Summer 2026 has no shortage of spectacle — daredevils climbing the Empire State Building, the World Cup, a heat dome — but Noel King cuts through the noise to the story that's actually reshaping American politics ^{[1] — Will Steakin "The DSA just knocked off a 30-year incumbent in Denver and won mayoral races in New York City and Washington D.C. all in the same primary s…" 02:38 Play} . In New York City, Washington D.C., and Colorado, Democratic Socialists of America candidates are winning primary elections, knocking out incumbents, and sending shockwaves through the Democratic establishment. The teaser is deliberately disorienting: Kamala Harris is calling Zohran Mamdani, AOC is endorsing an Abdul Syed in Michigan, and David Duke is somehow weighing in on a DSA candidate's tweets. It's a measure of how strange the political moment has become that the episode's opening question is simply: what is the DSA, what do they want, and why now?

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Will Steakin is the first expert voice Noel King brings in, and he doesn't undersell the moment: he calls Tuesday night — when Mayla Quiros knocked off nearly 30-year incumbent Diana DeGette in Denver — the DSA's biggest primary win of the season ^{[1] — Will Steakin "The DSA just knocked off a 30-year incumbent in Denver and won mayoral races in New York City and Washington D.C. all in the same primary s…" 02:38 Play} . But it's been a sustained run, not a single fluke. Chris Rabb's win in Pennsylvania earlier in the cycle, followed by the New York candidates 'shocking the world' and ousting incumbents, has created a momentum that Steakin describes as the left flank of the party flexing its muscle ^{[1] — Will Steakin "The DSA just knocked off a 30-year incumbent in Denver and won mayoral races in New York City and Washington D.C. all in the same primary s…" 02:38 Play} . On policy, the DSA's platform hits familiar progressive notes — Medicare for All, strong unions, affordable housing — but Steakin singles out the pro-Palestinian rights stance and opposition to US military aid to Israel as what's truly resonating with DSA voters and donors ^{[2] — Will Steakin "The DSA's platform isn't just about policy — it's a brand. Medicare for All, labor rights, affordable housing, and fierce opposition to US …" 04:21 Play} . The platform is a package deal: it's not just policy, it's an anti-establishment fighter brand.

Noel King asks the key question: how ideological is the DSA, really? Steakin's answer is that they are very ideological — and they know it, and they own it ^{[1] — Will Steakin "The DSA isn't playing for incremental wins — they're playing for ideological transformation. Will Steakin explains how the DSA's anti-estab…" 06:30 Play} . The term 'sewer socialism' comes up, suggesting a tension between pragmatic service delivery and grand ideological vision, but Steakin emphasizes that the DSA understands they're playing with house money: because the Democratic brand is 'in the gutter,' running against it is a feature, not a bug. In a primary, being able to point at Hakeem Jeffries and say 'I'm not with him' is street cred. The ideological purity that mainstream Democrats see as a liability, DSA candidates wear as a badge of honor. The long game, Steakin explains, is about shifting what's politically thinkable — moving the Overton window — even if the revolution doesn't happen overnight.

Noel King raises the fact that James Carville has publicly called for a Democratic 'schism' over the DSA, and that some establishment figures want nothing to do with DSA-affiliated candidates ^{[1] — Will Steakin "The Kamala Harris campaign's embrace of Liz Cheney was a turning point for the DSA's base. Politico's Will Steakin reports that DSA-aligned…" 09:07 Play} . Steakin uses this as an entry point to explain why: from the DSA's perspective, they were completely alienated by the Kamala Harris campaign's decision to embrace Liz Cheney in pursuit of a broader coalition. For voters who wanted the Democratic Party to move left on Medicare for All, Israel, and economic justice, watching their candidate court a Republican war hawk was a dealbreaker. The result: a movement that has decided to 'throw a Molotov cocktail' into the party rather than play nice. Steakin flags the Michigan Senate race — Abdul Syed running as a DSA-aligned candidate — as the next major test of whether this insurgent energy can travel beyond New York and Denver.

Noel King presses Steakin on reporting that the DSA is actively planning a 2028 presidential run, and the picture that emerges is of a movement that is organized, ambitious, and already doing the homework ^{[1] — Will Steakin "The DSA is actively surveying hundreds of thousands of members to find a 2028 presidential candidate, with a decision expected in September…" 10:59 Play} . The DSA is sending hundreds of surveys to members across the country, asking who they want, what their deal-breakers are, and what they're looking for in a candidate. The research haul could reach hundreds of thousands of pages — which Steakin notes seems 'very on brand.' A September endorsement decision is expected. But the episode's most surprising moment lives here too: Zohran Mamdani, the DSA's breakout star, cannot run for president because the Constitution requires natural-born citizenship, and he was born abroad ^{[1] — Will Steakin "The DSA is actively surveying hundreds of thousands of members to find a 2028 presidential candidate, with a decision expected in September…" 10:59 Play} . The irony is not lost on DSA members, who joke — with varying degrees of seriousness — about running him anyway just to 'cause a constitutional crisis and see what happens.'

The mid-episode ad block covers three sponsors. Chime pitches fee-free banking with up to $1,150 in annual rewards, 5% cash back on its debit card, and a 3.75% APY on savings — nine times, it claims, the national average. Quince follows with a summer wardrobe pitch from show staffer Claire White, highlighting linen button-downs and basic tees at non-luxury prices. BetterHelp closes the block with the most data-heavy ad of the episode, citing its 2026 State of Stigma report: 85% of Americans believe getting mental health support is smart, but 74% say society still discourages it, and more than three in four reported anxiety or depression symptoms in the past two weeks. BetterHelp claims 69% of its users showed meaningful improvement.

With the news analysis from Will Steakin complete, Noel King brings in the DSA's own co-chair, Megan Rohmer, to speak for the movement. Her diagnosis of why DSA candidates are winning is sharp and dual-layered: first, there's a deep rage at watching the social safety net get dismantled while wages stagnate and cost of living climbs; second, and perhaps more importantly, there's a genuine appetite for candidates who offer actual solutions rather than contrast messaging ^{[1] — Megan Rohmer "Megan Rohmer identifies two forces driving DSA victories: fury at the dismantling of the social safety net and a genuine hunger for solutio…" 17:19 Play} . Rohmer argues that when the DSA talks about childcare debt and medical debt, it resonates because those are not abstract policy problems — they're the reason people skip doctor appointments and take second jobs. The DSA's pitch is not just 'we're better than the Republicans.' It's 'we're going to fundamentally rethink some of this.'

This is the episode's sharpest exchange. Noel King pushes hard on the gap between DSA's economic appeal and its cultural positions — specifically the call to abolish the carceral state — noting that working-class voters in 2024 moved toward Donald Trump in part because they felt Democrats had become too culturally extreme ^{[1] — Megan Rohmer "The DSA doesn't want to fire all police tomorrow. Their vision is eliminating crimes of poverty by providing free healthcare, childcare, an…" 19:03 Play} . Rohmer's defense is substantive: the DSA's 'Care Not Cops' programs aren't about releasing murderers; they're about investing in free childcare, healthcare, and education on the theory that most crime is driven by poverty, and a society that has eliminated poverty-driven crime simply won't need the same carceral infrastructure. The problem, which Rohmer doesn't fully resolve, is political communication: voters hear 'abolish the carceral state' and stop listening. The long-term vision gets lost in the slogan.

The episode doesn't let the DSA off the hook for the Daria-Liza Avila Chevalier controversy, and this chapter is the most uncomfortable stretch of the conversation ^{[1] — Megan Rohmer "DSA co-chair Megan Rohmer doesn't pretend the vetting problem doesn't exist. New York winner Daria-Liza Avila Chevalier tweeted about wipin…" 21:01 Play} . Noel King recounts the offending tweets in detail — the American flag as a napkin, the view that white people shouldn't be in interracial relationships — and notes that Chevalier has since apologized and deleted her Twitter account. Rohmer's response is part defense, part honest reckoning: the DSA is drawing from a pool of people who never imagined they'd run for office, so the standard vetting pipeline doesn't apply. She compares it (unfavorably) to Trump's tweets, which King doesn't let slide. The core tension is real and unresolved: the very thing that makes DSA candidates authentic and grassroots also means their pasts are unpolished and sometimes embarrassing in ways that establishment candidates would never survive.

This is the episode's most charged chapter. Noel King presents three specific data points that critics cite as evidence of antisemitism within the DSA: the October 7th statement calling Hamas's attack 'not unprovoked'; Mamdani's use of the word 'monsters' to describe AIPAC (attributed to philosopher Gramsci); and Colorado candidate Mayla Quiros declining to call a firebombing attack on a Jewish gathering antisemitic because she couldn't know 'what's in the perpetrator's heart' ^{[1] — Megan Rohmer "The DSA does not equivocate: they call Israel's actions in Gaza a genocide and describe Gaza as an 'open-air concentration camp.' Megan Roh…" 23:03 Play} . King frames two distinct critiques — outright antisemitism versus fostering a culture where such language becomes normalized — and asks Rohmer to respond to American Jews who find DSA rhetoric troubling. Rohmer's answer is unflinching ^{[1] — Megan Rohmer "The DSA does not equivocate: they call Israel's actions in Gaza a genocide and describe Gaza as an 'open-air concentration camp.' Megan Roh…" 23:03 Play} : the DSA believes Israel is perpetrating a genocide, and that the fury driving imperfect or sharp language is proportionate to what they see as the scale of the atrocity. She explicitly declines to defend Israel 'on any grounds,' calling it 'a genocidal apartheid state.'

The AOC endorsement saga is a case study in DSA leverage politics ^{[1] — Megan Rohmer "The DSA conditioned its endorsement of AOC on a pledge to vote no on all Israeli military funding. AOC had previously voted 'present' on th…" 25:03 Play} . In 2024, the DSA rescinded its standard unconditional endorsement of AOC after she attended a panel with Jewish leaders on antisemitism, and reissued it with explicit conditions: she had to pledge to vote no on all Israeli military funding, making her voting record match Rashida Tlaib's. AOC had previously voted 'present' on the Iron Dome — not yes, but not no either — which the DSA considered insufficient. Rohmer describes this as the first time the DSA had attached strings to an endorsement. The outcome, confirmed in this interview: the pressure worked. AOC has since pledged to vote no on all Israeli military funding. For the DSA, it's proof that conditioning endorsements on specific policy commitments is an effective tool for moving politicians leftward.

The episode closes with Rohmer laying out the DSA's presidential ambitions in the clearest terms yet ^{[1] — Megan Rohmer "The DSA's 2028 presidential ambitions aren't solely about winning. They want a democratic socialist on the debate stage holding other candi…" 27:20 Play} . She frames it as a two-tiered goal: winning the presidency would obviously be the ideal outcome, but the minimum viable outcome is having a democratic socialist voice in the debates — someone who can hold other candidates accountable and force them to take positions. She cites Bernie Sanders as the proof of concept: his uncompromising advocacy for Medicare for All during the 2016 and 2020 primaries pushed other candidates to sign Medicare for All pledges. For Rohmer, that's not a consolation prize — it's a genuine mechanism for moving the party. She also credits Sanders with normalizing the word 'socialist' in American politics, breaking 'the dam' on the big scary S-word and giving a generation of activists permission to say it out loud.

The episode's final ad block runs two spots. KPMG promotes its Adaptability Index — a data-driven framework for organizations to assess how culture, strategy, and partnerships work together during disruption — directing listeners to kpmg.com/us/adaptability. Pure Leaf follows with a pitch for its new Mental Focus line of sparkling, real-brewed iced teas, made with naturally occurring caffeine from black tea and added L-theanine to support attention and focus without sugar or calories, available in peach and raspberry flavors.