Tim Miller on GOP Corruption and Betrayal
Rural voters keep hearing about scandal in Washington, but most of it never gets past the surface. Tim Miller, host of the Bulwark Podcast, joins Heidi to dig into what's actually driving political corruption right now, from foreign money shaping U.S. policy to the insider trading scandals barely making headlines. Tim traces how political corruption has evolved, from straightforward kickbacks to the foreign money now quietly steering decisions on war and energy. He and Heidi also get into what's…
Decoding Trump with Aaron Rupar
Trump is fighting to control how states run their own elections, and the fallout could shape the midterms before a vote is cast. Aaron Rupar, an independent journalist who's tracked Trump and the media covering him for years, joins Heidi and Joel to break down what's happening and why it matters outside Washington. Aaron explains how he tells what's real from what isn't, in a news cycle built for speed, and why he left Vox to build Public Notice on his own terms. He also gets into how Twitter/X,…
The Truth About Screw Worms
Screw worms nearly disappeared from American ranches sixty years ago. Dr. Eric Deeble, executive director of Americans for the Common Good and former Deputy Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs at USDA under the Biden Administration, has watched them find their way back, and he joins Heidi and Joel to explain what this parasitic fly means for livestock, trade, and the food supply. Eric covers the biology behind the outbreak, how fast one infected animal can spread it, and why the fly…
Baseball’s Hidden History of Segregation and Triumph
For America's 250th birthday, Heidi and Joel skip the fireworks and head for the ballpark, and they bring their guest, Bob Kendrick, along. He is the President of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri. The museum is just a few blocks away from where the team owners established a league of their own in 1920. Bob has spent three decades making sure that the players and the stories of the Negro League are not forgotten. Bob walks Heidi and Joel through why some of the best baseball…
Heidi Heitkamp Reflects on the Pool
For Heidi, the reflecting pool on the National Mall in D.C. is more than a tourist attraction; it's a metaphor for how Washington handles problems. Years of algae, cloudy water, and expensive repairs reflect a familiar pattern: ignore an issue until it becomes a crisis, then spend money on a temporary fix rather than addressing the underlying cause. She believes rural America has been treated the same way for decades. In this quick episode of The Hot Dish, Heidi talks about how low crop prices,…
These Policies Are Squeezing Farmers
Nick Levendofsky has spent years watching Washington write farm bills that land badly in the field. As director of the Kansas Farmers Union, he's tracked input costs climbing, cattle herds shrinking, and processing power concentrating into fewer hands, and he's done sugarcoating what that means. While Heidi is out this week, Joel sits down with Nick to work through where the farm bill actually stands, why the House version leaves too much on the table, and what trade wars cost rural markets long after…
Trump’s Dictator Playbook, with Ruth Ben-Ghiat
Buckle up, history buffs and democracy defenders. We're sitting down with Ruth Ben-Ghiat, professor of history and Italian studies at New York University, author of Strongman, and one of the leading experts on authoritarianism, to connect the dots between today's political chaos and the playbooks of history's most dangerous leaders. The parallels are less "ancient history" and more "this week's headlines," and Ruth is here to decode every one of them. Heidi and Joel also unpack the shifting electoral…
Are AI's Magic Bean Promises Leading Rural America Down a Risky Path?
This episode pulls back the curtain on the AI gold rush, the data centers, the water bills, the NDAs, and what it all means for rural communities that rarely have a seat at the table. AI sounds like the future, but the costs are landing unevenly, especially outside major cities. Heidi and Joel join Dr. Emily Bender and Dr. Alex Hanna to dig into the real, and rarely discussed, toll of our digital infrastructure boom, from secretive corporate deals to environmental strain, and ask the question nobody in…