Carolyn Ryan explaining how The New York Times is using large-scale data, polling, and on-the-ground reporting to model results, track early voting, and contextualize polls and money across competitive states like Alaska, Kansas, Florida, and Texas, while emphasizing independent journalism and civic literacy. The discussion then turns to Republican candidate quality, Trump’s influence, accusations and scandals involving candidates and officials, concerns about democracy, corruption, and authoritarianism, and a long segment on Ukraine, Russia, drones, and the failures of current U.S. defense thinking, before closing with criticism of Ken Paxton’s taxpayer-funded travel. Then Professor Timothy Snyder talks about how America is losing its ground as a super power. Subscribe to Fast Politics and listen 4x a week for interviews just like this on your favorite podcast app: https://episodes.fm/1645614328