Tangle

Last week, President Donald Trump announced a pair of actions to address rising homeownership costs. On January 8, the president directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — government-sponsored mortgage-finance companies — to buy $200 billion in mortgage bonds to bring down mortgage rates. On January 7, Trump said he was “taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes” and would ask Congress to codify those rules. The president said he will share more details about his housing affordability plans in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next week. Ad-free podcasts are here!To listen to this podcast ad-free, and to enjoy our subscriber only premium content, go to ReadTangle.com to sign up!The roots of travel nightmares.If you’ve flown commercially in the past decade, you’ve probably noticed an uptick in irritants — delays, cancellations, shrinking seats, and, broadly, a system that seems built to exhaust customers rather than help them. In our latest YouTube video, we break down the source of these problems, why they’re so persistent, and why recent efforts to solve them have failed. It’s one of our most in-depth investigations yet, and we’d love for you to check it out.https://youtu.be/cs242CC8rCc?si=kuG3rlWRyS33RT-A<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cs242CC8rCc?si=fCvUjlGPo8anjSz4" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠, our “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: Which do you think would be more effective, Trump’s proposal or Ari’s? Let us know.Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast was written by: Ari Weitzman and audio edited and mixed 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, Lindsey Knuth, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

During oral arguments on Tuesday, the Supreme Court appeared likely to uphold state laws banning anyone other than biological females from participating in women’s and girls’ sports. In West Virginia v. B.P.J., the mother of a transgender girl brought a challenge to a state law in West Virginia; in Little v. Hecox, a transgender woman wishing to compete at the college level challenged an Idaho law. Together, the legal challenges claim the laws violate the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and Title IX, a federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in programs that receive federal funding. Although the justices are expected to rule similarly in each case, the Court is considering the challenges separately.Ad-free podcasts are here!To listen to this podcast ad-free, and to enjoy our subscriber only premium content, go to ReadTangle.com to sign up!You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠, our “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 do you think of the challenges to these laws? Let us know.Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast was written by: Audrey Moorehead and audio edited and mixed 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, Lindsey Knuth, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Sunday, The New York Times reported that the U.S. attorney’s office in the District of Columbia has launched a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. The investigation reportedly focuses on Powell’s June 2025 congressional testimony about the central bank’s renovation of its Washington headquarters. Shortly after the first reports surfaced, Powell confirmed that he had received grand jury subpoenas from the Justice Department threatening a criminal indictment. The chairman called the investigation “unprecedented” and said the administration is threatening legal action to pressure the Fed to lower interest rates.Ad-free podcasts are here!To listen to this podcast ad-free, and to enjoy our subscriber only premium content, go to ReadTangle.com to sign up!You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠, our “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 do you think of the DOJ subpoenaing Powell? Let us know.Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast was written by: Isaac Saul and audio edited and mixed 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, Lindsey Knuth, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Since the start of his second term, President Donald Trump has prioritized the United States’s influence in the Western Hemisphere, often antagonizing nearby countries and seeking to increase control of critical resources. Last week, after the U.S. captured and arrested Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Trump and his top officials threatened Cuba, Colombia, and Mexico with similar military action and renewed his focus on acquiring Greenland. Ad-free podcasts are here!To listen to this podcast ad-free, and to enjoy our subscriber only premium content, go to ReadTangle.com to sign up!You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠, our “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 do you think of the “Donroe Doctrine?” Let us know.Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast was written by: Isaac Saul and audio edited and mixed 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, Lindsey Knuth, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The mission of Tangle is to be a big-tent media organization — and one way we do that is by exposing people to a wide range of opinions. In each edition, someone on our staff also writes “My take” as a way to share our own perspective on the day’s topic. Last year, our process began to evolve when I had my first child in January and spent a portion of the start of the year on paternity leave. Throughout 2025, we continued featuring more takes from other writers on the team, and we debuted our “staff dissent” section. I never intend to be the authoritative, final voice on any issue — though of course I feel more strongly on some topics than others. Rather, I think of it as an act of transparency for me (or a staff member) to share their own views, and as an opportunity to try to offer unique and fresh perspectives that may not exist elsewhere. One of the things I loathe most about the media generally — and one of the reasons I created Tangle — is that outlets too often let their pundits fire off hot takes with zero accountability. This lack of accountability extends beyond media spaces and pervades society, from the halls of Congress to the executive offices of our biggest corporations. So, in my ongoing attempt to live my values, I started a tradition of dedicating the first Friday edition of every new year to grading some of my previous writing. Here’s our process: A couple of months ago, my team and I started looking through our archives to flag instances where we took a strong position on a defining story in the past year. I also sorted through reader criticisms, feedback, and suggestions about articles to revisit.Of course, if you spend a year analyzing hundreds of issues, you are bound to get a lot of things right and a lot of things wrong. Yet, to my delight, this year was our best year yet in terms of our overall “grades.” I think the growth of our team has genuinely made us more reliable and measured — and it’s fun to see the results.Below, we’ll share key excerpts from our writing, a brief “reflection,” and then a grade on the A-to-F scale (that the writer of the take and editors have agreed on). We’ve had the writer reflect on their own work, and then came up with final grades as a team. Ad-free podcasts are here!To listen to this podcast ad-free, and to enjoy our subscriber only premium content, go to ReadTangle.com to sign up!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 was Written by: Isaac Saul, Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Audrey Moorehead and audio edited and mixed 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, Lindsey Knuth, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.