A Week in the Wild: Volume 1

·45 min·3 clips

Cory Booker spoke for 25 hours and 4 minutes, breaking a Senate record set by segregationist Strom Thurmond.

1. "Weird, Wicked, and Wild" launches a new shorter-form segment called "A Week in the Wild" with hosts Jimmy Wills and Jeremy Caton covering recent news. 2. Both hosts co-host as a panel discussing current events with no outside guests. 3. The core thread running through the episode is examining how far current federal and state government actions diverge from prior norms. 4. They open with Senator Cory Booker's 25-hour, 4-minute Senate floor speech, noting he stopped eating and drinking beforehand and broke a record previously set by segregationist Strom Thurmond. 5. They discuss an executive order targeting the Smithsonian and other museums for language the order calls an "unwarranted presentation" of the U.S. as racist, sexist, and classist, calling it an attempt to whitewash history. 6. They connect this to the same administration's earlier takeover of the Kennedy Center's board of governors and a plan for statues of American heroes. 7. They discuss deportations of suspected Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang members to a Salvadoran prison, including a Maryland man deported over a mom tattoo. 8. Jeremy explains that these deportations rely on the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, part of the Alien and Sedition Acts that helped end President John Adams's political career. 9. They discuss the leaked "Signal" group chat controversy involving journalist Jeffrey Goldberg and administration officials' shifting explanations. 10. They praise Representative Jasmine Crockett for calling Texas Governor Greg Abbott "Governor Hot Wheels" and criticize the outrage response as hypocritical given the president's own past remarks about disabled people. 11. They trace the administration's never-admit-fault communication style to Roy Cohn, describing it as a deliberate playbook. 12. They discuss Elon Musk's declining Tesla stock, his DOGE role, and his unsuccessful multi-million-dollar attempt to influence the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, which Susan Crawford won by 10 points. 13. They note the president has stopped denying interest in a third term, calling it flatly unconstitutional under the 22nd Amendment. 14. They cover North Carolina House Bill 595, which would criminalize banned books in school libraries and could charge librarians with crimes. 15. They revisit North Carolina's prior "bathroom bill," describing its economic fallout, including the NCAA and film industry pulling out of the state. 16. They discuss a South Carolina death row inmate's request for execution by firing squad and reports that executioners in such cases have suffered PTSD. 17. They close with news that Japan, South Korea, and China announced a joint response to Trump's tariffs, which the hosts frame as a loss of an historically close U.S. ally. 18. The episode is a fast-paced, conversational two-host news roundup with frequent interruptions, agreement, and pop-culture asides. 19. Listeners who want a left-leaning, conversational breakdown of a week's U.S. political news would enjoy this episode. 20. Listeners seeking neutral, non-partisan news analysis or long-form deep dives should look to the show's full-length episodes instead.

As heard by us

A brisk conversational roundup that stays close to facts, resists spin, and keeps pace with the week’s oddest federal stories.

A Week in the Wild uses Jimmy Wills and Jeremy Caton to make current events feel immediate and conversational, opening with Cory Booker’s 25 hours and four minutes on the Senate floor before shifting into the Signal discussion.

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Why you'd press play

You get federal chaos, Senate stamina, and a very strange Signal story in one sitting.

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