Tangle

Last Tuesday, September 22, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said it had canceled healthcare enrollments for roughly 760,000 people under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) due to alleged fraud or improper documentation. In a press briefing announcing the cancelations, Vice President JD Vance and CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz said that Covid-era subsidies and relaxed verification under President Joe Biden led to rampant abuse of the federally regulated ACA marketplace. The vice president’s White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud estimates the enforcement action will save $2.2 billion in taxpayer-funded subsidies.

Weapons in space?
Earlier this month, Air Force Secretary Troy Meink made waves when he disclosed that the United States military currently has “space control weapons” in Earth’s orbit. Meink’s announcement instantly prompted questions about the nature of these space weapons — not to mention how they might be deployed. To learn more, Senior Editor Will Kaback sat down with aerospace defense expert Clayton Swope. You can listen to the interview here.

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Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.

This podcast written by: Will Kaback and audio engineered and edited by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.

Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Audrey Moorehead, and Carina Pacheco.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In September, Air Force Secretary Troy Meink announced that the United States has “on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action.” The comments sparked a rash of questions: What kind of weapons? What adversaries are we competing against? Could we soon see those weapons deployed?

Shortly after the announcement, Senior Editor Will Kaback spoke with Clayton Swope, the deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, or CSIS. Swope’s career includes an extended stint at the CIA, time spent advising lawmakers on national security and space in Washington, D.C., and a lead role in Amazon’s efforts to establish a constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit.

The conversation explores lingering questions about the state of the U.S. space-weapons program, what technology we might now have in orbit, how the space arms race could factor into ongoing geopolitical conflicts, and why the U.S. wants these weapons in the first place.

You can check out more of Swope’s work here: https://www.csis.org/people/clayton-swope

We're launching something new.
In yesterday's edition of Press Pass, I wrote about going back to my roots (more writing, more brevity, more personality). As part of that goal, I’m thrilled to announce that we’re launching a dedicated YouTube channel for some video essays about the current happenings in politics. This will be a place for me to get into some stuff we don’t cover in Tangle, and deliver “My take” essays in video form. The channel launched today with a deep dive on the plans for a border wall in the Big Bend region of West Texas, with some personal stories about my connections to the area and why I think it’s a historically bad policy idea. You can watch it here.

Ad-free podcasts are here!
Get 20% off your first year of ad-free episodes, exclusive interviews, and deep dives with Tangle’s podcast membership!

You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.

Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.

This podcast hosted by: Will Kaback and audio engineered and edited by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Jon Lall.

Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Audrey Moorehead, and Carina Pacheco.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tuesday marks 35 days until federal elections will be held for all 435 U.S. House seats and 35 of the 100 U.S. Senate seats. Additionally, 36 states will elect governors and 46 states will vote on a total of 6,139 state legislators. Currently, most election models heavily favor Democrats to take back the House and give the party a slight edge to flip the Senate.

We're launching something new.
In today’s edition of Press Pass, I wrote about going back to my roots (more writing, more brevity, more personality). As part of that goal, I’m thrilled to announce that we’re launching a dedicated YouTube channel for some video essays about the current happenings in politics. This will be a place for me to get into some stuff we don’t cover in Tangle, and deliver “My take” essays in video form. The channel launched today with a deep dive on the plans for a border wall in the Big Bend region of West Texas, with some personal stories about my connections to the area and why I think it’s a historically bad policy idea. You can watch it here.

Ad-free podcasts are here!
Get 20% off your first year of ad-free episodes, exclusive interviews, and deep dives with Tangle’s podcast membership!

You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠ and today’s “Under the radar” story ⁠here⁠ and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.

You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.

Take the survey: What’s your midterms prediction? Let us know.

Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.

This podcast written by: Isaac Saul and audio engineered and edited by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.

Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Audrey Moorehead, and Carina Pacheco.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When I started Tangle seven years ago, it was just me and the blinking cursor on a blank Google document.

As I look back on the newsletter editions I wrote during the early years of Tangle, a few things stand out: 1) The writing is more raw and less polished. 2) The newsletters are shorter and more digestible (some just a six- or seven-minute read). 3) My personality shines through in unvarnished ways that feel different from how it does now.
There are downsides to each of these. Raw, less polished writing is also writing begging for an editor. Mistakes and typos and outright errors went undiscovered. The newsletters were shorter, yes, but also sometimes lacked nuance — and typically didn’t go any deeper than our short-form competitors. I had to do all the research and writing and editing by myself, and it showed. And sure, my personality shined through, but at times it needed to be reined in; what was left was often too much Isaac and not enough viewpoint diversity or professional polish.

I never expected we’d be where we are today: hundreds of thousands of daily readers, tens of thousands of paying members, and recognition from all across the country (and world) for what we’re building. I certainly never expected to have over a dozen full-time employees and an entire staff of writers and editors.
As the Tangle brand has grown, my personal brand has taken a back seat, for good reason. I’ve wanted to introduce the distinct viewpoints from our team: Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Audrey Moorehead, Kmele Foster, Carina Pacheco, Russell Nystrom, Isaac Wood, and more. I’ve wanted to bring in outside writers to contribute to our publication. I’ve wanted to let Jon Lall, Aidan Gorman, and Michele Teodori create new content for YouTube — pursuing stories well suited for a visual medium and putting their own spin and perspective on them. We have done all that, and I’m supremely proud of what my colleagues and I have built.

Concurrently, I also take up less space in Tangle’s editorial process and have fewer opportunities to share what’s on my mind. I’m both happy and fulfilled by this development, and glad for a semblance of work-life balance. Yet I’m also eager to share more of my ideas that never make it to print. I have so many opinion essays outlined and just sitting in my drafts folder, so many thoughts I just flush down the toilet of X rather than turn into a YouTube video or fleshed-out piece. I have a lot of ideas I want to stress test with the public, yet somehow fewer and fewer spaces to share them despite running a growing news organization. It’s an odd and paradoxical downside of building a team.

I’ve been thinking about how to recapture some of what made those early editions so popular while also preserving the professional excellence we’ve developed today. We have some stuff in the works that I’m excited to roll out in the coming weeks: I’m planning to launch a separate newsletter under my name to share occasional opinion essays on stories we don’t get to in the typical week of Tangle. We’re also thinking about how to make the daily Tangle newsletters more digestible — reducing the word count a bit and cutting some sections people don’t tend to read. We also hope to keep featuring new voices, both from inside Tangle and out.

But in the immediate term, we have one big offering we’re excited to announce:

We’re launching the Isaac Saul YouTube channel.

Ad-free podcasts are here!
Get 20% off your first year of ad-free episodes, exclusive interviews, and deep dives with Tangle’s podcast membership!

You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.

Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.

This podcast written by: Isaac Saul and audio engineered and edited by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.

Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Audrey Moorehead, and Carina Pacheco.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last week, world leaders gathered in New York City for the 81st United Nations (UN) General Assembly, with conflicts in Iran and Ukraine taking center stage. In a speech before world leaders, President Donald Trump said he is weighing whether to seek a deal to end the war with Iran or “annihilate” the country, while also touting a security agreement reached with Greenland and Denmark. Later in the week, President Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping for a state visit, during which the leaders discussed trade disputes and AI development.

Ad-free podcasts are here!
Get 20% off your first year of ad-free episodes, exclusive interviews, and deep dives with Tangle’s podcast membership!

Asking the hard question.
On Friday, Executive Editor Isaac Saul asked, “Is President Trump okay?” It was the same question he posed about President Biden in 2021, and Isaac’s essay similarly explored how the president’s words and behavior have changed in recent years, and whether concerns about his fitness for office are valid. You can read the edition and join hundreds of Tangle commenters discussing the piece here.

You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠ and today’s “Under the radar” story ⁠here⁠ and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.

You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.

Take the survey: What kind of relationship with China should the U.S. pursue? Let us know.

Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.

This podcast written by: Isaac Saul and audio engineered and edited by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.

Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Audrey Moorehead, and Carina Pacheco.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.