this clip: Bari Weiss, newly named chief of the CBS News Division and founder of The Free Press Substack, reintroduces herself and the network prior to a Town Hall with Turning Point USA’s Erika Kirk on December 14, 2025. Today’s theme music is Never Say Never, by Afternoonz.
In the news:
* The Department of Justice made it official on Sunday: despite the fact that a federal agent on the ground recommended a civil rights investigation into the shooting of Renee Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis, it is Good herself who is being investigated for allegedly assaulting a federal officer. Governor Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor James Frey, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and three other elected officials are also being investigated for interfering with ICE’s operation. In addition, five federal prosecutors in Minnesota resigned after being tasked with an investigation of Good’s partner; so have several DOJ prosecutors in Washington who have been excluded from the investigation. Because the FBI has taken over the case, and the evidence, the state of Minnesota has also been barred from investigating Good’s death. Radley Balko writes about how many conventions are the Trump administration is violating.
* At Davos, President Donald Trump continued to insist on the United States taking possession of Greenland, an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. Trump appears to have ruled out military action, threatened tariffs instead, and now claims to have a deal. This roller-coaster ride sparked a sell-off of Treasury bonds by European investors. Although some Republicans have gotten on board with the United States annexing the territory, a bipartisan Congressional delegation traveled to Greenland to reassure its government, and meet with EU President Ursula von der Leyen.
* Representative James Comer (R, TN-01), chair of the House Oversight Committee, pushed for a vote to hold former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in contempt of Congress and got one. Democrats on the committee crossed the aisle to rebuke the former first couple for refusing to appear to testify in the Epstein investigation. The Clintons argue that the subpoenas are invalid, even as their attorneys try to negotiate backstage for an off-ramp to the legal standoff.
Your hosts:
Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller.
Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024).
Image credit: OpturaDesign/Shutterstock
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News Focus: Bari Weiss—Free Speech Activist? Journalist? Media Disruptor?
* We start with a profile of Bari Weiss that sketches her biography, education, and professional accomplishments.
* A staunch Zionist, Weiss graduated from Columbia University in 2007, having founded The Current, a campus magazine of politics and culture focused on Jewish affairs. She also waged a highly publicized campaign against Middle Pastern Studies Professor Joseph Massad, which spurred the creation of a special committee, Columbians for Academic Freedom, to examine the state of free speech on campus.
* Weiss cut her teeth as a journalist at Haaretz, The Forward, and Tablet. From 2013-2017, she worked for Bret Stephens at The Wall Street Journal, with whom she was also having an affair. She followed him to the New York Times: it was part of an effort to diversify the editorial page following the departure of James Bennet, a resignation forced by staff outrage over the publication of an opinion piece by Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR).
* When Weiss resigned from the New York Times editorial page in July 2020, she sent publisher A.G. Sulzberger a stinging letter of resignation, saying that the atmosphere at the paper was illiberal, that the editorial policy was determined by what left media critics on Twitter found acceptable, and that she had been bullied for her views.
* Shortly after leaving the Times, Weiss married tech reporter Nellie Bowles, which she announced on Megyn Kelly’s podcast over a year later. Bowles now writes a column for The Free Press and is the biological mother of their two children.
* In 2021, Weiss and Bowles co-created a Substack called Common Sense, which became The Free Press, a home for contrarian writing and an engine behind what became the pandemic-driven anti-woke politics that ultimately found a home in the MAGA movement.
* In 2021, she also became one of the co-founders of the University of Austin, which accepted its first class in 2024. Since the institution has begun to stumble, she has distanced herself from the institution.
* In 2022, Weiss was one of five pundits and four reporters (all from The Free Press) invited by Elon Musk to review internal Twitter archives relating to content moderation.
* In late 2025, after David Ellison bought Paramount Skydance, he purchased The Free Press for $150 million, and installed Weiss as chief of the news division at CBS, believed by many to be a sop to the Trump administration.
* Weiss’s tenure has been marked by early stumbles. In December, she pulled a 60 minutes segment on El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison, recently aired in full.
* On January 6, Tony Dokoupil, former CBS Mornings co-host, made a disastrous debut in the anchor chair, replacing John Dickerson. The “Five Principles” Dokoupil articulated as the News Divisions guiding principles included “We Love America,” a sentiment that many though had little to do with reporting the news.
What we want to go viral:
* Neil had a lot to say about a series that has already gone viral, HBO Max’s “Heated Rivalry,” a show about two closeted, gay hockey players—one Russian, one Canadian—competing to be the best at the game, and having a secret affair.
* Claire wants you to read Vijay Khurana’s The Passenger Seat(Biblioasis, 2025), a novel about two alienated, teenage, White teenagers who light out for the Territory and find themselves sucked into a dark and violent scenario of their own making.
Short takes:
* Political scientists call it the “ratchet effect:" that political power acquired is rarely relinquished, and becomes a permanent feature of any state institution. “There’s been no nation-halting constitutional crisis. No rupture dramatic enough to force a reset,” Theodore R. Johnson writes at The Washington Post. “It’s mostly business as usual for today’s branches: the executive flexing its authority, the legislature shrinking from its own and the judiciary shielding the presidency and loosening federal protections for the people. But the resulting imbalance makes it increasingly difficult to check an emboldened executive, especially when partisan loyalties trump most everything else. The greatest risk isn’t that the system will fail, it’s that its institutions — and the public — will grow accustomed to presidential excess.” (January 21, 2026)
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