Lever Time

Los Angeles is infamous for its sprawling urban landscape that has prioritized low-density housing, often at the behest of the state’s powerful real estate industry. Despite the known risks of building in fire zones, developers continued to do so with the approval and encouragement of government regulators. But in the wake of the devastating fires in L.A., some are questioning the wisdom of urban sprawl, particularly in California.

Today on Lever Time, senior podcast producer Arjun Singh unpacks how California’s housing policies contributed to the devastation  of L.A.’s recent wildfires, and how the cit...

The Los Angeles fires pose huge questions about the future of life in America: Where is it safe to live? How can you protect yourself from such disasters? Is home insurance even obtainable anymore? And will our society finally respond in a serious way to the climate emergency?

In the first of a two-part Lever Time series, David Sirota speaks with New York Times writer David Wallace-Wells, New Yorker staff writer Elizabeth Kolbert, and former California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones about what makes this blaze different from past fires — and how we prepare for the next one.

Over the holidays, when President-elect Donald Trump said he would appoint an Indian-American immigrant to serve in the White House, key members of Trump’s base were apoplectic. On X, formerly Twitter, prominent Trump supporters like Steve Bannon and Laura Loomer argued the move was antithetical to Trump’s pledge to scale back immigration. That put them at odds with billionaire advisor Elon Musk and other tech executives who are leaning on Trump to embrace the use of H-1B visas, which allow highly skilled foreign workers to work in the U.S. and have proven to be a boon...

Lever Time is taking a break this week, but we'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Today, we wanted to re-air one of our favorite episodes from 2024.  

--
The National Basketball Association wants you to gamble. Since 2014, the league has championed the legalization of sports betting nationwide, partially due to its own business interests in gambling. But the emergence of online gambling has coincided with a rise in troubling health outcomes like increased rates of depression and substance abuse. Today on Lever Time, we explore the recent growth of online gambling, sitting down w...

When Iron Man hit theaters in 2008, it didn’t just launch the wildly successful Marvel Cinematic Universe — it also, with the Pentagon’s help, became a bombastic symbol of modern military might in the digital age. Now, can the same comic book character be used to critique the military-industrial complex and the War on Terror?

When Marvel wanted to make an Iron Man film in the early aughts, executives turned to a longstanding relationship between Hollywood and the Pentagon, allowing the Defense Department to approve the movie’s storyline in exchange for access to military equipment. The U.S. mil...

David Sirota reflects on the shocking murder of United Health CEO Brian Thompson and the surge of public anger it unleashed against America’s broken health insurance system. Why hasn’t this longstanding outrage translated into universal health care — a system every other wealthy nation already has?

Tracing decades of broken promises and corporate influence — from the Clinton and Obama administrations to today — Sirota looks at how political corruption has trapped Americans in a system that profits from their suffering. Drawing on JFK’s 1960s warnings about social stability and justice, this audio essay explores the health care crisis...

Amid the shocking assassination of a health insurance executive and an upswell of anger towards the country’s fragile health care safety net, the health insurance industry is suddenly facing a reckoning. Among the best experts to make sense of it all is Wendell Potter.

When Wendell Potter left his job as a public relations executive for a health insurance company he was sure of one thing: his former employer was harming people every day. Potter, a former vice president of the insurance giant Cigna, became a whistleblower over a decade ago, and though he does not co...

President-elect Donald Trump’s penchant for exaggeration has pushed the boundaries of how elected officials communicate with the public. Trump’s conspiracy theories and shock-and-awe approach to campaigning propelled him back into the White House — leaving millions wondering how he was able to pull it off.

Recent studies into the science of magic, examining how magicians utilize deception to manipulate their audiences, may provide an answer. Today on Lever Time, Lois Parshley, a senior investigative reporter at The Lever, explains why a recent groundbreaking magic contest holds the keys to understanding how people can be manipulated in a post...

In a special Lever Time post-election bonus episode, Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) details how he was nearly excommunicated from the Democratic Party after he raised early concerns about the party's electability in 2023.

The group discusses how Democrats’ culture of blind loyalty to the party elite and extreme deference to wealthy donors leave them hopelessly out of touch with voters — and what can be done to change that.

Arjun Singh interviews Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney about The Bibi Files, a new documentary he produced that uncovers explosive new police footage from the corruption trial of increasingly besieged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The podcast comes the same week the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu — and the U.S. Senate voted down a measure to block military aid to Netanyahu’s government.

The conversation touches on the broader implications of Netanyahu’s actions, his role in the Gaza conflict, and how his leadership has contributed to widespread division within Israel. Gibney...