LIVE from Washington, DC!

February 12, 2026·1 hr 9 min·6 clips

Congressman Raskin exposes how the DOJ spied on lawmakers investigating Epstein's unredacted files.

The live-room charge is there right away. David Plotz opens at Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in Washington, D.C., with Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and a crowd that feels close enough to steer the temperature. The jokes come first. Plotz needles his co-hosts with the easy warmth of a panel he says has been onstage together for 20 years. Still, the agenda is not light. The show gestures toward Jamie Raskin, Pam Bondi, Jeffrey Epstein, and the anxious mood around Donald Trump's Washington. Then the naming joke gets teeth. A riff about Trump-named places turns into an argument about ego, backlash, and what official spaces are supposed to mean. One host is skeptical that backlash changes much. Another thinks the more obvious the naming gets, the harder it is to ignore, and the easier it is to mock. That tension keeps the segment alive. The joke is doing work, but nobody lets it stay only a joke. The Oval Office comes in. So do the Kennedy Center, the Arc de Trump, and the image of public trophies gathered while a president is still alive. The panel treats monuments as a kind of civic memory, the stuff that lets visitors attach names like Martin Luther King and FDR to sacrifice and obligation. Trump is the counterexample here. In their read, he does not receive the office as a temporary trust. He wants visible proof that it belongs to him. The close returns to credits, thanks, production names, and the loose mechanics of a live show. Friendly ending, serious bruise.

As heard by us

A live Political Gabfest turns Trump's Washington into a fight over memory, monuments, and civic stewardship.

Political Gabfest's live Washington show turns the capital into the argument: what it means when a president treats civic space like a personal brand extension.

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Why you'd press play

David Plotz, Emily Bazelon, and John Dickerson argue about Trump's Washington from a stage in Washington.

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